H EADLINES
Legendary Psychiatrist Aaron Beck Dies at 100
OB ITUARY
JARRAD SAFFREN | JE STAFF
DR. AARON T. BECK, who
revolutionized the fi eld of
psychiatry, lived in Philadelphia
and was a longtime member of
Temple Beth Hillel-Beth El in
Wynnewood, died on Nov. 1
at his home. Born on July 18,
1921, he reached 100 earlier
this year.

Beck is known for devel-
oping a psychiatric focus on
the day-to-day behaviors in
patients. Th is ran counter to
the Freudian emphasis on
childhood traumas.

“My major discovery was
that the patients were not
really reporting what was
important to them — the way
they interpreted or misin-
terpreted situations. People
would be trained to make
the corrections,” he said in a
2017 Jewish Exponent article.

“Some of the behaviors they
recognized and were able to
correct included depression,
anxiety, suicide and obses-
sive compulsive disorder. But,
until recently, neither I nor my
students had done research on
schizophrenia, which suppos-
edly would not respond to
psychotherapy.” The Beck Depression
Inventor y, a 21-question
self-inventory, was developed
in 1961 and remains a leading
test for measuring the severity
of depression.

A few years back, Medscape
noted that Beck had authored
more than 600 scholarly articles
and 25 books and ranked him
as the fourth-most infl uential
medical practitioner within the
past century.

“Th e father of cognitive
therapy, Dr. Aaron Temkin
Beck is considered one of
history’s most inf luential
psychotherapists and a pioneer
in the fi eld of mental health,”
the publication wrote. “Dr.

Beck’s early work on psychoan-
alytic theories of depression led
to his development of cogni-
tive therapy, a new theoretical
and clinical orientation, ‘based
on the theory that maladap-
tive thoughts are the causes of
psychological symptoms such
as anxiety and depression,
which in turn cause or exacer-
bate physical symptoms.’”
A native of Providence,
Rhode Island, Beck settled in
Wynnewood in the mid-1950s
to work at Valley Forge Army
Hospital. He spent much of
his career at the University of
Pennsylvania, concluding as
an emeritus professor in the
Department of Psychiatry
of the Perelman School of
Medicine and as director of the
Aaron T. Beck Psychopathology
Research Center.

Beck also is credited with
founding the Beck Initiative
in collaboration with City of
Philadelphia agencies. The
initiative is a partnership
between university researchers
and clinicians and the city’s
behavioral health managed care
system that works to ensure
that consumers have access to
eff ective mental health care.

At Beck’s funeral on Nov. 3 at
Beth Hillel-Beth El, his children
eulogized their patriarch, known
to loved ones as Tim.

Oldest son Roy Beck said
he talked to his father oft en,
including every day from April
2020 to his death.

In his 90s, Tim told his son
he was reading a biography
of President and Union Army
Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

“He said he just didn’t
know enough about that time
period,” Roy Beck said.

Later, Roy Beck said his
father was working on a paper
at the time of his death, despite
being bedridden and too weak
to move for himself.

“Most days, when I asked
how his day went, he said, ‘I
had a good day,’” Roy Beck
recalled. “I’ve never retired because
I love what I’m doing,” Aaron
Beck said in the 2017 Exponent
article. “All the time I’m on
to new discoveries and appli-
cations. So there hasn’t been
any phase in my professional
career where I wasn’t working
on something new.”
Judge Alice Beck Dubow
of the Pennsylvania Superior
Court said she went over to
her father’s house for lunch
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