Albert Ellis: Biography Of The Creator Of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy
Albert Ellis is one of the most influential and well-known psychologists in the world of clinical psychology, especially due to the fact that he is the author or developer of what is known as Rational Emotive Therapy But although this is his best-known contribution, in reality his work was much more prolific, including various works referring to sexuality, religion or the practice of psychological therapy in general.
Ellis’ contributions and research were and continue to be highly relevant within the practice of psychology, with a particular approach that has served as inspiration for many other models.
Knowing the life of this author can be of great interest both for those who are dedicated to clinical psychology and for those who are interested in knowing one of the most prominent figures in this field, which is why throughout this article Let’s see a slight biography of Albert Ellis
Albert Ellis was born on September 27, 1913 in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, being the firstborn of three brothers born to a couple of Jewish origin. His relationship with his parents was cold and distant, with his father being an unsuccessful businessman who spent very little time at home and his mother being someone cold and distant with possible bipolar disorder.
Ellis himself believed that in his childhood he and his siblings had been neglected by their parents, leaving him to take care of his younger siblings. Although initially this situation causes him great pain, over time he learned to feel indifferent towards said situation. The family economy was precarious, especially during the Great Depression something that forced minors to work to survive.
Ellis’s health was delicate since childhood, suffering from kidney problems from the age of five that required hospitalization, in addition to severe infections that caused him to spend up to seven years regularly visiting hospitals This seriously affected his socialization, since he could not participate in intense games.
Academic training and start in the world of work
After completing his basic training, Ellis He enrolled at New York University to study economics and commerce specifically studying Business Administration in 1934. After that he would begin to practice as such and work alongside his younger brother to open a business making patches and trims for pants.
In his memoirs, Ellis relates that throughout his life he was afraid of coming into contact with women, something that made him decide at nineteen to start trying to force himself to talk to anyone he found sitting on the benches at the Bronx Botanical Garden, with the end to overcome your fear.
In 1936 he met the actress Karyl Corper, with whom he had a stormy but intense relationship that would culminate in a wedding. However, in 1938 and a year after her wedding, the couple would request an annulment, although they would maintain a good relationship and the author would even donate his sperm to have children.
He would be appointed personnel director in 1938 in a well-known company, while he used his free time to write works of various literary and theatrical genres. Although he had a large number of works, he did not get them published, so he decided to deviate into academics.
Beginning of interest in psychology and sexuality
At that time he also began to show interest in love, eroticism and sexuality, writing various articles and even a book titled The Case for Promiscuity which, however, would not be published.
All of this ended up leading him to become interested in sexology and clinical psychology This interest, which was increased thanks to the works of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalytic theory, caused him to enroll in the Teachers College of Columbia University. There he would graduate in 1943, and then begin working in private practice.
Later he would do a doctorate in Clinical Psychology Although he initially wanted his thesis to deal with the topic of love in university students, he finally had to change it due to the censorship and controversy generated.
Instead, he conducted it on personality questionnaires, which he harshly criticized and indicated that for him only the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory was valid on a scientific level. He completed his doctorate in 1947, while living and continuing clinical practice in his Bronx apartment. He tried to work as a psychology professor, but at that time in his life he was not accepted. He also participated in Kinsey’s experiments and research regarding human sexuality.
Its relationship with psychoanalysis
Throughout his training Ellis acquired a great admiration for psychoanalysis, which led him to analyze himself with Richard Hülsenbeck for several years and to train at the Karen Horney Institute. In it he also discovered a concept that would later prove useful in the development of his own therapy: owes. Likewise, his career was ascending: he was contacted by Rutgers University and New York University to teach in the late forties, and little by little he achieved the position of head of clinical psychology at New Jersey Diagnostic Center.
However, the little effectiveness that the method seemed to have on his patients with psychoanalysis and the influence of authors who had split from said branch to generate their own school (such as Adler, Horney or Sullivan) ended up making him change towards a somewhat further away from this vision and focused on brief therapy. In fact, in 1953 he abandoned psychoanalysis and began to investigate and develop his own, more directive theory.
Rational emotive therapy
In his clinic, Ellis began to apply more active and direct techniques when treating his patients, which improved more than before other types of approaches. It would be in 1955 when Ellis would completely leave psychoanalysis to try to focus on changing people’s poorly adaptive ideas and build more rational alternatives.
He would begin rational emotive behavioral therapy, initially called rational therapy in 1955, and would begin to show his theory at the American Psychological Association. The fact that it focused on cognition and beliefs (in a fundamentally psychoanalytic era) meant that it was generally little valued at an academic level in its beginnings. His theory indicates that our behavior is determined by the presence of an activating event that generates an emotional reaction based on the prior activation of a belief system. Thus, the cause of the behavior or emotion is not the event itself but the belief system that it awakens.
In 1956 with the dancer Rhoda Winter Russell, a union that ended in divorce a few years later. His first major publication, in which he explained his vision and therapy, appeared in 1959 under the title How to live with a neurotic. That same year he founded the Albert Ellis Institute, in a building in Manhattan that he would compare in 1965. In addition to his original therapy, Ellis also developed a series of Friday night workshops that would become a great source of satisfaction for he.
His interest in sexuality and his contact with Kinsey continued over the years, such that he would also publish different books on the subject, among which “Sex Without Guilt” stands out. He also initially considered homosexuality a pathology, but over the years this view was modified and he began to consider it a sexual orientation.
He also participated and collaborated with professionals such as Aaron Beck on aspects such as beliefs and cognition. The rise of the cognitive-behavioral current propelled his career Upon receiving your theory greater support, and over time he changed the name of his therapy to the current rational emotive therapy. Likewise, he worked on aspects such as integrity and religion for the next two decades, and founded the “School of Life” for children in 1970.
He lived as a couple with Janet Wolfe between 1965 and 2002, at which time she decided to end their relationship. After this breakup and with the passage of time, he began a relationship with the psychologist Debbie Joffe with whom he married in 2004. Throughout his life he has been considered, along with Rogers and Freud, as one of the most influential figures in the field of psychology, in addition to having received multiple distinctions at a professional level.
Last years and death
Despite his great prestige, this did not prevent him from having to face various difficulties in his final years. Among them stands out the attempt by the board of directors of the Institute to cease his participation in the board and his professional practice within the same center (the directors maintaining that the author had a confrontational, eccentric and wasteful style that put the goodwill at risk. operation of the institute), although in 2006 the Supreme Court made the decision to reinstate him on the board of directors of the Institute that bore his name.
During the spring of that same 2006 Ellis had to be admitted to the hospital for pneumonia, a hospitalization that would last up to fourteen months (during which, despite this, he continued writing and giving interviews). After more than a year of hospitalization, Albert Ellis asked to be taken to his house, above the Albert Ellis Institute. His death occurred on July 24, 2007, in the arms of his wife, due to heart and kidney failure.
The legacy of Albert Ellis is immense: his rational emotive therapy, in addition to being still used today, can be considered a precursor to the great cognitive-behavioral developments. He also appears linked to a large number of professionals with whom he maintained contact and with whom he contributed to multiple studies.
