Albert Ellis

Albert Ellis

Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist who in 1955 developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. He was considered by many to be the grandfather of cognitive-behavioral therapies, whose key construct is that irrational beliefs on the part of the individual lead to emotional pain. His therapeutic method differed greatly from the psychoanalytic approach that dominated when he began his career. For Ellis, active efforts to change the client's self-defeating beliefs were the key to resolving problems and becoming healthy. Typical of these self-defeating beliefs are "I must be perfect" and "I must be loved by everyone." Ellis developed a directive therapy program that caused the client to analyze their beliefs, recognize their irrationality, and construct more rational ones in their place. Thus, he believed that through cognitive changes the emotional life of the individual would be improved.

Ellis was a pioneer in the therapy, rejecting the psychoanalytic tradition that had dominated for years, and equally rejecting behaviorism and those that promoted religion as supportive of psychological health. For Ellis it was the intellect that dominates our life; when we hold on dogmatically to an irrational belief whether that be religious dogma, uncritical acceptance of a political or scientific doctrine, or the need for individual achievement and perfection, it becomes unhealthy. The way to psychological health, therefore, for Ellis was to develop healthy thinking, which he defined as rational thought unadulterated by such dogmatic beliefs. Despite his atheism, Ellis acknowledged that belief in a loving God was psychologically healthy. Taking this further, which Ellis did not do, one can realize that it is true love that brings health, not merely correct thinking.

Life

Early life

Albert Ellis was born on September 27, 1913 to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the eldest of three children. Ellis' father was a businessman, often away from home on business trips who reportedly showed only a modicum of affection to his children.

In his autobiography, Ellis characterized his mother as a self-absorbed woman with a bipolar disorder. At times, according to Ellis, she was a "bustling chatterbox who never listened." She would expound on her strong opinions on most subjects but rarely provided a factual basis for these views. Like his father, Ellis' mother was emotionally distant from her children. Ellis recounted that she was often sleeping when he left for school and usually not home when he returned. Instead of reporting feeling bitter, he took on the responsibility of caring for his siblings. He purchased an alarm clock with his own money and woke and dressed his younger brother and sister. When the Great Depression struck, all three children sought work to assist the family.

Ellis was sickly as a child and suffered numerous health problems through his youth. At the age of five he was hospitalized with a kidney disease. He was also hospitalized with tonsillitis, which led to a severe streptococcal infection requiring emergency surgery. He reported that he had eight hospitalizations between the ages of five and seven. One of these lasted nearly a year. His parents provided little or no emotional support for him during these years, rarely visiting or consoling him. Ellis stated that he learned to confront his adversities as he had "developed a growing indifference to that dereliction."

Education and early career

Ellis entered the field of clinical psychology after first earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in business from the City University of New York. He began a brief career in business, followed by one as a writer. These endeavors took place during the Great Depression that began in 1929, and Ellis found that business was poor and had no success in publishing his fiction. Finding that he could write non-fiction well, Ellis researched and wrote on human sexuality. His lay counseling in this subject convinced him to seek a new career in clinical psychology.

In 1942, Ellis began his studies for a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, which trained psychologists mostly in psychoanalysis.

He completed his Master of Arts in clinical psychology from Columbia University in June 1943, and started a part-time private practice while still working on his Ph.D degree – possibly because there was no licensing of psychologists in New York at that time. Ellis began publishing articles even before receiving his Ph.D.; in 1946 he wrote a critique of many widely-used pencil-and-paper personality tests. He concluded that only the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory met the standards of a research-based instrument.

Later life

In 2004 Ellis was taken ill with serious intestinal problems, which led to hospitalization and the removal of his large intestine. He returned to work after a few months of being nursed back to health by Debbie Joffe, his assistant, who later became his wife.

In 2005 he was subjected to removal from all his professional duties, and from the board of his own institute after a dispute over the management policies of the institute. Ellis was reinstated to the board in January 2006, after winning civil proceedings against the board members who removed him. On June 6, 2007, lawyers acting for Albert Ellis filed a suit against the Albert Ellis Institute in the Supreme Court of the State of New York. The suit alleges a breach of a long-term contract with the AEI and sought recovery of the 45 East Sixty-fifth Street property through the imposition of a constructive trust.

In April 2006, Ellis was hospitalized with pneumonia, and spent more than a year shuttling between hospital and a rehabilitation facility. He eventually returned to his residence on the top floor of the Albert Ellis Institute. His final work—a textbook on Personality Theory—was completed shortly before his death. It will be posthumously published by Sage Press in early 2008.

Ellis's age and ill health did not prevent him from working and teaching. He once said at 90 years of age:

“I’ll retire when I’m dead, While I’m alive, I want to keep doing what I want to do. See people. Give workshops. Write and preach the gospel according to St. Albert.”

He died on July 24, 2007 from natural causes, aged 93.

Work

After the completion of his doctorate, Ellis sought additional training in psychoanalysis. Like most psychologists of that time, he was interested in the theories of Sigmund Freud.

Shortly after receiving his Ph.D. in 1947, Ellis began a personal analysis and program of supervision with Richard Hulbeck (whose own analyst had been Hermann Rorschach, a leading training analyst at the Karen Horney Institute.) Karen Horney would be the single greatest influence in Ellis' thinking, although the writings of Alfred Adler, Erich Fromm and Harry Stack Sullivan also played a role in shaping his psychological models. Ellis credits Alfred Korzybski and his book, Science and Sanity, for starting him on the philosophical path for founding rational-emotive therapy.

By January 1953, his break with psychoanalysis was complete, and he began calling himself a rational therapist. Ellis was now advocating a new more active and directive type of psychotherapy. By 1955 he dubbed his new approach Rational Therapy (RT). RT required that the therapist help the client understand—and act on the understanding—that his personal philosophy contains beliefs that lead to his own emotional pain. This new approach stressed actively working to change a client's self-defeating beliefs and behaviors by demonstrating their irrationality and rigidity. Ellis related everything to these core irrational beliefs such as "I must be perfect" and "I must be loved by everyone." Ellis believed that through rational analysis, people can understand their errors in light of the core irrational beliefs and then construct a more rational position.

In 1954 Ellis began teaching his new technique to other therapists, and by 1957 he formally set forth the first cognitive behavior therapy by proposing that therapists help people adjust their thinking and behavior as the treatment for neuroses. Two years later Ellis published How to Live with a Neurotic, which elaborated on his new method. In 1960 Ellis presented a paper on his new approach at the American Psychological Association convention in Chicago. There was mild interest, but few recognized that the paradigm set forth would become the zeitgeist within a generation.

At that time the prevailing interest in experimental psychology was behaviorism, while in clinical psychology it was the psychoanalytic schools of notables such as Freud, Jung, Adler, and Perls. Despite the fact that Ellis' approach emphasized cognitive, emotive, and behavioral methods, his strong cognitive emphasis provoked almost everyone with the possible exception of the followers of Alfred Adler. Consequently, he was often received with hostility at professional conferences and in print.

Despite the slow adoption of his approach, Ellis founded his own institute. The Institute for Rational Living was founded as a not-for-profit organization in 1959. By 1968 it was chartered by the New York State Board of Regents as a training institute and psychological clinic. This was no trivial feat as New York State had a Mental Hygiene Act which mandated "psychiatric management" of mental health clinics. Ellis had broken ground by founding an institute purely based on psychological control and principles.

In 1965 Ellis published a book entitled Homosexuality: Its Causes and Cure, which saw homosexuality as a pathology and therefore a condition to be cured. He was writing a decade after the Kinsey Reports, which had found homosexual behavior was relatively common in both men and women. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association declared that homosexuality was no longer a mental disorder and thus not properly subject to cure and in 1976 Ellis repudiated his earlier views in Sex and the Liberated Man, going on to become strongly supportive of the rights of gays, lesbians, and others.

In 2003 Ellis received an award from the Association for Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (UK) for the formulation and development of REBT. At the same time he celebrated his 90th birthday, an event attended by luminaries such as Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama.

In describing his insights that undergird REBT, Albert Ellis said: Humans, unlike just about all the other animals on earth, create fairly sophisticated languages which not only enable them to think about their feeling, and their actions, and the results they get from doing and not doing certain things, but they also are able to think about their thinking and even think about thinking about their thinking. … because of their self-consciousness and their ability to think about their thinking, they can very easily disturb themselves about their disturbances and can also disturb themselves about their ineffective attempts to overcome their emotional disturbances.

Thus, for Ellis thinking is the most powerful force in human life, for good or ill.

Religion

In his book Sex Without Guilt, Ellis expressed the opinion that religious restrictions on sexual expression are needless and often harmful to emotional health. He famously debated religious psychologists, including O. Hobart Mowrer and Allen Bergin, over the proposition that religion contributes to psychological distress. Because of his forthright espousal of a nontheistic humanism, he was recognized in 1971 as Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.

While Ellis’ personal atheism remained consistent, his views about the role of religion in mental health changed over time. In early comments delivered at conventions and at his institute in New York City, Ellis overtly and often with characteristically acerbic sarcasm stated that devout religious beliefs and practices were harmful to mental health. In The Case Against Religiosity, a 1983 pamphlet published by his New York institute, he offered an idiosyncratic definition of religiosity as any devout, dogmatic, demanding belief. He noted that religious codes and religious individuals often manifest religiosity, but added that devout, demanding religiosity is also obvious among many psychoanalysts, communists, and aggressive atheists. He proposed that intolerance of any set of beliefs with which one disagrees is common in organized religion.

Ellis was careful to state that REBT was independent of his atheism, noting that many skilled REBT practitioners are religious, including some who are ordained ministers. While Ellis maintained his stance, proposing that thoughtful, probabilistic atheism is likely the most emotionally healthy approach to life, he acknowledged and agreed with survey evidence suggesting that belief in a loving God is also psychologically healthy. Based on this later approach to religion, he co-authored a book describing principles for integrating religious material and beliefs with REBT during treatment of religious clients, Counseling and Psychotherapy with Religious Persons: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Approach.

Legacy

Ellis founded and was the president and president emeritus of the New York City-based Albert Ellis Institute. In 1985, the American Psychological Association presented Albert Ellis with its award for “distinguished professional contributions.”

"I believe he's a major icon of the twentieth century and that he did help to open up a whole new era of psychotherapy," said Aaron T. Beck, the founder of cognitive therapy.

Based on a 1982 professional survey of U.S. and Canadian psychologists, 25 years before his death, Ellis was voted one of the most influential psychotherapists in history; (Carl Rogers placed first in the survey; Sigmund Freud placed third).

After Ellis' death, Robert O’Connell, Executive Director of Albert Ellis Institute, noted:

We all owe a great debt to Dr. Ellis. His students and clients will remember him for his tremendous insight and dedication as a psychotherapist. His innovations in the field will continue to influence the practice of psychotherapy for decades to come, and the institute he founded will continue to provide outstanding professional education programs and treatment based on the principles of REBT which he originated.

Major works

• The Folklore of Sex. Oxford, England: Charles Boni, 1951.
• The Homosexual in America: A Subjective Approach (introduction). NY: Greenberg, 1951.
• The American Sexual Tragedy. NY: Twayne, 1954.
• Sex Life of the American woman and the Kinsey Report. Oxford, England: Greenberg, 1954.
• The Psychology of Sex Offenders. Springfield, IL: Thomas, 1956.
• How To Live With A Neurotic. Oxford, England: Crown Publishers, 1957.
• Sex Without Guilt. NY: Hillman, 1958.
• The Art and Science of Love. NY: Lyle Stuart, 1960.
• A Guide to Successful Marriage, with Robert A. Harper. North Hollywood, CA: Wilshire Book, 1961.
• Creative Marriage, with Robert A. Harper. NY: Lyle Stuart, 1961.
• The Encyclopedia of Sexual Behavior, edited with Albert Abarbanel. NY: Hawthorn, 1961.
• The American Sexual Tragedy, 2nd ed., rev. NY: Lyle Stuart, 1962.
• Reason and Emotion In Psychotherapy. NY: Lyle Stuart, 1962.
• Sex and the Single Man. NY: Lyle Stuart, 1963.
• If This Be Sexual Heresy. NY: Lyle Stuart, 1963.
• Nymphomania: A Study of the Oversexed Woman, with Edward Sagarin. NY: Gilbert Press, 1964.
• Homosexuality: Its causes and Cures. NY: Lyle Stuart, 1965.
• Is Objectivism a Religion. NY: Lyle Stuart, 1968.
• Murder and Assassination, with John M. Gullo. NY: Lyle Stuart, 1971.
• A Guide to Rational Living.. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1961.
• A New Guide to Rational Livin. Wilshire Book Company, 1975. ISBN 0879800429.
• Anger: How to Live With and Without It. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1977. ISBN 0806509376.
• Handbook of Rational-Emotive Therapy, with Russell Greiger & contributors. NY: Springer Publishing, 1977.
• Overcoming Procrastination: Or How to Think and Act Rationally in Spite of Life's Inevitable Hassles, with William J. Knaus. Institute for Rational Living, 1977. ISBN 0917476042.
• How to Live With a Neurotic. Wilshire Book Company, 1979. ISBN 0879804041.
• Overcoming Resistance: Rational-Emotive Therapy With Difficult Clients. NY: Springer Publishing, 1985. ISBN 0826149103.
• When AA Doesn't Work For You: Rational Steps to Quitting Alcohol, with Emmett Velten. Barricade Books, 1992. ISBN 0942637534.
• The Art and Science of Rational Eating, with Mike Abrams and Lidia Abrams. Barricade Books, 1992. ISBN 0942637607.
• How to Cope with a Fatal Illness. Barricade Books, 1994. ISBN 1569800057.
• Reason and Emotion In Psychotherapy, Revised and Updated. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group, 1994. ISBN 1559722487.
• How to Keep People from Pushing Your Buttons, with Arthur Lange. Citadel Press, 1995. ISBN 0806516704.
• Alcohol: How to Give It Up and Be Glad You Did, with Philip Tate Ph.D. See Sharp Press, 1996. ISBN 1884365108.
• How to Control Your Anger Before It Controls You, with Raymond Chip Tafrate. Citadel Press, 1998. ISBN 0806520108.
• Optimal Aging: Get Over Getting Older, with Emmett Velten. Chicago, Open Court Press, 1998. ISBN 0812693833.
• Making Intimate Connections: Seven Guidelines for Great Relationships and Better Communication, with Ted Crawford. Impact Publishers, 2000. ISBN 1886230331.
• The Secret of Overcoming Verbal Abuse: Getting Off the Emotional Roller Coaster and Regaining Control of Your Life, with Marcia Grad Powers. Wilshire Book Company, 2000. ISBN 0879804459.
• Counseling and Psychotherapy With Religious Persons: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Approach, with Stevan Lars Nielsen and W. Brad Johnson. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. ISBN 0805828788.
• Overcoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and Behaviors: New Directions for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Prometheus Books, 2001. ISBN 1573928798.
• Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better: Profound Self-Help Therapy For Your Emotions. Impact Publishers, 2001. ISBN 1886230358.
• Case Studies In Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy With Children and Adolescents, with Jerry Wilde. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall, 2002. ISBN 0130872814.
• Overcoming Resistance: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Integrated Approach, 2nd ed. NY: Springer Publishing, 2002. ISBN 082614912X.
• Ask Albert Ellis: Straight Answers and Sound Advice from America's Best-Known Psychologist. Impact Publishers, 2003. ISBN 188623051X.
• Sex Without Guilt in the 21st Century. Barricade Books, 2003. ISBN 1569802580.
• Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works For Me—It Can Work For You. Prometheus Books, 2004. ISBN 1591021847.
• The Road to Tolerance: The Philosophy of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Prometheus Books, 2004. ISBN 1591022371.
• The Myth of Self-Esteem. Prometheus Books, 2005. ISBN 1591023548.
• Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Therapist's Guide, 2nd Edition, with Catharine MacLaren. Impact Publishers, 2005. ISBN 1886230617.
• How to Make Yourself Happy and Remarkably Less Disturbable. Impact Publishers, 1999. ISBN 1886230188.
• Theories of Personality, with Mike Abrams, and Lidia Abrams. New York: Sage Press, 1/2008 (in press).
• Rational Emotive Behavioral Approaches to Childhood Disorders · Theory, Practice and Research 2nd Edition. With Michael E. Bernard (Eds.). Springer, 2006. ISBN 9780387263748
• Ellis, Albert, Mike Abrams, and Lidia Abrams. Theories of Personality. New York, NY: Sage Press, 2008.
• Ellis, Albert. Overcoming Resistance: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Integrated Approach. NY: Springer Publishing, 2002. ISBN 082614912X.
• Ellis, Albert. The Albert Ellis reader: a guide to well-being using rational emotive behavior therapy. Secaucus, NJ.: Carol Pub. Group, 1998. ISBN 9780806520322.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Bernard, Michael E. 1991. Staying Rational in an Irrational World: Albert Ellis and Rational Emotive Therapy. Carol Publishing Corp. ISBN 0818405597
• Velten, Emmett. 2007. Albert Ellis: American Revolutionary. Tucson, AZ: Sharp Press. ISBN 9781884365416
• Velten, Emmett. 2007. Under the Influence: Reflections of Albert Ellis in the Work of Others. Tucson, AZ: Sharp Press. ISBN 9781884365379

External links

All links retrieved June 17, 2023.

• The Albert Ellis Institute for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (New York City)
• The REBT Network—Albert Ellis and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
• Albert Ellis Information Site

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