The Institute of Medicine today presented this year’s Gustav O. Lienhard Award for the advancement of personal health services to Aaron T. Beck, University Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and president of the nonprofit Beck Institute for Cognitive Therapy and Research.  The award honors Beck for developing the theory and practice of cognitive therapy, which has been used to treat nearly 5 million patients in the United States and millions more worldwide.

“Dr. Beck has earned his rightful place among the most innovative clinician-scientists of our time,” said Harvey V. Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine.  “His work has given hope to the millions of people who suffer from serious mental diseases, empowering patients to take active steps to improve their health.”

Beck’s most critical contribution to the public health arena was discovering that countering dysfunctional thoughts could be the key to treating mental illness.  Through the process of cognitive therapy, patients work with their therapists to alleviate their illness by first recognizing and then changing their negative self-perceptions – a process that encourages more self-reliance than other psychotherapies. 

An array of empirical evidence, including research conducted by Beck himself, shows that cognitive therapy works.  Recent functional imaging studies show that cognitive therapy impacts the functioning of the brain, working from the “top down,” or the prefrontal lobes to the subcortical regions.  Recent studies have also suggested that cognitive therapy and drug therapy are effective in treating depression, and that cognitive therapy alone -- or in conjunction with antidepressant medication -- produces lower relapse rates than medication alone, and at lower cost.

In the United States, approximately 25 percent to 30 percent of clinical and counseling psychologists, and 20 percent to 25 percent of all mental health professionals, now use cognitive therapy in their practices, reaching some 3 million to 5 million patients in the U.S. alone.  Several million more patients worldwide benefit as well.

Beck has also developed sophisticated instruments for assessing the severity of specific psychiatric syndromes.  The Beck Depression Inventory is one of the most widely used instruments in clinical practice and research, as are his Anxiety Inventory, Hopelessness Scale, Suicide Intent Scale, and Cognitive Insight Scale.

Beck has focused a significant portion of his work on suicide prevention.  His studies provided the first rational basis for the classification and assessment of suicidal behaviors and made it possible to identify individuals at a high risk for suicide.  He has identified clinical and psychological variables, such as hopelessness, that are better predictors of suicide than clinical depression, and found them to be very responsive to cognitive therapy.  In the 18-month follow-up period after a recent randomized, controlled clinical trial overseen by Beck and his students, participants in the cognitive therapy group were 50 percent less likely to attempt suicide than those in the typical care group.

Beck received his bachelor’s degree from Brown University in 1942 and his medical degree from Yale School of Medicine in 1946.  Most recently, in September 2006 he was one of five winners of the prestigious Lasker Award for his accomplishments in the field of cognitive therapy.  He is a member of the Institute of Medicine, and in 2003 received the Institute of Medicine’s Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Award in Mental Health.  He is the only person to have won both the Sarnat and Lienhard Awards.  He has achieved a number of other professional honors, published several books, and is a member of several scientific and professional societies.

Beck is the 21st recipient of the Lienhard Award, which includes a medal and a $25,000 prize.  Given annually, the award recognizes outstanding national achievement in improving personal health care services in the United States.  Nominees are eligible for consideration without regard to education or profession, and award recipients are selected by a committee of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine.  This year’s committee was chaired by Fitzhugh Mullan, M.D., Murdock Head Professor of Medicine and Health Policy, department of health policy, School of Public Health and Health Services, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.

The Lienhard Award is funded by an endowment from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  Gustav O. Lienhard was chair of the Foundation’s board of trustees from the organization’s establishment in 1971 to his retirement in 1986 -- a period in which the Foundation moved to the forefront of American philanthropy in health care.  Lienhard, who died in 1987, built his career with Johnson & Johnson, beginning as an accountant and retiring 39 years later as its president.  Additional information about the Lienhard Award can be found at www.iom.edu/lienhard.