We are writing to tell you how 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).

It is startling, and quite dismaying, that so few mental health professionals who are treating our soldiers are trained to deliver treatments that research has demonstrated to be efficacious. Instead, they provide traditional psychotherapy or newer forms of psychotherapy, which have little, if any, demonstrated efficacy.

Cognitive behavior 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. In fact, I (Aaron Beck, M.D.,) developed the therapy in the 1960’s, and we have trained thousands of military and clinical mental health and health professionals and educators, locally, nationally, and internationally. We have created or improved CBT programs at universities, hospitals, community mental health centers, health systems, and other organizations.

A ground-breaking study that I (Aaron Beck) conducted with Gregory Brown, Ph.D., and other colleagues, published in the August 3, 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, demonstrates the efficacy of CBT. Recent suicide attempters treated with cognitive therapy were 50 percent less likely to try to kill themselves again 18 months after their short-term treatment ended than those who did not receive the therapy. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

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 contact us at 610-664-3020 or (www.education@beckinstitute.org ). for more information.

Aaron Beck, M.D., President, Beck Institute
University Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry
University of Pennsylvania Judith S. Beck Ph.D., Director, Beck Institute
Clinical Associate Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry,
University of Pennsylvania