If someone suffers from depression and seeks psychotherapy, they will generally be able to choose between two forms of therapy: On the one hand, there is the more time-consuming depth psychology, which primarily looks for the causes of the problem, for example in childhood.

On the other hand, there is the more pragmatic behavior therapy, which aims to ensure that the patient's life can be healthier again after weeks or months.

Johanna Kuroczik

Editor in the "Science" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

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Two forms of treatment for an illness: This seems as natural to us as the fact that a broken foot can be weighed, splinted or operated on individually.

But behind this matter of course, in the case of behavior therapy, lies, among other things, the great scientific pioneering work of the psychotherapist and researcher Aaron Temkin Beck.

Beck became famous as the father of cognitive behavioral therapy, which over the years merged with behavioral therapy, and whose influence on psychotherapy can hardly be overestimated.

Beck's method is considered to be a revolution in the therapy of depression, he himself called it "simple and sober", it simply has a lot to do with common sense.

Beck began his career as a follower of Freud's theories

As a young professor at the University of Pennsylvania, the psychiatrist, born in 1921 in the state of Rhode Island, first devoted himself to psychoanalysis as it goes back to Sigmund Freud, the then common form of therapy. Freud assumed, among other things, that depression can arise from an unconscious need for suffering on the part of the patient. In classical psychoanalysis, one delves deeply into the childhood and adolescence of the patient in order to look for hidden conflicts or repressed things. This usually requires several years of daily meetings. Beck also began his career as a follower of Freud's theories, but - especially in view of the rather modest results of his own analysis - came into doubt.

During the therapy discussions, he noticed that depressed people often have stuck thought patterns, which he later described as the “cognitive triad”: a negative view of themselves, of the environment and of the future.

Rigid ideas circulated in their minds such as “I'm not good enough” and “Nobody loves me”, which they believed to have been confirmed in a wide variety of situations and which shaped their worldview.

The patient is strengthened in his self-healing power

His cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT for short, starts with these thought patterns: Concrete, rigid thought structures are recognized and processed, one does not dig through childhood memories, but looks ahead. The question is: how can you deal with the problem? Beck's approach is therefore pragmatic, the patient sets concrete therapy goals, he is given worksheets and homework. In order to break such stuck thinking structures, the CBT uses the internal dialogue. The patient is thereby strengthened in his self-healing power.

Beck's first patient was he himself, he later reported.

As a boy, he became seriously ill with an infection after breaking his arm.

Because of his poor health, he kept missing school lessons, so that many people thought he was stupid.

At the latest with university degrees from the universities of Brown and Yale, he impressively refuted this.

Beck, called Tim, was known for his good-natured manner

“There is more hiding on the surface than meets the eye,” Beck liked to say. It was precisely this superficiality that scientists and psychiatrists initially criticized massively. But Beck was able to counter something that is difficult to achieve in psychoanalysis: scientific evidence. He developed his concept of CBT in the 1960s and published his first studies at that time. Since then the effectiveness of the method has proven itself in more than 2000 research projects. The inventory for diagnosing depression, with which symptoms are queried, is a standard tool in psychiatric clinics. In addition to depression, CBT is also used for anxiety disorders, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorders and numerous other psychological problems, and this by psychotherapists around the world.

As an author or co-author, Beck has published more than 600 studies in his career, co-wrote numerous books and received numerous awards, including the 2006 Albert Lasker Prize for clinical-medical research.

Most recently, he devoted himself to cognitive therapy, which should also be used for the most severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.

Aaron Temkin Beck, called Tim, was known among colleagues and friends for his good-natured manner.

He was married to his wife, a judge, for more than 70 years, had four children and was an avid tennis player.

He died on November 1st at the age of one hundred.