Dr. Aaron Beck, father of cognitive therapy, is dead at the age of 100

PHILADELPHIA » Dr. Aaron T. Beck, a groundbreaking psychotherapist regarded as the father of cognitive therapy, died Monday at his Philadelphia home. He had turned 100 in July.

Beck’s work revolutionized the diagnosis and treatment of depression and other psychological disorders. He died peacefully in

his sleep, according to the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, which he co-founded with his daughter, Dr. Judith Beck.

“My father was an amazing person who dedicated his life to helping others,” the daughter said in a statement, nothing that her father continued to work until his death. “He has inspired

students, clinicians, and researchers for several generations with his passion and his groundbreaking work.”

Beck developed the field of cognitive therapy, a clinical form of psychotherapy, at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s. It trains patients to identify and dismiss irrational negative thoughts about themselves, the world and the future.

He developed the treatment after finding that his depressed patients frequently experienced distorted negative ideas — he dubbed them “automatic thoughts.”

Unlike Freudian psychoanalysis, which delves into a patient’s childhood and searches for hidden internal conflicts, cognitive therapy says turning around a selfdisparaging inner monologue is key to alleviating many psychological problems, often in a dozen sessions or fewer.

He touted the idea with an anti-Freudian maxim:

“There’s more to the surface than meets the eye.”

Beck discovered that patients who learn to recognize the faulty logic of their negative automatic thoughts — such as, “I’ll always be a failure” or “No one likes me” — could learn to overcome their fears and think more rationally, which diminished their anxiety and improved their mood. He found that results endured long after therapy was finished, as patients learned to confront those thoughts on their own.

Cognitive therapy sessions follow a strict format, which always include setting goals for the session and homework assignments. Besides depression, it has been used to treat conditions including bulimia, panic attacks, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and drug abuse.

Beck’s pragmatic view of psychotherapy had its skeptics. Some psychologists called cognitive therapy superficial and little more than a morale booster, but it became required training for psychiatry residents.

Beck always responded to critics with data from his research. He published much of his work in his own journal, Cognitive Therapy and Research, partly because other mental health professionals disregarded his findings.