Aaron Beck, R.I.P.

[ndrosen]

Friday’s newspaper contains an obituary for Dr. Aaron T. Beck, the founder of cognitive behavioral psychiatry, who lived to be one hundred. The article describes his questioning the support for Freudian psychoanalysis, and developing cognitive techniques, and his facing considerable opposition from what was then the reigning orthodoxy among head shrinkers. I believe that I have read about him before, although I did not recall his name.

Here was a man who dared to think, relied on evidence and reasoning in place of authority, dared to say that the emperor was naked, and seems to have accomplished real improvement in the treatment of mental distress. May he rest in honored remembrance.

Comments

[thewayne]

I work at a university (branch campus) library. Last week while pulling a book from the stacks for a loan request, I saw a book that collected the letters between Freud and Jung! I pulled the book later in the week and perused it, it was kind of interesting and I might check it out and actually read it. (I've stumbled upon so many incredible books in this fashion!)

Freud and his family fled to England with all his papers around 1947 or '48 and miraculously his papers survived the bombing of London, but he didn't live much longer. They only corresponded for about a decade, very early in Jung's career. They grew disenchanted with each other and ceased their letters. Most of them survived, and eventually Jung himself and Freud's families consented for the letters to be gathered and translated. Their wives and children approved the translations. Jung did not want them published for, IIRC, 30 years after his death, but he was eventually persuaded that they would be beneficial to other professionals. Jung thought they were rather banal and inconsequential.

Myself, I was never a fan of Freud's rather broad strokes of categorization. I suspect Dr. Beck's approach would be much more to my liking. Making a century is quite respectable. It's good to see someone swim against the current and make real progress. I shudder to think if no one had challenged Freud's ideas as to what this world would look like!