NEW YORK - He came to psychology almost by happenstance, after friends began turning to him for guidance. But Albert Ellis would become one of the most important figures in modern psychology, once ranked by his peers as more influential than Sigmund Freud.
Ellis, who helped establish cognitive behavior therapy, died Tuesday from kidney and heart failure after a long illness, said his wife, Debbie Joffe Ellis. He was 93.
"He helped countless people, and a large number of people he helped now help other people," his wife said. "And in that, there's no question that he has influenced the world in an intensely positive way. In this crazy, violent world, he was a compass for truth."
In the 1950s, Ellis invented what he called rational emotive behavior therapy, or R.E.B.T., which stresses that patients can improve their lives by taking control of self-defeating thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
I'm a latecomer to the Ellis approach to problem solving, and when I read about him in this post by Dr. Helen, I decided to order the book she mentioned:
learn to not only accept rejection, but to welcome it, it seems that it is the only way to overcome the irrational belief that the world owes you. It doesn't. Of course, one should fight injustice, but the irrational belief that the world should be nice to you just because you are you is a sure way to end up disappointed about life.
If you would like to try some of Ellis's techniques to reduce anxiety and gain a sense of mastery over your social reactions, try reading How to Make Yourself Happy and Remarkably Less Disturbable. At 93, his advice is still ahead of its time.
And now that he's dead, it still is, and I suspect it long will be.
Ellis's REBT cuts through the usual crap, and I say this as someone who is familiar with conventional psychotherapy. It's based on simply looking at your behavior logically. A sort of "Exactly why I am I feeling this way?" approach, which usually results in the realization that I am making myself feel this way.
After receiving a doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University, Ellis started a private practice specializing in sex and marriage therapy. R.E.B.T. grew out of his own experiences and the teachings of Greek, Roman and modern philosophers.
While Freud's school focused intensely on childhood and the unconscious to explain the source of neuroses, Ellis' brand of talk therapy asked patients to take immediate action to confront irrational thoughts.
And why not? If a thought is irrational, and you are having it, and if examining the irrational process helps alleviate the emotional distress caused by your own irrationality, then by learning how to be less irrational is the road to self improvement.
This is an easy process to understand, but as in most things, the devil is in the details. If you've been doing something irrational all your life, and it's become pervasive, there's no single switch to flip that will transform yourself into perfection. REBT is a constant process, a bit like exercise. Just having the knowledge that it's there -- and as available as my ability to remember it and exercise it -- is a wonderful tool, and I'll always be grateful to Dr. Ellis for having the balls to defy his profession and make something like this available to the general public.
The obit describes him as "salty" and "irreverent." Music to my ears!
His work, along with that of others including Dr. Aaron Beck, is considered the foundation of cognitive behavior therapy. Ellis was also known for his irreverent lecture style and salty language.
Early in his career, Ellis drew criticism from some in the psychological and psychiatric establishment for his critical views about Freud and psychoanalysis.
"There is virtually nothing in which I delight more," he said, "than throwing myself into a good and difficult problem."
I think life is a good and difficult problem. Especially the quest to avoid being made miserable by irrationality. If you spend a lot of time thinking that about how everything sucks and how awful you feel, check out one of his innumerable books. He wrote a ton of stuff, by the way:
Ellis initially tried writing fiction, and when he couldn't get anything published he turned exclusively to nonfiction, promoting what he called the "sex revolution."
In the late 1930s, as he collected material to make a case for "sexual liberty," his friends began regarding him as an expert on the subject. They often asked for advice, and Ellis discovered that he liked counseling.
I guess the concerned communitarians for social and moral justice would call him a "hedonist" for that.
And I'm sure some of the religious communitarian scolds would enjoy calling him an atheist, too -- for he admitted to being a "probabilistic atheist." Hey, so what? I'm a probabilistic deist! What he thought about the unknown is not the point, and really no one's business but his own. The point is, he helped a lot of people, including me.
REST IN PEACE.
UPDATE: Dr. Helen has lots more, and Glenn Reynolds (observing that we could use more of the "Make Yourself Happy and Remarkably Less Disturbable" approach in the blogosphere) links Ann Althouse's further thoughts which prompted Ann Althouse to link her even further thoughts here. Thinking further back, I linked the same further thoughts by Ann Althouse post in an earlier post in which I attempted to tackle the ticklish "sociopath" issue which Ann Althouse had raised. I'm not a psychologist, but I had to weigh in, as I'd recently been called a "sociopath" by Amanda Marcotte, and I was intrigued by the debate:
The Marcotte diagnosis is here. Should I care more? Or should I care less? Am I supposed to care about whether I should care, or am I a sociopath for posing these questions?
I'm wondering about the "Althouse principle" (I'm using the term loosely) that the more you're insulted, the more sociopathic you become. Might we be confusing a personality that has developed hardened calluses with a personality that was uncaring to begin with?
I'm not a psychologist. All I can do is look at Wikipedia. I'm not qualified to psychoanalyze myself, but I don't think I have enough of the traits to fit the diagnosis. (For starters, I'm too much of a damned bleeding heart, and I really can't stand to hurt people. I hope that doesn't mean I should develop a thicker skin so I can run for president or something....)
I'll stick my neck out right now with a further thought -- and opine that being called a sociopath by Amanda Marcotte was probably good for my mental health.
I think Dr. Ellis might even agree.
Seriously, REBT is good stuff (even if I'm a beginner and need lots of practice).
posted by Eric on 07.25.07 at 08:09 AM
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It is with some trepidation that I post on this oblique obituary for Albert Ellis.
That he was a renowned psychologist is without dispute. He certainly left behind a wealth of self-help books.
I've never read a one of those.
So what possible thing could I contribute to this article, one might ask?
I believe his reaction to a debate he had with Nathaniel Branden back in 1967 that resulted in his book, "Is Objectivism a Religion?" published a year later in 1968, raises so many questions about his own psychological health, that anyone seriously seeking his advice should think again.
That debate apparently was so traumatizing for him - the boos and hisses from the Ayn Rand fans in the audience - that he actually wrote a book trashing Rand's philosophy by comparing it to a religion.
Of course he was an atheist, as was Rand. But in the process of writing the book, he went out of his way to purposely misrepresent her ideas.
She was very particular in defining the meaning of words she used. And often SHE redefined words, such as altruism, to mean something almost opposite the accepted meaning.
Ellis knew this. Yet he used accepted definitions to paint a contradictory view of her ideas. He was so hell bent on getting back at her, her heir apparent at the time, Nathaniel Branden, and her raucous admirers, that he actually wrote a book over one lost debate.
How sad.
No matter how much good advice may be in his writings, I would step back a little and look at the weakness of a man who spent a year writing a book because of an injured ego, and yet advised others to ignore the very thing he couldn't stand - the condemnation of society.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
It is with some trepidation that I post on this oblique obituary for Albert Ellis.
That he was a renowned psychologist is without dispute. He certainly left behind a wealth of self-help books.
I've never read a one of those.
So what possible thing could I contribute to this article, one might ask?
I believe his reaction to a debate he had with Nathaniel Branden back in 1967 that resulted in his book, "Is Objectivism a Religion?" published a year later in 1968, raises so many questions about his own psychological health, that anyone seriously seeking his advice should think again.
That debate apparently was so traumatizing for him - the boos and hisses from the Ayn Rand fans in the audience - that he actually wrote a book trashing Rand's philosophy by comparing it to a religion.
Of course he was an atheist, as was Rand. But in the process of writing the book, he went out of his way to purposely misrepresent her ideas.
She was very particular in defining the meaning of words she used. And often SHE redefined words, such as altruism, to mean something almost opposite the accepted meaning.
Ellis knew this. Yet he used accepted definitions to paint a contradictory view of her ideas. He was so hell bent on getting back at her, her heir apparent at the time, Nathaniel Branden, and her raucous admirers, that he actually wrote a book over one lost debate.
How sad.
No matter how much good advice may be in his writings, I would step back a little and look at the weakness of a man who spent a year writing a book because of an injured ego, and yet advised others to ignore the very thing he couldn't stand - the condemnation of society.