Aaron T. Beck

Aaron Temkin Beck was born July 18, 1921, and spent his career as a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. His departure from psychoanalytic tradition came through cognitive therapy - later cognitive behavioral therapy - which treated clinical depression and anxiety by training patients to identify and challenge distorted thinking. He built the tools to measure what he treated: the Beck Depression Inventory became a standard instrument for gauging depression's severity. Beck published more than 600 journal articles and 25 books on psychotherapy, psychopathology, suicide, and psychometrics. In 1994 he and his daughter, psychologist Judith S. Beck, founded the Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, where he served as President Emeritus until his death on November 1, 2021. The American Psychologist named him one of the five most influential psychotherapists of all time.