Aaron Tempkin Beck. He is regarded as the father of Cognitive Therapy

1. Aaron Temkin Beck
American Psychiatrist.
He is regarded as the father of Cognitive Therapy
By Rebecca (Beccy) Dixon

2. Background and Personal work.
Beck was born July 18th 1921 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA, the youngest
child of four siblings to Russian Jewish immigrants. His mother, Elizabeth
Temkin, married his father, Harry Beck, in 1909. The youngest of five
children, Aaron Beck notes that his mother was quite depressed prior to his
birth due to the loss of two of her children. Beck was born two years after his
only sister died of influenza. It is noted that he believed himself to be a
replacement child for his sister. Beck says he takes joy in the idea that, even at
a young age, he was able to cure his mother’s depression. Beck was married in
1950 to the Honourable Phyllis W. Beck, who was the first woman judge on
the appellate court of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

3. Background and Personal work.
They have four adult children, Roy, Judy, Dan, and Alice. Beck's daughter,
Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., is a prominent Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
educator and clinician, who wrote the basic text in the field. She is President of
the non-profit Beck Institute. Their other daughter Alice also serves as a
Pennsylvania judge, and the two are the first mother-daughter judge pair in
Pennsylvania history.
He presently lives in Pennsylvania with his wife of 57 years, Phyllis.
Aaron Temkin Beck now aged 92 is an American psychiatrist and a professor
emeritus in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He
is regarded as the father of Cognitive Therapy, and his pioneering theories are
widely used in the treatment of clinical depression.

4. Background and Personal work.
• As a younger man he was driven by his work. As an older man he
became more driven by his family. For years his main supporter was
his wife, at a time when his beliefs were not popular. Throughout his
career he has continued to meet his critics by encouraging them to
test his theories and his results. Rather than being a boorish scientist
too smug to be proven wrong, Beck welcomes any challenges in his
pursuit of what is best for his patients.

5. His Early Childhood
• Beck's childhood strongly influenced his approach to therapy. A life-
threatening staph infection at the age of eight changed his life. At this
point, Beck was transformed from a very active young man to a quiet
one who preferred reading to playing football. As a child, he developed
a fear of hospitals, blood, and even the scent of ether, which made him
feel as if he would faint. Eventually, he overcame those fears rationally.
"I learned not to be concerned about the faint feeling, but just to keep
active," he later recounted.

6. Early work. 1940’s
• In his 20s, he completed his undergraduate degree at Brown University,
then he received a medical degree from Yale University, and completed
residencies in pathology and psychiatry. During his first residency, Beck
already won awards for scholarship and oratory at Brown University.
• Beck served as assistant chief of neuropsychiatry at Valley Forge Army
Hospital in the United States Military following graduation from medical
school. Following his residencies and fellowship, he became an instructor at
the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) in 1954

7. In the 1950’s
• Beck went on with his psychiatric studies—first at the Austen Riggs
Centre in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and then at the Philadelphia
Psychoanalytic Society.
• He also began a lengthy and prolific career on the faculty of the
University of Pennsylvania, where he started as an instructor in
psychiatry. By the end of this decade he was an assistant professor in
psychiatry.
• He published his first articles in psychiatry.
• In1952, he published his first psychiatric article, a case study about
treatment of schizophrenic delusion. It was the first of numerous
publications he made that were later on recognized as significant
precursor to the development of cognitive therapy.

8. In the 1950’s
• As the decade neared its end, it also became the end of his
psychoanalytic career and the commencement of cognitive therapy.
• He set out to demonstrate the psychoanalytic theory that depression is
anger turned inward. In attempting to provide empirical support for
certain psychodynamic formulations of depression, found some
anomalies—phenomena inconsistent with the psychoanalytic model.
Specifically, the psychoanalytic conceptualization asserts that
depressed patients manifest hostility, expressed as "masochism" or a
"need to suffer." Yet, in response to success experiences (graded task
assignments in a laboratory setting), depressed patients appeared to
improve rather than to resist such experiences.

9. In the 1960’s
• He made the Beck Depression Inventory- The tool does not only capture
signature changes in mood, but it also taps changes in motivation,
physical functioning, and cognitive features of depression.
• He went deeper in his studies regarding depression. His empirical
observation led him to see depression as a thinking disorder. His
observations and clinical findings were published in 1967- Depression:
Clinical, Experimental, and Theoretical Aspects, and was later
republished as Depression: Causes and Treatment.

10. Beck’s Self Report Measures
• Beck also developed self-report measures of depression and anxiety including the
following:
• Beck Depression Inventory (BDI)
• Beck Hopelessness Scale
• Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation (BSS)
• Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI)
• Beck Youth Inventories.

11. Beck’s Self Report Measures
• With a reliable, standardized and scientific way to measure a person’s
subjective feelings of depression, he could then determine whether his
cognitive behavioural techniques worked. And what he found changed
the world of psychotherapy forever.
• Beck is noted for his research in psychotherapy, psychopathology,
suicide, and psychometrics, which led to his creation of cognitive
therapy and the (BDI) Beck Depression Index, one of the most widely
used instruments for measuring depression severity.

12. In the 1970’s
• He worked with many colleagues, students, and residents at the University
of Pennsylvania to detail and refine the ideas he presented in the late
1960s, and published them at the end of 1970s in Cognitive Therapy for
Depression.
• As he introduced new concepts that transformed the dialogues on
depression, he also brought forth to novel ideas that proved to be
revolutionary in the practice of psychotherapy- collaborative empiricism;
reduced the long term need for a therapist.
• Beck also developed international renown in the theory and prediction of
suicide. He recognized hopelessness as a key cognitive predictor of suicide.
He developed and validated a sequence of scales to help measure suicide
risk, including the Beck Hopelessness Scale, the Beck Suicide Intent Scale,
and the Beck Scale for Suicidal Ideation.
• Still in the same decade, he made his first book that was written, Cognitive
Therapy and the Emotional Disorders.

13. In the 1980’s
• In this decade, Beck and his colleagues made new frameworks on
understanding anxiety, substance abuse and relationship conflicts. It is his
contributions in the study of anxiety that became the highlight of this
decade for Beck.
• Beck also created considerable time and effort in this decade to build an
interactive and visible international community of scholars.
• He also worked with colleagues to apply the cognitive theory to stress and
anger. This resulted to his popular press book, Love Is Never Enough, which
is applied to couples in conflict.

14. In the 1990’s
• More refinements and research were made for the treatments of depression,
suicide and anxiety disorders, and Beck increasingly turned his attention to
applications of cognitive therapy to more complex problems.
• He also published Cognitive Therapy of Personality Disorders, wherein he
proposed his first version of a long-term cognitive therapy on personality
disorders—diagnoses usually considered treatment-resistant.
• In the latter half of this decade, Beck wrote Prisoners of Hate: The Cognitive
Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence to show how the cognitive model for
anger can explain larger conflicts as well as it describes interfamilial
interpersonal conflicts.

15. In the 2000’s
• He started this decade by publishing his book Bipolar Disorder: A Cognitive
Therapy Approach. This was one of nearly 40 publications for him in 2001
and 2002, spanning the topics of depression, suicide, panic disorder,
personality disorders, schizophrenia, obsessive–compulsive disorder,
geriatric medical outpatients, and the Clark–Beck Obsessive–Compulsive
Inventory.
• He also made the Beck Youth Inventories of Emotional and Social
Impairment, which assess symptoms of depression, anxiety, anger, disruptive
behaviour, and self-concept in children.
• He launched the second edition of Cognitive Therapy of Personality
Disorders, which further articulated his theory of personality and elaborated
the cognitive therapy treatment of personality disorders.
• Beck continues to this day to refine his conceptual model for depression,
informed by new research and psychotherapy practices.

16. Aaron Temkin Beck
• Beck is the President Emeritus of the non-profit Beck Institute for Cognitive
Behaviour Therapy and the Honorary President of the Academy of Cognitive
Therapy, which is an organization of more than 500 certified qualified
cognitive therapists worldwide. As part of its mission, the Academy supports
continuing education and research in cognitive therapy, provides a valuable
resource in cognitive therapy for professionals and the public at large, and
actively works toward the identification and certification of clinicians skilled
in cognitive therapy. Among his activities, Beck is involved in research
studies at Penn, and conducts biweekly Case Conferences at Beck Institute
for area psychiatric residents, graduate students, and mental health
professionals. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences in 2007.

17. Selected Awards and Honours
• The 7th Annual Heinz Award in the Human Condition.
• The 2004 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology.
• The 2006 Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.
• The 2010 Bell of Hope Award.
• The 2010 Sigmund Freud Award.
• The 2010 Scholarship and Research Award.
• The 2011 Edward J. Sachar Award.
• The 2011 Prince Mahidol Award in Medicine.
• The 2013 Kennedy Community Mental Health Award.

18. Selected Awards and Honours
• He has been 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.
• He had fewer than 40 publications by the age of 50.
• Then he published 370 articles and books between the ages 50 and 80.
• In the opening of his 9 th decade, he published 60 articles and 2 books.
• Beck has published more than 600 professional journal articles, and
authored or co-authored 25 books

19. Notable Events
• Notable events: The American Psychoanalytic Institute rejected Beck's
membership application, "on the grounds that his mere desire to conduct
scientific studies signalled that he’d been improperly analysed", and a
decision that still makes him angry.
• He has been 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.

20. Beck Institute
• Offers expert patient care in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to older
adolescents, adults, and older adults in suburban Philadelphia Specialty.
• Training - Expert Beck Institute faculty provide individual and small group
supervision and consultation.
• Along with: Specialty Workshops are designed for professionals seeking CBT
training in the treatment of specific disorders and/or particular populations.
Taught by Beck Institute’s team of leading researchers and clinicians, these
workshops provide the intermediate to advanced therapist with up-to-date,
empirically supported CBT treatment strategies for specific disorders and or
particular populations. Specialty Workshops are also offered through our
Customized Training Program.

21. Beck Institute
• Specialty Topic Workshops
• CBT for Children and Adolescents
• Advanced CBT for Children and Adolescents
• CBT for Substance Abuse
• CBT for Schizophrenia
• CBT for PTSD
• Teaching and Supervising CBT
• Beck Diet Solution Workshops

22. Beck Institute
• Beck Institute for Cognitive Behaviour Therapy is a leading international
source for training, therapy, and resources in CBT. Our Centre for Training
delivers workshops to a worldwide audience of mental health professionals,
researchers, and educators, and our Philadelphia-based Centre for
Psychotherapy provides state-of-the-art therapy and consultations.

23. Beck Institute
• Over the past 19 years, our organization has carried out Dr. Beck’s
therapeutic model and guiding principles in training more than 3,500
professionals through our Centre for Training, and providing clinical
therapy services to over 2,000 individuals, couples, and families through
our Centre for Psychotherapy.

24. Beck Institute
• In addition to their professional workshops and on-site
psychotherapy practice, Beck Institute remains an international
authority on, and resource for, CBT information and research. Their
organization continues to partner with universities, hospitals,
community mental health centres, health systems, and other
institutions to create and improve cognitive behaviour therapy
programs.

25. References:
• http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Beck__Aaron_Temkin.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_T._Beck
• http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/09/02/a-profile-of-aaron-
beck/
• http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-therapy.html
• http://www.beckinstitute.org/
• http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/67/Aaron-T-Beck.html