By Robert DeRubeis, PhD Professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania Dr. Aaron T. Beck and I started working together in 1983. We had met four years earlier, when I got to know him at a workshop he was leading. I collaborated with his team and interviewed to join the Psychology Department at the University of Pennsylvania, after which we co-wrote our first chapter.  A deeper relationship began to develop, however, after he asked me if I wanted to hit some tennis balls with him. I became part of his doubles tennis group ..read more

BALA CYNWYD, PA – On July 18th, Beck Institute for Cognitive Behavior Therapy (BI) will celebrate the 100th birthday of its co-founder and President Emeritus, Dr. Aaron T. Beck. Dr. Beck is globally recognized as the father of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), after developing the revolutionary therapy at the University of Pennsylvania in the 1960s. CBT has since been found to be effective in treating a wide range of psychiatric disorders, psychological problems, and medical conditions with psychological components in over 2,000 clinical studies. In recognition of his work, The American ..read more

An Interview with the 2020 Golden Bowtie Award Winners The Center for Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy at Beck Institute – in partnership with Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services and Community Behavioral Health’s Evidence-Based Practice and Innovation Center – held the second annual Golden Bowtie Awards this past Wednesday, June 23. The Golden Bowtie Awards program was originated last year as a platform to publicly recognize programs, teams, and staff who have exemplified excellence in Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy (CT-R). The CT-R netwo ..read more

Brittany, John, BA & Aaron T. Beck, MD This post contains part three and the conclusion of a three part article. Please see the introduction and parts one and two. Part 3: Case Studies The pathways of the biases and the treatment involving the activation of the adaptive mode is best seen in case studies of individuals who are treated with Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy. In one case, a 40-year-old man became progressively depressed over a period of three months following his failure to obtain a prestigious award in his academic field. He expressed that he had invested much of himself i ..read more

Brittany, John, BA & Aaron T. Beck, MD This post contains parts one and two of a three part article. Please see the introduction. Part 1: Self-Esteem and Overview of the Model In the original cognitive model by Beck (1964), the schemas initiate the processing of experiences and follow the pathway of cognition → affect + motivation → behavior. In our new model, we propose that a subset of cognitions regarding changes in self-esteem effect the emotional response, motivation, and subsequent behaviors. Depending upon the extent to which the self-esteem is altered, the everyday adaptive behavio ..read more

Brittany, John, BA & Aaron T. Beck, MD Self-esteem has been central to psychological and philosophical work since 1890 when the concept was coined by William James and it has maintained popularity ever since. As indicated by James and followed by other theorists, self-esteem is the subjective evaluation of one’s own worth and importance, involving positive or negative beliefs about the self and subsequent emotional states (Rosenburg, 1965).  This is best seen in Alfred Adler’s inferiority complex (Adler, 1917), which suggests that every person has an innate feeling of inferiority. Acc ..read more

By Wendy Wild, PsyD Beck Institute Faculty Cognitive Behavior Group Therapy (CBGT) has become even more applicable over the past year. As patients report increased symptoms of anxiety, depression, PTSD, substance use disorders, and other mental health problems, the gap between the demand for mental health services and the supply of mental health professionals has widened. CBGT allows evidence-based treatments to reach more people, meeting a significant public health need, and research shows group treatment nearly matches the effectiveness of individual treatment for a wide range of disorders a ..read more

By Judith S. Beck, PhD Beck Institute President I am so excited to announce that Beck Institute will release revised and new online courses this year. Beginning this April, we will release updated versions of the comprehensive courses required for Beck Institute CBT Certification: Essentials of CBT, CBT for Depression, CBT for Anxiety, and CBT for Personality Disorders. Later this year, we will also release the first comprehensive online course in Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy (CT-R), hosted by our team at the BI Center for CT-R.   You can register your interest to be among the ..read more

By Michael Tompkins, PhD Beck Institute Faculty Oliver is a 63-year-old electrical engineer who retired just a few months before the pandemic hit. Although Oliver lived alone, he had filled his life with interesting friends from around the world. Oliver was an avid birder and had planned to spend his retirement years traveling with fellow birders and photographing and building his catalog of bird sightings. The Covid-19 pandemic changed everything. Although Oliver suffered with intermittent insomnia over the years, these episodes typically resolved within a few weeks because he was able to mai ..read more

Happy New Year, all. I know that we have moved past January 1, 2021, and my New Year’s message may feel a bit delayed. I realized recently that if I waited for the world to settle enough to have a time-relevant message, I’d never have one, so… here we are. What a great reminder that life happens, not always as we plan it, and if we are fortunate, leaves us with possibilities we hadn’t anticipated. All that said, here is my message about what you can expect from Beck Institute in 2021. It is hard to speak to 2021 without giving 2020 its due. A year ago, we were still delivering our workshops in ..read more