On Saturday, September 14, Beck Institute gathered nearly 200 organizational friends and supporters to celebrate our 25th anniversary. Beck Institute President, Dr. Judith Beck, shared our history and plans for the future. Below is an excerpt from her address:

In the early nineties, my father and I saw a real need in the field for excellent evidence-based training in CBT. So, we began developing the idea of creating an organization dedicated to high-quality CBT training, resources, and treatment.

In 1994, we founded Beck Institute to bring together researchers, clinicians, and health and mental health professionals to spread the practice of first-rate CBT across the globe. We believed in the power of CBT to help alleviate suffering and promote well-being. We hoped to impact clinicians, and their clients, on a vast scale.

Since then, Beck Institute has grown to become an international leader in CBT. We are so fortunate to have such an active and involved Board of Directors and we especially thank our board president, the Honorable Phyllis Beck, whose leadership over the past 25 years has made Beck Institute possible.

We have trained tens of thousands of mental health professionals in more than 120 countries through our in-person workshops, online courses, and training for organizations program.

Our reach is global, so we established an International Advisory Committee to help us strategize ways to bring excellent CBT skills to even more professionals throughout the world. 

And we have helped hundreds of patients get better at our in-house clinic.

We’re not stopping there. We have plans to build more training options to reach more practitioners, to expand our newly-launched CBT Certification program to raise the bar for excellence in our field, and to partner with an ever-growing list of organizations to deliver effective CBT to diverse populations.

We are very excited about our new team of researchers, educators, and clinicians who have joined the Beck Institute to continue to develop, research, and teach about a new wave in the mental health field: Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy, or CT-R, for individuals who have been given a diagnosis of a serious mental health condition, such as schizophrenia.

We know that this work will help transform our field and impact the world of mental health into the future.

It has been an incredible pleasure to serve as Beck Institute’s president for the past 25 years. I continue to be amazed by the impact this organization has on so many lives.

Thank you.