Aaron Beck: Biography Of The Creator Of Cognitive-behavioral Therapy
On Monday, November 1, one of the most important figures in clinical psychology passed away: Aaron Temkin Beck. This American psychiatrist is credited with being the inventor of cognitive therapy and cognitive-behavioral therapy its scientific findings being fundamental for the therapeutic approach to depression.
Beck’s figure is widely known in all psychology schools, especially his cognitive therapy and his inventories for depression and anxiety, psychometric tests widely used in the objective evaluation of these disorders.
As a tribute and to honor his figure, we are going to talk about the life of this researcher through a biography of Aaron T. Beck in summary format.
Aaron Temkin Beck has been and continues to be one of the most influential psychiatrists in the history of psychology and psychiatry. His last name gives its name to one of the best-known therapies in the world of Clinical Psychology, Beck’s cognitive therapy, a treatment that incorporates its own approaches to information processing while taking the patient’s behavior into account.
Early years
Aaron Temkin Beck born in Providence, Rhode Island (United States) on July 18, 1921 within a family of Russian Jewish immigrants, he being the youngest of the three surviving children.
Beck’s childhood was marked by an overprotective mother , who lost one of her daughters, an event that plunged her into a deep depression and, obsessed with the fear of losing another child, caused her to be on top of young Aaron practically always. Beck himself would confess years later that she felt like a kind of replacement for his sister, and that he felt that his mother was disappointed that he was not a girl.
At the age of seven, Beck broke his arm while playing at recess. His broken bone eventually became infected and evolved into generalized septicemia (blood infection), which forced him to remain in the hospital for a long time. Because of this, little Aaron lost the chance to go to second grade. Beck would later admit that at this time he felt “stupid,” believing that he was not smart enough.
Beck missed his friends and didn’t like being in a class behind them. To solve it, he asked his older brothers to tutor him and, along with his eagerness and determination, little Aaron Not only was he able to go back to studying with his friends, but he also ended up moving to a course above what was expected for his age
Young Aaron discovered that he was smarter than he thought, marking a psychological turning point in his life that would be demonstrated a few years later when it was time to enter college.
Beck managed to graduate at the head of his class from Hope High School and in the fall of 1938 he entered the prestigious Brown University He would graduate cum laude in 1942 and later graduate from Yale School of Medicine in 1946.
Aaron T. Beck developed several phobias throughout his childhood. One of them was blood and wounds, which he himself attributed to his unpleasant experience with surgery after breaking his arm as a child. His experience of the event was very traumatic because, according to him, the surgeon began making the incision before the anesthesia took effect.
His phobia of blood was an impediment in his training as a doctor. During his training to practice this profession, Beck had to fight against the anxiety and dizziness he felt while helping with operations. Surprisingly, He managed to overcome his phobia of blood by gradually exposing himself to the instruments and sounds of the operating room and keeping busy while helping with the surgery.
Beck also suffered from a phobia of fear of suffocation, apparently caused by a severe case of whooping cough, chronic childhood asthma, and an older brother who used to “prank” him by putting a pillow over his face.
In addition, he had a phobia of tunnels, feeling tightness in his chest and difficulty breathing while driving through one of them. It is known that he developed a certain fear of heights and public speaking.
Despite his many phobias, Beck managed to overcome them using the same approach that would form his well-known therapy: Beck’s cognitive therapy. He himself maintained that he was able to overcome these fears by working on them cognitively.
Aaron T. Beck too He drew on his own experiences when writing his first book on depressive disorders, published in 1967 and called “The diagnosis and management of depression.” At the time, Beck was slightly depressed, but he himself viewed writing the book as a kind of self-treatment.
As time went by, Aaron T. Beck decided to specialize in neurology as he was attracted by the degree of precision that was required of practitioners in this specialty. While completing the required rotation in psychiatry he became interested in some of the recent discoveries in the treatment of mental disorders which is why he decided to become a psychotherapist.
Personal life
In 1950, Aaron T. Beck married Phyllis W. Beck with whom he would have four children: Roy, Judith (Judy), Dan and Alice, who would give him eight grandchildren.
Among his descendants, the most notable is his daughter Judith S. Beck, influential cognitive-behavioral therapist and current president of the Beck Institute, an institution that promotes cognitive-behavioral treatments Father and daughter founded the institute together in 1994, an institution of which Aaron T. Beck has been its president emeritus.
Last years and death
At the time of his death, Aaron T. Beck was professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He died on November 1, 2021 at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at age 100.
Beck and the cognitive approach in the treatment of depression
From the beginning, Aaron T. Beck’s intention was to study psychiatry. However, during his psychiatric training he became interested in the psychoanalytic approach and its particular way of understanding psychological disorders. Thus, He spent the first part of his career studying and researching psychoanalysis specifically the way he treated depression.
However, after several years acquiring knowledge and practice in psychoanalytic therapy, Aaron T. Beck realized that this approach did not have scientific rigor, nor the structure or empirical evidence that he desired. As a result of this he changed his interest towards the cognitive approach and his research in depression intensified after carrying out work in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, where he would establish a clinic specialized in this disorder. .
Aaron T. Beck He noticed that his patients with depression frequently expressed spontaneous negative thoughts about themselves and their surroundings When these thoughts appeared in their minds, patients saw them as valid and realistic, and it was difficult for them to question them on their own. For this reason, Beck focused on helping patients identify these automatic negative thoughts and helping them replace them with more objective thoughts.
Aaron T. Beck found that, to achieve successful treatment for any psychological problem, it was necessary to make patients aware of their negative thought patterns This treatment approach was what would eventually be called cognitive behavioral therapy.
In his first cognitive model for depression, Beck incorporated three specific concepts:
According to the author, The cognitive triad encompasses a depressed person’s view of themselves, their ongoing experiences, and their future , which causes her to consider experiences or interactions with others as defeats or failures, or even think that way about herself. The patient sees the future as one full of difficulties, frustration and deprivation. Thus, in this triad we can identify the following aspects:
According to Beck’s view, this triad of negative cognitive patterns causes emotional disturbances and the loss of energy and motivation characteristic of clinical depression Based on this, this psychiatrist designed a type of therapy aimed at identifying these distortions in patients’ thinking.
Aaron T. Beck also designed tests to measure whether his new therapy worked or not. For this reason we can find some psychological tests that bear his last name, being the most used the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory These tests are reliable, standardized and objective ways to measure depression and anxiety, tests which helped Beck demonstrate that her therapy worked.
Thanks to his cognitive theory of depression and the tools he developed to evaluate it, Beck has been key to changing the world of psychotherapy forever.
The importance of this researcher for Psychology
Beck’s cognitive therapy is one of the most powerful therapeutic methods available, having been extensively tested in more than 400 clinical trials. This treatment has been shown to be effective for a wide variety of disorders such as depression, anxiety, panic disorder, substance abuse, and personality disorders.
Beck has the honor of being the only psychiatrist to have published articles in both APAs, both in the journal of the American Psychiatric Association and in the American Psychological Association. His contributions to behavioral science and the treatment of mental disorders are so great that the American Psychologist Journal named him one of its five most influential psychologists of all time. More than 600 articles and 25 books are authored by Aaron T. Beck.
This psychologist was named one of the most influential people in mental health , and one of the ten most influential people in North American psychiatry. His cognitive-behavioral therapy is so important worldwide that it is taught as a therapeutic technique in practically all psychology schools in the world. Beck has received numerous honors for her work, including five honorary degrees, the Lienhard Award from the National Institute of Medicine for her development of cognitive therapy, and the Kennedy Prize in community health.
His work at the University of Pennsylvania was inspiring for the American psychologist and writer Martin Seligman, who, thanks to Beck’s work, refined his own cognitive techniques that would help him work on learned helplessness.
