Editing Aaron Beck (section)

==Cognitive therapy==
{{Main|Cognitive therapy}}
{{Further|Beck's cognitive triad|Cognitive Information Processing (Career Services)}}
Working with depressed patients, Beck found that they experienced streams of negative thoughts that seemed to arise spontaneously.<ref name=att>{{cite web|url=https://beckinstitute.org/blog/automatic-thoughts-in-cbt-part-2/|title=Automatic Thoughts in CBT (Part 2)|date=June 8, 2021|publisher=Beck Institute|access-date=November 1, 2021}}</ref> He termed these cognitions "automatic thoughts", and discovered that their content fell into three categories: negative ideas about oneself, the world, and the future. He stated that such cognitions were interrelated as the [[cognitive triad]].<ref name=att/> Limited time spent reflecting on automatic thoughts would lead patients to treat them as valid.<ref name="past and future">{{cite journal|last=Beck|first=Aaron|title=The Past and the future of Cognitive Therapy|journal=Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research|year=1996|volume=6|issue=4|pages=276–284|url=http://jppr.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/6/4/276.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111215210611/http://jppr.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/6/4/276.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 15, 2011|access-date=June 7, 2011|pmid=9292441|pmc=3330473}}</ref>

Beck began helping patients identify and evaluate these thoughts and found that by doing so, patients were able to think more realistically, which led them to feel better emotionally and behave more functionally.<ref name="past and future" /> He developed key ideas in CBT, explaining that different [[Mental disorder|disorders]] were associated with different types of distorted thinking.<ref name="past and future"/> Distorted thinking has a negative effect on a person's behavior no matter what type of disorder they had, he found.<ref name="past and future"/> Beck explained that successful interventions will educate a person to understand and become aware of their distorted thinking, and how to challenge its effects.<ref name="past and future"/> He discovered that frequent negative automatic thoughts reveal a person's core beliefs. He explained that core beliefs are formed over lifelong experiences; we "feel" these beliefs to be true.<ref name="past and future"/>

Since that time, Beck and his colleagues worldwide have researched the efficacy of this form of psychotherapy in treating a wide variety of disorders including depression, [[bipolar disorder]], [[eating disorder]]s, [[Substance abuse|drug abuse]], [[anxiety disorder]]s, [[personality disorder]]s, and many other medical conditions with psychological components.<ref name="past and future" /> Cognitive therapy has also been applied with success to individuals with [[schizophrenia]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Cognitive behavioral therapy for schizophrenia |url=https://nyulangone.org/conditions/schizophrenia/treatments/cognitive-behavioral-therapy-for-schizophrenia |website=NYU Langone Health |access-date=March 20, 2021}}</ref> He also focused on cognitive therapy for schizophrenia, [[borderline personality disorder]], and for patients who have had recurrent suicide attempts.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://beckinstitute.org/blog/validation-for-patients-with-borderline-personality-disorder/|title=Validation for Patients with Borderline Personality Disorder|date=June 8, 2021|publisher=Back Institute|access-date=November 1, 2021}}</ref>

Beck's recent research on the treatment of schizophrenia has suggested that patients once believed to be non-responsive to treatment are amenable to positive change.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Beck|first=Aaron T.|date=January 2019|title=A 60-Year Evolution of Cognitive Theory and Therapy|journal=Perspectives on Psychological Science|language=en|volume=14|issue=1|pages=16–20|doi=10.1177/1745691618804187|pmid=30799751|issn=1745-6916|doi-access=free}}</ref>  Even the most severe presentations of the illness, such as those involving long periods of hospitalization, bizarre behavior, poor personal hygiene, self-injury, and aggressiveness, can respond positively to a modified version of cognitive behavioral treatment.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Grant|first1=Paul M.|last2=Bredemeier|first2=Keith|last3=Beck|first3=Aaron T.|date=October 2017|title=Six-Month Follow-Up of Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy for Low-Functioning Individuals With Schizophrenia|journal=Psychiatric Services|language=en|volume=68|issue=10|pages=997–1002|doi=10.1176/appi.ps.201600413|pmid=28566022|issn=1075-2730|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Grant|first=Paul M.|date=February 1, 2012|title=Randomized Trial to Evaluate the Efficacy of Cognitive Therapy for Low-Functioning Patients With Schizophrenia|journal=Archives of General Psychiatry|language=en|volume=69|issue=2|pages=121–7|doi=10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.129|pmid=21969420|issn=0003-990X|doi-access=free}}</ref>

Although Beck's approach has sometimes been criticized as too mechanistic, modern CBT stresses the importance of a warm and encouraging therapeutic relationship and tailoring treatment to the specific challenges of each individual.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Third Edition: Basics and Beyond |url=https://www.guilford.com/books/Cognitive-Behavior-Therapy/Judith-Beck/9781462544196 |access-date=2023-04-20 |website=Guilford Press |language=en-US}}</ref> Beck's work was presented as a far more scientific and experimentally-based development than psychoanalysis (while being less reductive than behaviorism), Beck's key principles were not necessarily based on the general findings and models of cognitive psychology or [[neuroscience]] developing at that time but were derived from personal clinical observations and interpretations in his therapy office.<ref name=beckmd>{{cite web|url=https://www.pearsonassessments.com/professional-assessments/products/authors/beck-aaron.html#:~:text=Beck%20is%20noted%20for%20his,widely%20used%20instruments%20for%20measuring|title=Aaron T. Beck, MD|access-date=November 1, 2021|website=Pearsonassessments.com}}</ref> And although there have been many cognitive models developed for different mental disorders and hundreds of outcome studies on the effectiveness of CBT—relatively easy because of the narrow, time-limited and manual-based nature of the treatment—there has been much less focus on experimentally proving the supposedly active mechanisms; in some cases the predicted [[Causality|causal]] relationships have not been found, such as between dysfunctional attitudes and outcomes.<ref>{{cite journal | pmc = 3673298 | pmid=18223042 | doi=10.1136/ebmh.11.1.5 | volume=11 | title=Cognitive-behavioural therapies: achievements and challenges | journal=Evid Based Ment Health | pages=5–7 | last1 = Gaudiano | first1 = BA| issue=1 | year=2008 }}</ref>