Albert Ellis
Albert Ellis
Albert Elliswas an American psychologist who in 1955 developed rational emotive behavior therapy. He held M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University and American Board of Professional Psychology. He also founded and was the President of the New York City-based Albert Ellis Institute for decades. He is generally considered to be one of the originators of the cognitive revolutionary paradigm shift in psychotherapy and the founder of cognitive-behavioral therapies. Based on a 1982 professional survey of USA...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth27 September 1913
CountryUnited States of America
Albert Ellis quotes about
I wrote several articles criticizing psychoanalysis, but the analysts weren't listening to my objections. So I finally quit after practicing it for six years.
I'm very happy. I like my work and the various aspects of it - going around the world, teaching the gospel according to St. Albert.
This, perhaps, goes to show that conditional self-esteem, as I have said for many years, is an insidious, real sickness, so much so that even Buddhists carelessly sneak it in and sometimes encourage their clients to achieve it.
Is self-esteem a sickness? That's according to the way you define it. In the usual way it is defined by people and by psychologists, I'd say that it is probably the greatest emotional disturbance known to man and woman.
People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. They always have the power to think, and to think about their thinking, and to think about thinking about their thinking, which the goddamn dolphin, as far as we know, can't do. Therefore they have much greater ability to change themselves than any other animal has, and I hope that REBT teaches them how to do it.
Attempts to help humans eliminate all self-ratings and views self-esteem as a self-defeating concept that encourages them to make conditional evaluations of self. Instead, it teaches people unconditional self-acceptance.
So I'd better stop my whining and help myself cope better with even the worst Adversities.
Religious fanaticism has clearly produced, and in all probability will continue to produce, enormous amounts of bickering, fighting, violence, bloodshed, homicide, feuds, wars, and genocide.
I would have liked having children to some degree, but frankly I haven't got the time to take the kids to the goddamn ballgame.
And just as two wrongs don't make a right, rage against offenders is probably the worst way to try to correct them.
Let's suppose somebody abused you sexually. You still had a choice, though not a good one, about what to tell yourself about the abuse.
I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair; that's the human condition.
If I had been a member of the academic establishment, I could have done other experiments.
People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness.