0.18 Cognitive perspectives on personality development  (Page 18/30)

In most ways, Aaron Beck’s childhood couldn’t have been more different than that of Ellis. Born in 1921, he was the youngest child of loving and supportive parents. His parents were particularly supportive of education: his brother Irving became a physician, and his brother Maurice entered social work after earning a Master’s degree in psychology (the other two children had died in childhood, his only sister dying in the worldwide influenza epidemic of 1919). Like Ellis, however, Beck was extremely ill as a child. When he was seven years old, Beck broke his arm at a playground. An infection set in, which then developed into septicemia (a generalized blood infection). At the time, septicemia was 90 percent fatal, and his brother Irving overheard the doctor tell their mother that Beck would die. Although he obviously survived, he missed so much school that he had to be held back a year. As often happens when young children are held back in school, the effect on his self-esteem was devastating, and Beck came to believe that he was stupid and inept (Weishaar, 1993; for more information on the negative effects of grade retention visit the National Association of School Psychologists’ website at www.nasponline.org).

However, with the help of his brothers, Beck was able to catch up to and eventually surpass his classmates, graduating first in his high school class. Along the way he belonged to the Audubon Society, worked as a camp counselor, became the youngest Eagle Scout in his Boy Scout troop, and was editor of the high school newspaper. He followed his brothers to Brown University, but was unsure of a career path. He majored in English and Political Science, but he took a wide variety of courses, eventually taking the courses necessary to go on to medical school. He graduated magna cum laude , Phi Beta Kappa, and won awards for oratory and essay writing. Despite his dramatic successes, Beck suffered a great deal of anxiety, particularly a blood/injury phobia that most likely resulted from his frightening experiences related to the emergency surgery necessary when he broke his arm. Having been accepted to the Yale School of Medicine, his surgery rotation was very difficult in light of his fear of blood. However, he worked through his fears cognitively (an obvious foreshadowing of the work that would make him famous), and successfully completed his medical degree (Weishaar, 1993).

Beck never intended to study psychiatry, and thought little of psychoanalysis. However, having graduated in 1946, there were many veterans returning from World War II. In 1949, he began a residency in neurology at a veteran’s administration hospital in Massachusetts. Due to a pressing need for psychiatrists, the director of the program began requiring everyone to complete a rotation is psychiatry. The psychiatry program at the hospital was primarily influenced by the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute, and Beck protested that psychoanalytic formulations seemed far-fetched, but he eventually decided to stay in psychiatry and to study psychoanalysis in greater detail. He first studied psychoanalysis at the Austin Riggs Center in Massachusetts, where one of his supervisors was Erik Erikson. After completing his training in psychiatry, he joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School (in 1954), where he has remained ever since. As he began his research career, Beck intended to confirm Freud’s hypothesis that depression was the result of hostility turned inward. However, he began to recognize that his patients were greatly influenced by underlying patterns of cognition, the so-called automatic thoughts that are so well-known today. About this same time, Beck learned of Kelly’s work on personal constructs (which Beck later referred to as schemas). As a result of these ideas and experiences coming together, Beck’s own cognitive theory began to take shape. Then, in 1963, Ellis read an article written by Beck. Ellis sent copies of his own work to Beck, and reprinted Beck’s article in the journal Rational Living . Beck then invited Ellis to speak to the psychiatry residents at Penn, and from that point forward the two maintained close contact. Beck has credited Ellis as being an excellent spokesperson for cognitive approaches to psychotherapy (Weishaar, 1993).