| Abstract: | Beck initially set out to test the Freudian notion that depression is a consequence of “anger turned inward” (rage directed the introjected parent for not gratifying infantile desires) but soon came to conclude that no such unconscious motivation existed and that instead depressed patients actually believe that they were unlovable or inadequate. He developed a treatment that he named cognitive therapy that is as efficacious as and more enduring than antidepressant medications. It stands as the most often tested and most widely practiced treatment for depression. |
