43 Facts About Aaron Beck

Aaron Temkin Beck was an American psychiatrist who was a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.

Aaron Beck is regarded as the father of cognitive therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy.

Aaron Beck's pioneering methods are widely used in the treatment of clinical depression and various anxiety disorders.

Aaron Beck served as President Emeritus of the organization up until his death.

Aaron Beck was noted for his writings on psychotherapy, psychopathology, suicide, and psychometrics.

Aaron Beck published more than 600 professional journal articles, and authored or co-authored 25 books.

Aaron Beck was named one of the "Americans in history who shaped the face of American psychiatry", and one of the "five most influential psychotherapists of all time" by The American Psychologist in July 1989.

Aaron Temkin Beck was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 18,1921.

Aaron Beck was the youngest of four children born to Elizabeth Temkin and Harry Beck, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine.

Aaron Beck attended John Howland Grammar School, Nathan Bishop Junior High, and Hope Street High School, where he graduated as valedictorian in 1938.

Aaron Beck attended Yale Medical School, planning to become an internist and work in private practice in Providence.

Aaron Beck graduated from Yale with a Doctor of Medicine in 1946.

Aaron Beck then completed military service as assistant chief of neuropsychiatry at Valley Forge Army Hospital in the United States Military.

Aaron Beck then joined the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania in 1954.

Such deferments were a tactic used by the institute to maintain the orthodoxy in teaching, but Aaron Beck did not know this at the time and has described the decision as stupid and dumb.

Aaron Beck usually explained his increasing belief in his cognitive model by reference to a patient he had been listening to for a year at the Penn clinic.

In 1962, Aaron Beck requested a sabbatical and would go into private practice for five years.

Aaron Beck was engaged by George Kelly's personal construct theory and Jean Piaget's schemas.

Aaron Beck's notebooks were filled with self-analysis, where at least twice a day for several years he wrote out his own "negative" thoughts, rated with a percentile belief score, classified and restructured.

The psychologist who would become most important for Aaron Beck was Albert Ellis, whose own faith in psychoanalysis had crumbled by the 1950s.

Aaron Beck had begun presenting his "rational therapy" by the mid-1950s.

Aaron Beck recalled that Ellis contacted him in the mid-1960s after his two articles in the Archives of General Psychiatry, and therefore he discovered Ellis had developed a rich theory and pragmatic therapy that he was able to use to some extent as a framework blended with his own, though he disliked Ellis's technique of telling patients what he thought was going on rather than helping the client to learn for themselves empirically.

Psychoanalyst Gerald E Kochansky remarked in 1975 in a review of one of Beck's books that he could no longer tell if Beck was a psychoanalyst or a devotee of Ellis.

Aaron Beck highlighted the classical philosophical Socratic method as an inspiration, while Ellis highlighted disputation which he stated was not anti-empirical and taught people how to dispute internally.

In 1967, becoming active again at University of Pennsylvania, Aaron Beck still described himself and his new therapy as neo-Freudian in the ego psychology school, albeit focused on interactions with the environment rather than internal drives.

Aaron Beck offered cognitive therapy work as a relatively "neutral" space and a bridge to psychology.

Aaron Beck termed these cognitions "automatic thoughts", and discovered that their content fell into three categories: negative ideas about oneself, the world, and the future.

Aaron Beck stated that such cognitions were interrelated as the cognitive triad.

Aaron Beck began helping patients identify and evaluate these thoughts and found that by doing so, patients were able to think more realistically, which led them to feel better emotionally and behave more functionally.

Aaron Beck developed key ideas in CBT, explaining that different disorders were associated with different types of distorted thinking.

Aaron Beck explained that successful interventions will educate a person to understand and become aware of their distorted thinking, and how to challenge its effects.

Aaron Beck discovered that frequent negative automatic thoughts reveal a person's core beliefs.

Aaron Beck explained that core beliefs are formed over lifelong experiences; we "feel" these beliefs to be true.

Aaron Beck focused on cognitive therapy for schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, and for patients who have had recurrent suicide attempts.

Aaron Beck's work was presented as a far more scientific and experimentally-based development than psychoanalysis, Aaron Beck's key principles were not necessarily based on the general findings and models of cognitive psychology or neuroscience developing at that time but were derived from personal clinical observations and interpretations in his therapy office.

Aaron Beck was involved in research studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and conducted biweekly Case Conferences at Aaron Beck Institute for area psychiatric residents, graduate students, and mental health professionals.

Aaron Beck met every two weeks with conference participants and generally did two to three role plays.

Aaron Beck was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2007.

Aaron Beck was a professor emeritus at Penn since 1992, and an adjunct professor at both Temple University and University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

Aaron Beck's youngest daughter, Alice Beck Dubow, is a judge on the same court, while the older daughter Judith is a prominent CBT educator and clinician, who wrote the basic text in the field and is a co-founder of the non-profit Beck Institute.

Aaron Beck turned 100 on July 18,2021, and died later in the year on November 1 in his sleep at his home in Philadelphia.

Aaron Beck collaborated with psychologist Maria Kovacs in the development of the Children's Depression Inventory, which used the BDI as a template.

Aaron Beck received honorary degrees from Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Assumption College, and Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.