Psychiatrist aaron Beck, M.D., is the first researcher in the 60-year history of the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award honored for a breakthrough in psychotherapy.
Beck received the 2006 prize for his pioneering work in cognitive therapy. He was among five awardees recognized this year by the New York-based Lasker Foundation for exceptional contributions to basic and clinical research, as well as public service on behalf of research.
“This is the top award in American medicine—an acknowledgement [by the medical community] that psychotherapy is relevant,” Beck told Psychiatric News. “I am overwhelmed” by the volume of press and congratulatory phone calls.
The award citation noted that “cognitive therapy. .has transformed the understanding and treatment of many psychiatric conditions, including depression, suicidal behavior, generalized anxiety, panic attacks, and eating disorders.”
Beck developed the theory and practice of cognitive therapy after“ realizing that unrealistic negative self-perceptions foster such disturbances and then teaching patients to identify and challenge these distorted thoughts.”
The presentation of what the medical research community often calls America's Nobel Prize took place in New York in late September. The roster of Lasker prize winners listed on the foundation's Web site shows Beck's unique place as the only psychotherapist to win the honor since the awards were established in 1946.
Beck is a university professor of psychiatry and director of the Center for the Treatment and Prevention of Suicide at the University of Pennsylvania. His studies of psychotherapy, psychopathology, suicide, and psychometrics beginning in the late 1950s led to the creation of cognitive therapy. He also conceived the Beck Depression Inventory, one of the most widely used methods for measuring the severity of depression, as well as the Beck Hopelessness Scale and Beck Anxiety Inventory.
The Lasker prize has been awarded annually to those who have made major contributions to medical science. Seventy-one recipients have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
The 2006 honorees are also National Institutes of Health research grant recipients. The agency's director, Elias Zerhouni, M.D., said that “NIH is proud to have supported the work of these. .outstanding researchers who are being honored for their contributions to our understanding of cell biology, cognitive therapy, and telomere and telomerase research.”
These are the other 2006 honorees:
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Basic Medical Research: Elizabeth Blackburn, Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco; Carol Greider, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Jack Szostak, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School
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Special Achievement in Medical Science: Joseph Gall, Ph.D., Carnegie Institution
More information on the Lasker Medical Research Awards is posted at<www.laskerfoundation.org>.▪
