Who is albert ellis biography

At that time, the prevailing interest in experimental psychology was behaviorismwhile in clinical psychology it was the psychoanalytic schools of notables such as Freud, JungAdler, and Perls. Despite the fact that Ellis' approach emphasized cognitive, emotive, and behavioral methods, his strong cognitive emphasis provoked the psychotherapeutic establishment with the possible exception of the followers of Adler.

Consequently, he was often received with significant hostility at professional conferences and in print. His own therapeutical style was famed for often being delivered in a rough, confrontational style; however, it should not be confused with his rational-emotive and cognitive-behavioral therapy school that is practiced by his students and followers in a large variety of therapeutic styles e.

Despite the relative slow adoption of his approach in the beginning, Ellis founded his own institute.

Who is albert ellis biography: Albert Ellis (September 27,

The Institute for Rational Living was founded as a non-profit organization in Byit was chartered by the New York State Board of Regents as a training institute and psychological clinic. Work as sexologist and sex and love researcher [ edit ] By the s, Ellis had come to be seen as one of the founders of the American sexual revolution. Especially in his earlier career, he was well known for his work as a sexologist and for his liberal humanisticand in some camps controversial [20] opinions on human sexuality.

He also worked with noted zoologist and sex researcher Alfred Kinsey and explored in a number of books and articles the topic of human sexuality and love. Karen Horney would be the single greatest influence in Ellis' thinking, although the writings of Alfred AdlerErich 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 Januaryhis 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 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.

Who is albert ellis biography: Ellis was born in

In Ellis began teaching his new technique to other therapists, and by 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 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 behaviorismwhile in clinical psychology it was the psychoanalytic schools of notables such as FreudJungAdlerand 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. The Institute for Rational Living was founded as a not-for-profit organization in By 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 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 the American Psychiatric Association declared that whom is albert ellis biography was no longer a mental disorder and thus not properly subject to cure and in Ellis repudiated his earlier views in Sex and the Liberated Man, going on to become strongly supportive of the rights of gays, lesbiansand others. 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.

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 psychologistsincluding O. Hobart Mowrer and Allen Bergin, over the proposition that religion contributes to psychological distress. Because of his forthright espousal of a nontheistic humanismhe was recognized in as Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association.

In early comments delivered at conventions and at his institute in New York CityEllis 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 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 psychoanalystscommunistsand 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.

In one instance, he even bought an alarm clock using his own money. He used the clock to wake and dress his younger siblings. At the time of the Great Depression, all the children in the family decided to look for work to help the family financially. At an early age, Albert was hospitalized with kidney disease and it is said that he had eight hospitalizations between the ages of five and seven years old.

As an adolescent, Albert was extremely shy around ladies. At age 19, he started showing signs of thinking like a cognitive-behavioral therapist by forcing himself to talk to about women in the Bronx Botanical Gardens within a period of one month. This helped him get rid of his fear of rejection by women.

Who is albert ellis biography: Albert Ellis was an influential

After this, he started a short career in business and later turned to writing. InAlbert started studying for his Ph. Albert Ellis started publishing articles before he even received Ph. Where did this theory come from? Ellis was an American psychologist and considered to be one of the originators of the cognitive revolutionary shift in psychotherapy, and an early proponent and developer of cognitive-behavioral therapies.

You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny. It might seem easy to blame another for how you feel, but ultimately it is we who maintain our emotional states.