Aaron Beck: biography of the creator of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

A summary of the life of Aaron Beck, famous psychiatrist and 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.His scientific findings are fundamental for the therapeutic approach to depression.

Beck's figure is widely known in all faculties of psychology, 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 abridged format.

Brief biography of Aaron T. Beck

Aaron Temkin Beck has been and remains one of the most influential psychiatrists in the history of psychology and psychiatry. His surname gives his name to one of the best known therapies in the world of Clinical Psychology, Beck's cognitive therapy, a treatment that incorporates approaches to information processing while taking into account the patient's behavior.

Early years

Aaron Temkin Beck was born in Providence, Rhode Island (United States) on July 18, 1921, to a family of immigrants.He was the youngest of three surviving children in a family of Russian Jewish immigrants.

Beck's childhood was marked by an overprotective mother.Beck, who lost one of her daughters, an event that plunged her into a deep depression and, haunted by the fear of losing another child, caused her to hover over young Aaron virtually forever. Beck himself would confess years later that he felt like a kind of replacement for his sister, and that he felt his mother was disappointed that he was not a girl.

At the age of seven Beck broke his arm while playing at recess. The broken bone became infected and developed into a generalized septicemia (blood infection), which forced him to stay in the hospital for a long time. Because of this, little Aaron lost his chance to go on to second grade. Beck would later admit that at this time he felt "stupid," believing he was not smart enough.

Beck missed his friends and didn't like being a grade behind them at all. To remedy this, he asked his older siblings for tutoring and, along with his eagerness and determination, little Aaron was not only able to return to school with his friends but also ended up passing a grade above what was expected for his age. was not only able to go back to school with his friends, but also ended up passing a grade above what was expected for his age..

University education

Young Aaron discovered that he was smarter than he thought he was, marking a psychological turning point in his life that would prove itself a few years later when it was time to enter college.

Beck managed to graduate at the head of his Hope High School class and in the fall of 1938 gained entrance to prestigious Brown University.. He would graduate cum laude in 1942 and later graduate from Yale Medical School 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 as, according to him, the surgeon began to make the incision before the anesthesia took effect.

His phobia of blood was an impediment in his training as a physician. During his training to practice this profession, Beck struggled with the anxiety and dizziness he felt while assisting with the operations. Surprisingly, he managed to overcome his phobia of blood, he managed to overcome his phobia of blood by gradually exposing himself to the instruments and sounds of the operating room, and by keeping busy while assisting in the operation.and keeping himself occupied while assisting with the surgery.

Beck also suffered from a phobia of choking fear, 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. He is known to have developed a fear of heights and of public speaking.

Despite his many phobias, Beck managed to overcome them through the same approach from which his well-known therapy would be formed: Beck's cognitive therapy. He himself maintained that he was able to overcome these fears by working through them cognitively.

Aaron T. Beck also drew on his own experiences in writing his first book on depressive disorders, published in 1967 and called "The diagnosis and management of depression.". At that time, Beck was mildly depressed, but he himself regarded the writing of the book as a kind of self-treatment.

As time went on, Aaron T. Beck decided to specialize in neurology because he was attracted to the degree of precision 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 and 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 offspring, the most notorious 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 served as president emeritus.

Final 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 the age of 100.

Beck and the cognitive approach to 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. Therefore, he spent the first part of his career studying psychiatry, he spent the first part of his career studying and researching psychoanalysis, specifically the way in which it dealt with psychological disorders.specifically how he treated depression.

However, after several years of acquiring knowledge and practice in psychoanalytic therapy, Aaron T. Beck realized that this approach did not have the scientific rigor, structure or empirical evidence that he desired. As a result, he shifted his interest to the cognitive approach and his research on depression intensified after working in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, where he would establish a clinic specializing in this disorder.

Aaron T. Beck noticed that his patients with depression frequently expressed spontaneous negative thoughts about themselves and their surroundings.. When these thoughts appeared in their minds, the 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, in order to achieve successful treatment for any psychological problem, it was necessary to make patients aware of their negative thought patterns, 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:

• The cognitive triad.
• Schemas or stable patterns of thought
• Cognitive errors or faulty information processing.

According to the author, the cognitive triad encompasses a depressed person's view of themselves, their ongoing experiences, and their futureThis causes her to consider experiences or interactions with others as defeats or failures, or even to think of herself as such. The patient sees the future as one full of difficulties, frustration and deprivation. Thus, in this triad we can identify the following aspects:

• Negative view about oneself
• Negative view of the world
• Negative view of the future

According to Beck's vision, 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 surname, being the most used ones the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BDI).. These tests are reliable, standardized and objective ways to measure depression and anxiety, tests which helped Beck demonstrate that his therapy worked.

Thanks to his cognitive theory of depression and the tools he developed to assess it, Beck has been instrumental in 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, being extensively tested in over 400 clinical trials. This treatment has been shown to be effective for a wide variety of disorders such as depression, anxiety, depression, anxiety disorders, depression, anxiety disorders, anxiety 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 the Journal of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association. His contributions to behavioral science and the treatment of mental disorders are of such great caliber that the American Psychologist Journal named him one of its five most influential psychologists of all time. More than 600 articles and 25 books have been authored by Aaron T. Beck.

This psychologist was named one of the most influential people in mental health, and one of the top ten most influential people of all time.and one of the ten most influential people in American psychiatry. His cognitive-behavioral therapy is so important worldwide that it is taught as a therapeutic technique in practically all the faculties of psychology in the world. Beck has received numerous honors for his work, including five honorary degrees, the Lienhard Award from the U.S. National Institute of Medicine for his development of cognitive therapy, as well as the Kennedy Prize in community health.

His work at the University of Pennsylvania was an inspiration to the American psychologist and writer Martin Seligman, who, thanks to Beck's work, refined his own cognitive techniques that would serve him to work on learned helplessness.