Aaron T. Beck

 

Aaron T. Beck

The Economist of November 13, 2021 contained an obituary for Aaron Beck, who died on November 1, aged 100. One has to be special to merit an obituary in The Economist, and Tim was special. In the late 1900s, almost every article on depression cited publications by Tim. The Beck Depression Inventory was and still is widely used in research and clinical settings. After Albert Ellis’s initial contribution, Tim was the major developer of cognitive therapies and, in addition, he made major contributions to suicidology.

I was fortunate to meet and work with Tim in the 1970s. He organized and hosted a symposium, closed to outsiders, which resulted in a book, The Prediction of Suicide, published in 1974. We published the Hopelessness Scale which, as of today, has 7,002 citations.

Beck, A. T., Weissman, A., Lester, D., & Trexler, L. The measurement of pessimism: the hopelessness scale. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 1974, 42, 861-865. 

We also worked together on papers suggesting how to overcome the problem of the use of substitute subjects in suicidology, that is, the use of attempted suicides to learn about those who died by suicide.

Lester, D., Beck, A. T. & Trexler, L. Extrapolation from attempted suicides to completed suicides. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1975, 84, 563-566. 

Lester, D., Beck, A. T. & Mitchell, B. Extrapolation from attempted suicides to completed suicides: a test. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1979, 88, 78-80.

More than this, Tim was an incredibly warm, modest and friendly person. The Economist noted that “By the end of his life, nothing daunted his positive outlook.” It was a pleasure and an honor to know Tim.