Dr. Judith Beck recently posted two blogs for the Huffington Post. Both blogs have received quite of bit of attention. In her first, The How and Why of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (posted June 29, 2010), Dr. Beck compares the empirically based Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) to the psychotherapy often portrayed on TV and in the media. In a follow up blog, Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Myths and Realities (posted July 11, 2010), Dr. Beck addresses common misconceptions surrounding CBT.
Archive for the ‘Judith S. Beck’ Category
Dr. Judith Beck Blogs on CBT for the Huffington Post
Tuesday, July 13th, 20102 Reviews of Beck Diet Books by the American Dietetic Association
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010Reviewer Suzanne Farrell, MS, RD praises The Complete Beck Diet for Life for not sugarcoating the time and effort that dieting requires and recognizing that lifestyle changes are a work in progress. Farrell specifically recommends this book to people struggling with weight loss and registered dieticians. To read the review, click here: http://www.eatright.org/Media/content.aspx?id=10412
In her review of The Beck Diet Solution: How to Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person, Lisa Dorfman, MS, RD, LMHC commends Dr. Beck for offering good tools to help readers adopt healthy lifestyles. She also notes that the plan’s requirement that the dieter write down his or her goals and anticipated reactions to specific situations is good for people with difficulties dealing with spontaneous situations. Dorfman specifically recommends this book to yo-yo dieters who have tried countless diets but keep gaining back the weight. To read the review, click here: http://www.eatright.org/Media/content.aspx?id=10444&terms=Beck+Diet+Solution
Dr. Judith Beck at the Combat Stress Intervention Program — March 26, 2010
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
On March 26, 2010, Dr. Judith Beck spoke on Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) at the Combat Stress Intervention Program (CSIP) conference. Here, she is pictured with LTC Hiroya Goto, M.D., Japanese Medical Liaison Officer from the US Army Office of The Surgeon General, and colleagues.
CBT for Soldiers: Workshop Announcement
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010Dr. Judith Beck will present a Cognitive Behavior Therapy workshop at the Combat Stress Intervention Program’s 2nd Annual Conference at Washington & Jefferson College on Friday, March 26, 2010. The theme of this year’s conference is Combat Stress: Working Effectively with Military Clients.
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If you’re a mental health professional working with soldiers, vets, or their families, you might be eligible to receive a partial scholarship program for participation in our Cognitive Therapy Workshops at Beck Institute. VISIT: www.CBTforSoldiers.org.
Dr. Judith Beck to Appear on the Dr. Oz Show— Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010Dr. Beck will appear on the Dr. Oz show tomorrow, Thursday, February 18th, advising a family whose health will likely become compromised if they don’t change the way they eat. Dr. Oz shows a video of their family meal, illustrating an overabundance of food and the way in which family members are urged to eat more.
See Dr. Beck’s blog , Advising Food Pushers on TV, from January 28, 2010 for more details.
For local times and listings visit www.Doctoroz.com.
Note taking in Session
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Recently, there’s been an interesting discussion on the Academy of Cognitive Therapy listserv about the therapy notes patients take home with them to review. Here’s how I make sure a patient is able to remember important ideas we discussed in treatment, specifically the changes a patient makes in his thinking:
Generally, when I ascertain that the patient has modified his thinking during a session (e.g., following Socratic questioning, behavioral experiments, roleplaying, etc.), I’ll ask the patient for a summary. I might say:
• Can you summarize what we just talked about?
• What do you think it would be important for you to remember this week?
• What do you think the main message is?
If the patient comes up with a good summary, I positively reinforce him and ask whether he wants to write it down or if he would like me to do so. If his summary is not quite on point, I usually offer a revised version and ask the patient whether he thinks it might be helpful to remember it this latter way. If he agrees, he or I will write the summary down. At that point or later on in the session, I will ask the patient how likely it is that he will read these important therapy notes every day at home. If he’s not highly likely, I’ll ask him about what might get in the way.
I’ve found that most patients just don’t learn the skill of writing cogent summaries. They rarely write down complete ideas and they usually add in extraneous or less important material which dilutes what is really important; that’s why I’m nicely directive about what is written down. I want to be certain the patient has good notes to read this week and ten years from now, if a similar problem arises.
A Cognitive Behavioral Approach to Emotional Eating
Thursday, December 17th, 2009A therapist on a listserv I subscribe to asked for a book recommendation for her patient who struggles with emotional eating. I wrote the following reply:
If your patient doesn’t have an eating disorder, she might try the skills in one of the CBT books I’ve written for consumers on dieting and maintenance (www.beckdietsolution.com). People need the same skill set for resisting eating when it’s not a scheduled time to eat—regardless of whether the desire or impulse to eat has an emotional, physiological, environmental, social, or mental trigger.
For example, they need to learn how to continually motivate themselves to stick to a specific or general plan, how to label and monitor their experience without intervening with food, how to distract themselves (initially), how to accept the discomfort of not eating, how to give themselves credit to build their sense of self-efficacy, etc. Emotional eaters also need to respond to their beliefs about emotional eating. Two typical beliefs are “If I’m upset, I deserve to comfort myself with food,” and “If I’m upset, the only way I can calm down is by eating.”
I’ve found that my clients are often a bit stymied when I ask them how other people cope with distress without eating. Of course, it’s also helpful to use a standard CBT approach—having patients respond to cognitions associated with their initial distress, do problem-solving, etc. Learning all these skills takes concentrated effort—and therapists have to decide when in treatment to focus on emotional eating, particularly if the patient has a psychiatric or psychological problem
CBT for Soldiers: A personal message to professionals from Drs. Aaron and Judith Beck
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009Dear Colleagues,
We are trying to address a very serious problem: military personnel who need effective psychological/psychiatric treatment but who are not receiving it. To address this urgent problem, we have embarked upon a new initiative to offer partial scholarships to our Cognitive Behavior Therapy training programs for mental health professionals who treat soldiers, veterans, and their families (www.cbtforsoldiers.org).
Cognitive ehavior therapy (CBT) has been demonstrated in hundreds of controlled trials worldwide to be effective for a wide range of problems, including depression, suicide, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and many more.
The non-profit Beck Institute in suburban Philadelphia is recognized as one of the premiere training sites for this kind of psychotherapy. The application of cognitive therapy to the needs of our military veterans is clear. The RAND Corporation conducted a study for the military on Predicting the Consequences of PTSD, Depression and Traumatic Brain Injury. One of the study’s summary conclusions is that the capacity to provide evidence-based psychotherapies for PTSD and major depression (for example, CBT) would be important in closing the treatment gap.
We would like to bring our expertise to mental health professionals who treat soldiers, veterans, and their families. Please visit www.cbtforsoldiers.org.
The Becks at ABCT 2009
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
Pictured (left) are Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Aaron T. Beck, M.D., and Daniel T. Beck, LICSW, at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, each representing a different mental health discipline. Judith and Daniel are two of Aaron Beck’s four children. Daniel is a Beck Institute Extramural Supervisor, teaches CBT at several Boston area universities and institutions, and is in private practice. He organized the largest ever meeting of social workers at ABCT this year.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy Workshop for Professionals at Beck Institute: November 9-11, 2009
Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
(Left) Dr. Aaron Beck conducts a case review after participants observed (via closed-circuit television) Dr. Aaron Beck’s live patient session. Psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, family therapists, and other professionals from mental health, medical, and related fields traveled from Canada, Indonesia, and eight U.S. states to participate in the Beck Institute Cognitive Behavior Therapy workshop.
(Right) Dr. Judith Beck conducts a roleplay with trainee Robyn Tzipora Koslowitz, Ph.D., a staff psychologist at the Center for Health, Education, Medicine, and Dentistry in New York. Participants received professional training in Cognitive Behavior Therapy from Aaron T. Beck, M.D., Judith S. Beck, Ph.D., Leslie Sokol, Ph.D., and Norman Cotterell, Ph.D.
Learn more about Cognitive Behavior Therapy workshops at Beck Institute.