Skip to content
The Jewish Hall of Fame
The collection
Portrait of Aaron Beck

Uncredited photographer · Public domain

Aaron Beck

American psychiatrist, researcher, therapist

1921 – 2021aged 100

Aaron Beck founded cognitive behavioral therapy, building a treatment for depression and anxiety around the idea that changing a patient's distorted thought patterns could relieve the disorder itself — a departure from the psychoanalytic orthodoxy he had trained in. His Beck Depression Inventory became one of the most widely used tools for measuring depression's severity, and CBT itself became a standard treatment worldwide. He published more than 600 papers and 25 books, and in 1994 founded the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy with his daughter, psychologist Judith Beck.

Fields

Source and further reading