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Albert Ellis

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Albert Ellis
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Albert Ellis

Albert Ellis (born September 27, 1913) is an American cognitive-behavioral therapist who in 1955 developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, an approach to psychotherapy holding that inappropriate negative emotions arise not from events themselves, but rather from people's irrational interpretations of these events (the ABC theory of emotions). Ellis founded and recently functioned as the president emeritus of the New York City-based Albert Ellis Institute until its board removed him from all official functions in September 2005. Ellis currently works independently of his former institute while endeavoring to regain his position.

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Early life

Ellis was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was the eldest of three children, with a brother two years younger and a sister who was four years younger. Ellis's father was a businessman who experienced minimal success at a succession of business ventures; he showed only a modicum of affection to his children and was often away from home on business trips during their early childhood. In his autobiography, Ellis characterized his mother as a self-absorbed woman with a bipolar disorder affect. 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 typically was sleeping when he left for school and was usually not at 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 Columbia University, which trained psychologists mostly in psychoanalysis.

He completed his Master of Arts in clinical psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University in June 1943, and started a part-time private practice while still working on his Ph.D degree–possible 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 that ultimately were not valid. He concluded that only the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory met the standards of a research-based instrument.

Development of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)

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's 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.

Deeply influenced by his experience, reading, and unscientific nature of psychoanalysis by January of 1953 his break with psychoanalysis was complete and he commenced 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) and it 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 his client’s self-defeating beliefs and behaviors by demonstrating their irrationality and rigidity. The next year Ellis began teaching his new technique to other therapists and by 1957 he formally set forth the first cognitive behavioral psychotherapy by proposing that therapists help people adjust their thinking and behavior as the treatment for neuroses. Two years later Ellis published the book How to Live with a Neurotic which elaborated on his new method. The next year 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 that in a generation would become the zeitgeist had been set forth. Recall, that at that time the prevailing interest in experimental psychological was behaviorism and 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. Interestingly, on several occasions, at symposia at APA conventions, Fritz Perls the founder of Gestalt therapy would refer sarcastically to Ellis’ "rationality," while completely ignoring the experiential and behavioral components of RET.

Despite the slow adoption of his approach, Ellis founded his own institute. The Institute for Rational Living was founded 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. Ellis claims in several of his published books that the work of popular self-help personalities Wayne Dyer is based largely on Rebt. In 2003 was given an award by the Association for Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (UK) for the formulation and development of REBT. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Association.

Currently, Ellis is trying to remain active at his institute at age 92. Despite a dispute with the board of his own institute that has functionally limited his ability to provide services, he continues to write and is completing his first college text book with co-authors Dr. Mike Abrams and Dr. Lidia Abrams. He also is being assisted in his campaign for reinstatement by Jim Byrne at [ABC Coaching and Counselling Services], in Hebden Bridge, UK. In recognition of the fact that his institute now places less emphasis on REBT, supporters of Dr. Ellis established the Albert Ellis Foundation in June, 2006, to promote Ellis's work.

Published works

"Sex and the Single Man"; Lyle Stuart, Inc. 1963 - 63-13723

Reference

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