Albert Ellis: biography of the creator of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy

This is one of the most important American psychologists in the history of the 20th century.

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 the so-called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. the author or developer of what is known as Rational Emotive Therapy (R.E.T.).. But although this is his best known contribution, in reality his work was much more prolific, including various works on 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 engaged in clinical psychology and for those who are interested in knowing one of the most prominent figures in the field, which is why throughout this article we are going to see a brief biography of Albert Ellis..

A brief biography of Albert Ellis

Albert Ellis was born on September 27, 1913 in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, being the firstborn of three children.being the first-born of three brothers born to a couple of Jewish origin. His relationship with his parents was cold and distant, being his father a businessman of little success who spent very little time at home and his mother someone cold and distant with a possible bipolar disorder.

Ellis himself considered that in his childhood he and his siblings had been neglected by their parents, and he had to take care of his younger siblings. Although initially this situation caused him great pain, with time he learned to feel indifference towards this situation. The family economy was precarious and especially in the time of the Great Depression, something that forced the younger siblings to take care of their younger siblings.The family economy was precarious, which forced the children to work in order to survive.

Ellis's health was delicate since childhood, suffering from kidney problems since he was five years old, which required hospitalization, in addition to severe infections that made him spend severe infections that caused him to spend until he was seven years old visiting hospitals regularly.. This severely affected her socialization, as she was unable to participate in intense play.

Academic training and entry into the world of work

After completing his basic education, Ellis enrolled at New York University to study in the field of economics and commerce, specifically in Business Administration in 1934.specifically studying Business Administration in 1934. After that, he began to work as a businessman and to work with his younger brother in opening a business of patches and patches for pants.

In his memoirs Ellis relates that throughout his life he was afraid to come into contact with women, something that made him decide at the age of nineteen to start trying to force himself to talk to anyone he found sitting on the benches of the Bronx Botanical Garden, in order to overcome his fear.

In 1936 she met the actress Karyl Corperwith whom he had a stormy but intense relationship that would culminate in marriage. However, in 1938 and a year after their wedding the couple would ask for an annulment, although they would maintain a good relationship and the author would even donate his sperm to her to have children.

He was 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 wrote a large number of works, he did not manage to get them published, so he decided to turn to academia.

Beginning of interest in psychology and sexuality

At that time he also began to show interest in love, eroticism and sexuality, writing several articles and even a book titled The Case for Promiscuity which, however, was never published.

All this eventually led him to become interested in sexology and clinical psychology.. This interest, which grew thanks to the works of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalytic theory, led him to enroll in the Teachers College at Columbia University. There he graduated in 1943, and then began to work in private practice.

He would later pursue a doctorate in Clinical Psychology.. Although he initially wanted his thesis to deal with the subject of love in university students, he finally had to change it due to the censorship and controversy generated.

Instead, he did it on personality questionnaires, which he criticized harshly and indicated that for him only the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory was scientifically valid. He finished his doctorate in 1947, while living and continuing his clinical practice in his apartment in the Bronx. He tried to work as a professor of psychology, but at that time in his life he was not accepted. He also participated in Kinsey's experiments and research regarding human sexuality.

His relationship with psychoanalysis

Throughout his training Ellis acquired a great admiration for psychoanalysis. acquired a great admiration for psychoanalysis.This led him to analyze with Richard Hülsenbeck for several years and to train at Karen Horney's Institute. There he also discovered a concept that would later prove useful in the development of his own therapy: the debos. His career was also on the rise: he was contacted by Rutgers University and New York University to teach at the end of the forties, and he gradually achieved the position of head of clinical psychology at the 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 that branch to generate their own school (such as Adler, Horney or Sullivan) ended up making him change towards a position somewhat more distant from that vision and focused on brief therapy. In fact, in 1953 he abandoned psychoanalysis and began to investigate and elaborate his own, more directive theory.

Rational Emotive Therapy

In his clinic, Ellis began to apply more active and direct techniques when treating his patients, who improved more than with other approaches.The patients improved more than with 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 start 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 in its early days it was generally underappreciated at the academic level. His theory indicates that our behavior is determined by the presence of an activating event which generates an emotional reaction based on the previous activation of a belief system. Thus, the cause of the behavior or emotion is not the event itself but the belief system it arouses.

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 would explain 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 him.

His interest in sex and his contact with Kinsey continued over the years, so much so that he would also publish several books on the subject, including "Sex Without Guilt". He also initially considered homosexuality a pathology, but over the years this view was modified and came to consider it a sexual orientation.

He also participated and collaborated with professionals such as Aaron Beck in aspects such as beliefs and cognition. The rise of the cognitive-behavioral trend boosted his career and over time he changed the name of his therapy to the current Rational Emotive Therapy. He also 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, when she decided to end their relationship. After this breakup and with the passage of time he would begin a relationship with psychologist Debbie Joffewith 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 the professional level.

Last years and death

Despite his great prestige, this did not prevent him from facing several difficulties during his last years. Among them was the attempt by the board of directors of the Institute to terminate his participation in the board and his professional practice within the same center (the directors argued that the author had a confrontational, eccentric and wasteful style that jeopardized the proper functioning of the institute), although in 2006 the Supreme Court decided to reinstate him in the board of directors of the Institute that bore his name.

During the spring of 2006 Ellis had to be admitted to the hospital for pneumonia, a hospitalization that would last up to fourteen months (during which time he continued to write and give interviews).This hospitalization would last up to fourteen months (during which time he continued to write and give interviews). After more than a year of hospitalization, Albert Ellis asked to be taken to his home, on top of 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, besides still being used today, can be considered a precursor of 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 in multiple studies.

Bibliographical references:

• Chávez, A.L. (2015). Albert Ellis (1913-2007): The life and work of a cognitive therapist. Rev.PSicol, 5 (1): 137-146. Universidad Católica de San Pablo.
• Ellis, A. (2010) All out: an autobiography. USA: Prometheus Books.
• Lega, L & Velten, E. (2007). Albert Ellis: An authorized biography. New York: Insight Media.