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Dr Albert Ellis - the father of psychotherapy

By Gayle Rosellini - posted Monday, 6 August 2007


Dr Albert Ellis, the controversial psychologist who revolutionised the field of psychology when he created Rational Emotive Therapy in 1955, died at home on July 24, 2007. His wife, Debbie Joffe was with him. He was 93 and had been seriously ill for more than a year. Dr Ellis was born in Pittsburgh on September 27, 1913, and was raised in New York City. He received his MA (1943) and PhD (1947) degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University. He practiced psychotherapy, marriage and family counselling and sex therapy for over 60 years. He was the founder of Rational Emotive Therapy, the first of the now-popular cognitive therapies. In later years, he called his creation Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, REBT.

Recognising the slowness and frequent ineffectiveness of Freudian psychoanalysis, Albert Ellis broke away from it in January 1953, calling himself a rational therapist. He presented REBT to the psychological community in 1955, starting a revolutionary paradigm shift in the way psychology thought about human problems and changing the way psychotherapy is practiced around the world.

REBT is a comprehensive approach to psychological issues and problems that deals with the emotional and behavioural aspects of human disturbance, and places emphasis on how people think. REBT reminds people that they control their own emotional destiny according to whether they think in healthy, rational ways or unhealthy, irrational ways. It teaches people how to forcefully analyse and change their self-defeating thoughts and behaviours. A major aspect of REBT is unconditional acceptance of self, others and life.

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His influence extended into areas other than psychology, including education, politics, business and philosophy. He wrote extensively on the problems the world currently faces, such as terrorism and nuclear weapons.

Dr Ellis received the highest awards from professional societies, including recently the New York State Psychological Association's Lifetime Distinguished Service Award. In a 1982 survey, American and Canadian psychologists rated Albert Ellis as having more influence on psychology than Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung or B.F. Skinner. Psychology Today called him The Prince of Reason. The New Yorker magazine reported that in the off-Broadway play Trumbo, Dr Ellis was called "the greatest humanitarian since Gandhi".

Until he fell ill at the age of 92 in May 2006, Dr Ellis typically worked at least 16 hours-a-day, writing books in longhand on legal tablets, visiting with clients and teaching. Even while seriously ill, he continued to see students at the rehabilitation centre where he was recuperating. He even taught from his hospital bed, giving his last two-hour workshop to a group of students from Belgium who visited his hospital room on March 29. In addition to pneumonia, he had a heart attack that morning, but he refused to cancel the meeting.

In his later years, Dr Ellis also worked despite profound hearing loss. He was assisted in his work by his wife, Australian psychologist Debbie Joffe. She facilitated his workshops, contributing pertinent points in response to audience questions. Their outstanding rapport helped showcase Dr Ellis' famous and at-times irreverent humour, as together they taught the principles of REBT to large and small groups.

Humour was an important part of his philosophy and he applied it to his own life challenges, using himself as an example to teach people how to deal with serious adversities. He was also a writer of his unique rational humourous songs. He had said that if he was not a psychologist he would have enjoyed being a composer.

Dr Ellis was also as one of the founders of the American sexual revolution. His ground-breaking 1958 book, Sex Without Guilt, created a national discussion leading to a change in the way people think about sexual experience. He wrote more than 75 books, 200 audio tapes and 1,200 articles. His autobiography will be published posthumously by Prometheus Press. Other books, including one on REBT and Buddhism, also await publication.

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He held many important positions in the field of psychology, including chief psychologist of the state of New Jersey and adjunct professor at Rutgers and other universities. He had been the president of the Division of Consulting Psychology of the American Psychological Association and president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and several other professional boards.

In 1971, the American Humanist Association named Albert Ellis the Humanist of the Year.

In relation to religion and God, Albert Ellis called himself a "probabilistic atheist", meaning that although we can have no certainty, we have an exceptionally high degree of probability that God does not exist. He thought the probability of the existence of God was so small that it did not deserve his attention. However, Ellis made it clear that REBT is independent of his probabilistic atheism. Many people considered him spiritual for his tireless contributions to others. In later years, he wrote and spoke about similarities between REBT and aspects of Buddhism, with both philosophies teaching unconditional acceptance of life.

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This article was written with the help of Debbie Joffe Ellis. Mr Will Ross and Dr Sanjay Singh also kindly provided information. The REBT website was created at Dr Ellis' request and it is the only official source of information on Dr Ellis, his memorial service, archives and last wishes.



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About the Author

Gayle Rosellini is a friend and supporter of Dr Albert Ellis and Debbie Joffe Ellis. The offical Albert Ellis website can be found here.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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