Albert Ellis: biography of the creator of the TREC

Albert Ellis is one of the most influential and well-known psychologists within the world of clinical psychology, especially due to the fact that he is the author or developer of the so-called Rational Emotive Therapy. But although this is his best-known contribution, his work was actually much more prolific, including various works referring to sexuality, religion or the practice of psychological therapy in general.

Ellis's contributions and research were and continue to be highly relevant within the practice of psychology, with a particular approach that has inspired many others Models.

Knowing the life of this author can be of great interest both for those who dedicate themselves to clinical psychology and for those who are interested in meeting one of the most prominent figures in this field, which is why throughout this Article let's see a slight biography of Albert Ellis.

• Related article: "History of Psychology: main authors and theories"

A short biography of Albert Ellis

Albert ellis

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

Ellis himself considered that in his childhood he and his siblings had been neglected by his parents, and he had to take care of his younger siblings. Although initially this situation causes him great pain, over time he learned to feel indifferent towards this situation. The family economy was precarious and especially at the time of the Great Depression, something that forced the minors to work to survive ..

Ellis's health was delicate since childhood, suffering from kidney problems that required hospitalization, in addition to severe infections that caused him to spend up to seven years visiting hospitals regularly. This seriously affected his socialization, since he could not participate in intense games.

Academic training and beginning 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 began to practice as such and work with his younger brother in opening a business of patches and auctions for pants.

In his memoir, Ellis relates that throughout his life he was afraid of coming into contact with women, something that made him decide at the age of nineteen. 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 he met actress Karyl Corper, with which he had a stormy but intense relationship that would culminate in a wedding. However, in 1938 and a year after their wedding, the couple would ask for the annulment, although they would maintain a good relationship and even the author would donate his sperm to have children.

He would be appointed director of personnel in 1938 in a well-known company, while he used his spare time to write works of various literary and theatrical genres. Although he came to have a large number of works, he did not get them published, so he decided to deviate to the academic.

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 entitled The Case for Promiscuity that nevertheless it would not get to be published.

All this ended up leading him to be 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 College of Professors at Columbia University. There he would graduate in 1943, to then start working in private practice.

Later he would do a doctorate in Clinical Psychology. Although initially he 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 conducted it on the personality questionnaires, which he harshly criticized and would indicate that for him only the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory was valid at the scientific. He completed his Ph.D. in 1947, while living and practicing in his apartment in the Bronx. He tried to work as a professor of psychology, but in those moments of his life he was not accepted. He also participated in Kinsey's experiments and research regarding human sexuality.

His relationship with psychoanalysis

Throughout the training of him Ellis he 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: the debos. Likewise, his career was ascending: he was contacted by Rutgers University and New York University to give He took classes in the late 1940s, and gradually rose to the position of chief of clinical psychology at the New Jersey Diagnostic Center.

However, the little effectiveness that the method seemed to have in their patients with psychoanalysis and the influence of authors who had split from this branch to generating his own school (like Adler, Horney or Sullivan) ended up making him shift towards a position somewhat further away from that vision and focused on therapy brief. In fact in 1953 he abandoned psychoanalysis and began to investigate and elaborate his own theory, more directive.

Rational Emotional Therapy

In his clinic, Ellis began to apply more active and direct techniques when he treated his patients, which improved more than before other types of approximations. It would be in 1955 when Ellis would completely leave psychoanalysis to try to focus on changing people's little adaptive ideas and building more rational alternatives.

He would initiate Rational Emotional Behavioral Therapy, initially called Rational Therapy in 1955, and begin showing his theory at the American Psychological Association. The fact that he focused on cognition and beliefs (in a fundamentally psychoanalytic age) made him generally undervalued at an academic level in his early days. His theory indicates that our behavior is determined by the presence of an activating event that generates an emotional reaction based on 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 he with 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 his therapy, appears in 1959 under the title How to live with a neurotic. That same year he founded the Albert Ellis Institute, in a Manhattan building that he would compare in 1965. In addition to his original therapy, Ellis also developed a series of workshops on Friday nights that would become a great source of satisfaction for him.

His interest in sexuality and his contact with Kinsey continued over the years, in such a way 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 vision was modified and he began to consider it a sexual orientation.

He also participated and collaborated with professionals like Aaron Beck on aspects such as beliefs and cognition. The rise of the cognitive-behavioral current propelled his career when receiving your theory more support, and with time he was changing the name of his therapy to the current rational emotional therapy. Likewise, he worked on issues 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 her relationship. After this break and with the passage of time he would begin a relationship with the psychologist Debbie Joffe, with whom he married in 2004. Throughout his life he has been considered together with Rogers and Freud as one of the most influential in the field of psychology, in addition to having received multiple distinctions at the professional of him.

• You may be interested: "Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (RBT) by Albert Ellis"

Last years and death

Despite his great prestige, this did not prevent his last years from having to face various difficulties. Notable among them is the attempt by the Board of Directors of the Institute to cease their participation in the Board and their professional practice within the same center (the managers maintain that the author had a confrontational, eccentric and wasteful style that put the good 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 carried 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 (in which he nevertheless 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.

Albert Ellis's legacy is immense: his rational emotional therapy, in addition to being used today, can be considered a precursor of great cognitive-behavioral developments. He also appears linked to a large number of professionals with whom he had contact and with whom he contributed in multiple studies.

Bibliographic references:

• Chávez, A.L. (2015). Albert Ellis (1913-2007): The life and work of a cognitive therapist. Rev. PSicol, 5 (1): 137-146. Catholic University of 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.