Dr. Aaron T. Beck, Quarking Ducks, and Me (2023 version)
Recalling how a towering figure in psychiatry and mental health became my friend after I subjected his work to robust criticism.
This 2011 memory is retrieved from the archives of CoyneoftheRealm and was edited in 2023 at a time when the vital role of the skeptic in improving science is under siege. I recall some special aspects of my relationship with Aaron T. Beck (1921-2021). Tim became a friend, co-author, and confident after I subjected his work to a sustained critique.
Thirty years ago I was still early in my career (Ph.D. Indiana, 1975) but I was already a skeptic taking aim at theory and research concerning the role of cognition in depression. I fired away at research studies appearing in the best of journals like beer bottles lined up on a fence. Cognitive therapy and its associated theory represented the unchallenged, dominant perspective on depression at the time. No one had ever written such a sustained, robust critique as I did or, at least, no one had ever gotten one published.
Dr. Joan Cook, Dr. Beck, and Jim Coyne (2010) at the Dairy Cafe, Bala Cynwyrd
Shortly after the Psychological Bulletin art…