Aaron T. Beck Quotes

United States, Psychotherapist
July 18, 1921

Aaron Temkin Beck is an American psychiatrist who is professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. He is regarded as the father of cognitive therapy, and his pioneering theories are widely used in the treatment of clinical depression. Beck also developed self-report measures of depression and anxiety, notably the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) which became one of the most widely used instruments for measuring depression severity.

If our thinking is bogged down by distorted symbolic meanings, illogical reasoning and erroneous interpretations, we become, in truth, blind and deaf.

Aaron T. Beck
- Thinking
- Blind
- Reasoning
As applied to substance abuse, the cognitive approach helps individuals to come to grips with the problems leading to emotional distress and to gain a broader perspective on their reliance on drugs for pleasure and/or relief from discomfort.

Aaron T. Beck

Stop it, and give yourself a chance.

Aaron T. Beck
- Stop
- Chance
- Give
In evaluating your relationship, you will find it useful to keep in mind your goals in marriage and how you can best achieve them. As a guide, I have listed what I regard as the aims for an ideal marriage.

Aaron T. Beck
- Marriage
- Goals
- Achieve
There is more on the surface than what our eyes can see.

Aaron T. Beck
- Eyes
- See
- Surface
The stronger person is not the one making the most noise but the one who can quietly direct the conversation toward defining and solving problems.

Aaron T. Beck
- Person
- Problems
- Solving
The manners that apply specifically during courtship come to be replaced over the course of marriage by a different set of manners, embodying the residual pettiness, complaining, and faultfinding of childhood.

Aaron T. Beck
Cognitive therapy seeks to alleviate psychological stresses by correcting faulty conceptions and self-signals. By correcting erroneous beliefs we can lower excessive reactions.

Aaron T. Beck
- Beliefs
- Therapy
- Stresses

Some authors have conceptualized depression as a "depletion syndrome" because of the prominence of fatigability; they postulate that the patient exhausts his available energy during the period prior to the onset of the depression and that the depressed state represents a kind of hibernation, during which the patient gradually builds up a new story of energy.

Aaron T. Beck
- Energy
- Story
- Depression