Interview with Aaron Beck

Jules Evans talks to the founder of Cognitive Therapy about philosophy, etc.  See the link below for the full interview on Jules’ blog,

www.politicsofwellbeing.com

Jules Evans: You speak of using the ‘Socratic method’ in CBT. To what extent was Greek philosophy, particularly Socrates and the Stoics, an influence on your ideas, as it was on Dr Ellis? And how much of an influence was Ellis and REBT on your development of CBT?

Aaron Beck: Ellis and I developed our approaches independently. I believe that Albert Ellis independently wrote about the influence of Greek philosophers on his own writing.

I came across the notion of Socratic Dialogue when I read about it in my college philosophy course – I believe it was in Plato’s Republic. I also was influenced by the Stoic philosophers who stated that it was a meaning of events rather than the events themselves that affected people. When this was articulated by Ellis, everything clicked into place; however, I must say that I was looking at meaning prior to this. My work in psychoanalysis taught me that “unconscious” meanings were extremely important. Over the course of time I decided that the important meanings were quite accessible to consciousness when individuals focused on their automatic thoughts.

http://www.politicsofwellbeing.com/2011/04/interview-with-aaron-beck-on-cbt.html

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