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Stephen Weinrach’s (Steve’s) excellent idea of get- ting a group of selected rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) cognoscenti together to discuss their perspectives on religion, spirituality, and philosophy in their personal and professional lives

has produced some fascinating results. More than practi-cally all other systems of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), REBT particularly stresses philosophy. Why?—because I bor-rowed much of its theory and practice from ancient and modern philosophers rather than from professional thera-pists. Its main theories are therefore philosophic and in-clude profound religious and spiritual elements.

It is very interesting to see how some of REBT’s leading practitioners think, feel, and act about its goals and values. As this symposium shows, they sincerely reflect on REBT theo-ries and practices and react to them with unusual self- disclosure and honesty (Weinrach et al., 2004). In Steve’s dis-cussion at the end of the article, he has nicely summarized some of the salient points made by the authors, including him-self; so I shall not try to repeat his summary. It effectively shows their personal attitudes and professional leanings.

Let me give my own views on what happened on Septem-ber 11, 2001, and how the authors personally and profes-sionally reacted to them. First of all, they all correctly cited my two main approaches to unconditional other-acceptance when people have committed violent acts, such as terror-ism, that most of us judge as being extremely immoral. I pointed out on the REBT Web site in September 2001 (Ellis, 2001a), right after the terroristic attacks on the World Trade Center and other targets, what I have been saying for many years: I (like most other people in this world) consider ter-roristic attacks quite “wrong,” “immoral,” and “inhumane” deeds. But, I also stated, I am strongly opposed to damning the terrorists as evil people. I think that this kind of damna-

tion will not induce them (or their allies) to change their thoughts, feelings, and actions. Instead, I said, it will most probably result in increased hatred and terrorism by them (and possibly other people; Ellis, 2001a, 2003).

At the same time, I reiterated the REBT philosophy that holds that the basic solution—if indeed there is one—to reduce the commission of unusually immoral and “terrible” attacks of violence is to condemn their sins but not to damn the perpetrators as sinners. If we are to achieve this REBT philosophy of unconditional other-acceptance, we will have great difficulty in doing so—because people all over the world most frequently resort to conditional self-acceptance and other-acceptance. They consequently, forcefully, and emotionally insist, “I am a good person when I do good acts and I am a bad person when I do bad acts.” Also, “Other people are good people when they act properly and they are bad people when they act unjustly or immorally.” Alfred Korzybski (1992) brilliantly noted this kind of overgeneralizing and postulated that the is of identity (“I am what I do”) is foolishly held by most of the people most of the time and that they thereby render themselves “unsane.” Bertrand Russell (1965), Wilfred Quine, and several other philosophers also noted this kind of illogical thinking.

To induce people to reduce this highly inaccurate kind of overgeneralizing is very difficult; however, REBT, fol-lowing Korzybski, tries to have its clients—and others as well—believe, “I am a person who often acts badly (accord-ing to the mores and rules of my community) but I am never, and can’t ever be, a bad person—because a bad per-son would always and only perform bad acts. So let me fully acknowledge my responsibility for my thoughts, feel-ings, and acts but never condemn my self or personhood for them. Thus, I will have more choice in changing my mis-guided and immoral behaviors” (Ellis, 1962, 1972, 1973,

Albert Ellis, Albert Ellis Institute. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Albert Ellis, Albert Ellis Institute, 45 E. 65th Street, New York, NY 10021 (e-mail: aiellis@aol.com).

Post–September 11th Perspectives on Religion, Spirituality, and Philosophy in the Personal and Professional Lives of Selected REBT Cognoscenti: A Response to My Colleagues

Albert Ellis

This is a discussion and evaluation of the views of the authors of the article “Post–September 11th Perspectives on Religion, Spirituality, and Philosophy in the Personal and Professional Lives of Selected REBT Cognoscenti.” Several of the authors are shown to endorse most of the main principles and practices of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) but also to hold some of its important views on unconditional self-acceptance and unconditional other-acceptance lightly and inconsistently.

© 2004 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved. pp. 439–442

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2001b, 2001c, 2003; Heidegger, 1962; Rogers, 1961; Sartre, 1968; Tillich, 1953).

REBT formulates an elegant and an inelegant “solution” to the universal problem of people rating their behaviors and also globally rating their self or essence. The inelegant attempt to solve this problem shows people that they can believe, “I am always a good person, just because I am alive, am human, and am a unique individual—that is, myself.” This is inelegant because it is definitional and cannot be empirically verified or falsified. But since it emphasizes con-ditions for “human worth” that can be chosen and always achieved, it is very practical and workable. If you choose to hold it, you will always be a “good person” and will elimi-nate all self-damnation.

REBT also formulates an “elegant” solution to the prob-lem of human worth that encourages people to refrain from any global rating of their self or being, but only to rate their thoughts, feelings, and actions for their heuristic or prag-matic value. Thus, they can firmly tell themselves, “It is im-possible to rate my whole person as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ because I am an exceptionally complicated and ever-changing indi-vidual. So I shall do my best to only rate my behaviors as ‘bad’ when they sabotage my own and my community’s basic goals, purposes, and values.”

Both of the REBT inelegant and elegant “solutions” to self- rating and other-rating are difficult to achieve and both have their failings—because, once again, for us to evaluate our-selves and other people as globally “good” or “bad” seems to be an innate as well as a socially learned strong human ten-dency. Nevertheless, REBT says that no matter how often global evaluations of humans are held, they can be effec-tively modified. In its elegant “solution,” it recommends that we hold no global evaluations of our worth but only evalu-ate the value or disvalue of our performances.

Assuming that these REBT positions regarding our rating human worth are helpful to therapists, clients, and other people, how do the participants in this symposium actually follow them in their personal lives and in their professional practice? The answer to this question seems to be inconsis-tently and partially. Only three of the authors seem to fully endorse my own positions: Windy Dryden, Dominic DiMattia, and Catharine MacLaren. Naturally, I agree with them and with practically all the points they make— especially Windy. As usual, he is right on the ball! The other participants I mainly agree with, but I have the following questions about some of their views.

I agree with Steve Weinrach that moral relativism has distinct limitations and that the Jeffersonian notion of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” would make a better world. Yes, we preferably should nondogmatically subscribe to the Golden Rule and to the principles of the Humanist Manifesto II. But Steve questions my “categorical refusal to classify any event as a catastrophe.” Fortunately, I also ques-tion this early view of mine and have given it up for several years. I have been stating for over a decade that many events are “bad” because they are against the goals and values of the evaluator; some events are very bad, according to the pur-

poses of those to whom they happen; but a few events are “catastrophes”—such as wars, holocausts, widespread sui-cidal bombings, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes. These events may kill or maim thousands of people and are there-fore commonly deemed to be catastrophic. I agree.

At the same time, I still hold that no events, however bad they may be, are awful or terrible. To define them, including real catastrophes, as awful means to view them in at least three overgeneralized ways: (a) “Awful” events are seen as so bad that they absolutely should not and must not exist, but, of course, they do; (b) calling happenings “terrible” implies that no people can stand them and be happy at all when they exist; (c) if “horrible” events continue, we assume that practically all of us will be destroyed and our world will not continue to exist. These three overgeneralizations, I con-tend, will make exceptionally bad events even worse than they are, for awfulizing often produces a great deal of unnec-essary cognitive, emotional, and behavioral disturbance and makes us less capable of dealing with and changing very bad occurrences. So, I agree with Steve that terroristic acts, like those of September 11, 2001, may well be called catastro-phes; but I still maintain that they are exceptionally bad and immoral—but not really awful.

The use of some REBT philosophies, Steve infers, may encourage people to feel nothing more than mild sadness or regret when they are faced with events like chronic illness, famine, and terroristic attacks and, therefore, not allow them to meet these catastrophes in a forceful and determined manner. I again disagree. REBT encourages people to feel very strongly, and to experience great sadness, sorrow, regret, and frustration—which it views as healthy negative feelings when bad things occur—and not merely the mild feelings that Steve is talking about. If they feel very sad and frus-trated, they will be motivated to change what they can change and only accept unfortunate happenings that they cannot, for the present, change. So REBT encourages strong, healthy, negative emotions when unusually bad and immoral events occur and pushes people to try to change them if they possibly can.

In fact, people somewhat frequently ask me why I included healthy negative emotions in REBT, when they make us feel unpleasant. I reply that without such negative emotions, the human race would hardly survive: for people would then not try to change destructive events that occur to them. So, once again, REBT favors healthy negative feelings when we are assailed with unpleasant events and often favors their being strongly and not mildly felt. Steve ends his presenta-tion by saying that he encourages clients to contradictorily and simultaneously hold two thoughts: (a) evil acts defi-nitely exist, but (b) people’s self-interest is not served by damning evildoers but by accepting them as fallible humans. This is precisely the stand that REBT takes.

Kristene Doyle largely upholds the REBT “logical” view that “no one action or even several actions, good or bad, can make up one’s worth as a human.” But then she goes on to say, “Yet when I think about all the lives taken, all of the families affected [by the terroristic deeds], logic goes out of

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the window—for me” (Weinrach et al., 2004, p. 431). I can clearly see her position and empathize with it, but I fear that she is making a catastrophe into a “horror” by awfulizing about it. This is what many—perhaps most—people easily and naturally do, but I think that it is illogical and poten-tially harmful. It leads her to the kind of damning that she (and REBT) recognizes as mistaken. The fact that the ter-rorists acted exceptionally badly and did immense harm still only makes their deeds unusually bad—and therefore makes them liable to conviction and sentencing if they are ever captured. Be that as it may, they are still fallible humans to whom we had better give the right and privilege of being very wrong. Yes, as I have said for many years (Ellis & Harper, 1997), despite their exceptionally evil acts, all humans have the right to be wrong. To deny them this right leads us right back to damnation.

Monica O’Kelly correctly restates what I have said in my book with Stevan Nielsen and Brad Johnson (Nielsen, Johnson, & Ellis, 2001). She shows that many Christian core philosophies, especially that of accepting the sinner but not the sin, are essentially the same as REBT philosophies of uncondi-tional other-acceptance ) and unconditional self-acceptance. She also subscribes to several other main philosophies of REBT. But she seems to avoid fully teaching her clients my view “regarding negative global rating of others” (Weinrach et al., 2004, p. 435). I get the impression that she thinks it too difficult to convince her clients of this view and that she therefore avoids trying to do so. I acknowledge her position but still think that if REBT practitioners forcefully teach clients both unconditional other-acceptance and uncondi-tional self-acceptance, they will find that many understand it and use it. Consequently, I find, such teaching pays off. But not always.

Ruth Malkinson goes along with the major REBT phi-losophies, but makes some dubious implications. First, she seems to be saying that the September 11th terrorist at-tacks and the suicidal bombings in Israel were so bad and caused so much suffering for many innocent people that there-fore “the person and the act are one.” I would object that no matter how awful an atrocity is, its doer is not his or her act. As Korzybski (1992) showed, and as I agree, the is of identity, “I am what I do,” is still an overgeneralization and therefore is incorrect. Yes, terrorists and suicide bombers do exceptionally badly by humanistic standards and wreak enor-mous harm. But they still cannot be what they do. Second, like many people who uphold moral standards, Ruth says that if we do not make absolute villains of the terrorist leaders and suicide bombers, we will encourage the view that they are heroes or martyrs. Not in the least! If we thor-oughly condemn and damn their acts, we will never see them as heroes.

Third, Ruth says that because my and the REBT view of unconditional other-acceptance cannot convince 100% of our clients and because they will label Hitler and other perpe-trators of exceptionally bad acts as bad people, we had better agree with them. No, we REBTers had better acknowl-edge that many of our clients would refuse to accept our

unconditional other-acceptance philosophy, even though they would benefit from doing so. However, we had better not go along with their damning of people. We can follow REBT principles by realistically acknowledging some of our cli-ents’ mistaken views, while still trying our best to show why these views, in the long run, will probably encourage more harmful hatred and violence.

Ruth, again, first presents the REBT view that says that those who commit atrocious acts are not rotten people; but she holds that if their acts are extremely bad, they then are totally worthless. I still hold to the REBT philosophy that no one is damnable, no matter how bad are his or her deeds. For I think that if we make any exceptions to this view and damn even one person—such as Hitler—we encourage our-selves to damn many others—including ourselves.

CONCLUSION

Let me summarize by saying that all of the participants in this symposium seem to be good card-carrying practitio-ners of REBT and to endorse its basic philosophic premises. They agree with the REBT inelegant view of self-worth and see that people are behaving inaccurately and unhealthily when they globally rate their behaviors and then globally rate themselves. Therefore, their clients can healthfully hold that they are worthwhile just because they are alive, hu-man, and unique individuals, and they can also uncondition-ally accept others by these same standards.

At the same time, some of the REBT cognoscenti in this symposium only partly subscribe to the elegant REBT philosophy: that people had better not rate their self, es-sence, or being at all, but only evaluate their effective and ineffective thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Some of the participants seem to accept this view only lightly and to avoid an active attempt to teach it to their clients. Natu-rally, I somewhat disagree with these ideas and wish that all REBT therapists would try to teach their clients the elegant view of self-rating and other-rating that REBT espouses. But I am not necessarily or absolutely correct. Much research can be done to check on the therapeutic process and prac-tices. Onward and upward to such continued research.

In conclusion, I find nothing very inconsistent or wrong with the various authors’ consideration of the REBT views on spirituality and religion. I am atheistic myself, but believe that if clients and other people strongly, and even dogmati-cally, believe in a kindly, all-forgiving, and accepting God, they may well benefit by doing so; while if they rigidly be-lieve in a cruel, unforgiving, and damning God, they are likely to bring emotional and behavioral trouble on themselves. I have also described my views on what can be called “rational spirituality” in a recent article in the Journal of Individual Psychology (Ellis, 2000), and I am happy to see that the partici-pants tend to definitely endorse this view. If they are truly undogmatic and nonrigid about their beliefs, REBT practitio-ners can personally hold virtually any view—political, religious, spiritual, or social—that they care to take. Above all, let them try to be open-minded, as REBT essentially is! The authors of

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these post–September 11th perspectives fortunately all fol-low this flexible REBT outlook.

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