Aaron T. Beck's drawings and the psychoanalytic origin story of cognitive therapy.

Abstract

In this essay the author challenges the standard origin story of cognitive therapy, namely, that its founder Aaron T. Beck broke with psychoanalysis to pursue a more pragmatic, parsimonious, and experimentalist cognitive model. It is true that Beck broke with psychoanalysis in large measure as a result of his experimental disconfirmation of key psychoanalytic ideas. His new school of cognitive therapy brought the experimental ethos into every corner of psychological life, extending outward into the largest multisite randomized controlled studies of psychotherapy ever attempted and inward into the deepest recesses of our private worlds. But newly discovered hand-sketched drawings from 1964 of the schema, a conceptual centerpiece of cognitive therapy, as well as unpublished personal correspondence show that Beck continued to think psychoanalytically even after he broke with psychoanalysis. The drawings urge us to consider an origin story much more complex than the one of inherited tradition. This new, multifaceted origin story of cognitive therapy reaches beyond sectarian disagreements and speaks to a broader understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of cognitive therapy.

A Historical and Theoretical Review of Cognitive Behavioral Therapies: From Structural Self-Knowledge to Functional Processes

“…Initially, Beck had psychodynamic training in the field of American ego - psychology developed by Anna Freud ( 1936/1966 ) and Hartmann and Loewenstein (Hartmann 1964 ; Hartmann and Loewenstein 1964 ). In this psychodynamic paradigm, it was supposed that the human mind owns ego functions can be either the result of adaptive and normal development of mental capacities or may be influenced by conflicted aggressive and libidinal impulses (Rosner 2014a , b ). In short, the ego plays a key organizational role in mental activity in ego - psychology , both in normality and in psychopathological states which seems similar to the structural role played by the self in the cognitive clinical psychology inspired by Beck.…”

Beyond indifference and aversion: The critical reception and belated acceptance of behavior therapy in France.

“…The history of psychotherapies in France, above all, centers around the status of psychoanalysis (de Mijolla, 2012;Ohayon, 2006b;Roudinesco, 1990), and, with the exception of a few pioneers' testimonies (Agathon, , 1982Freixa & Baqué, 1992, 2007Seiden, 1994), we do not have at our disposal a historical overview of the development of behaviorism and its therapeutic applications. 2 On a more general level, this work follows the trend of a series of studies that have opened the way toward an intellectual and cultural history of behaviorism and CBT-both inside the Anglo-Saxon context (Marks, 2012;Plas, 2008;Rosner, 2012Rosner, , 2014 and outside of it (Cirino, Miranda, & Cruz, 2012;Goldwurm, 1999;Korman, Viotti, & Garay, 2015).…”

Cruzando el Rubicón: del psicoanálisis a la terapia cognitiva

“…Appel supported the young psychiatrist Marvin Stein to succeed him as director of the department. Beck collaborated with the majority of the members of the department, but he collaborated more and developed a bond of friendship with Marvin Stein (Rosner, 1999(Rosner, , 2012(Rosner, , 2014.…”

“…Between 1950 and 1952, Beck was a postdoctoral scholarship at the Austen Riggs Center, where Robert Knigh was the medical director, David Rapaport director of the research area (Rosner, 1999(Rosner, , 2012 and Erik Erickson the supervisor (Weishaar, 1993). Beck participated in the seminars and was exposed to a large number of approaches regarding psychotherapeutic practice; the traditional psychoanalysis, the psychology of the self, mental hygiene (Adolf Meyer's model), group therapy, theories of cognition and experimental research (Rosner, 1999).…”

“…Most of those who have written, based on the CBT clinic, about the recent history of psychology focus on specific aspects of the phenomenon, without integrating the development of the discipline into the context of socio-historical changes like the personal histories that characterize them (Rosner, 2012). Some authors, inspired by a positivist perspective, consider that behavioral therapies were the root of the success of the cognitive model and believe that CBT is a supplementary product of research in basic psychology (Rachman, 1997;Fishman, Rego, & Muller, 2013).…”