Why I ( Really) Became a Therapist�

Albert Ellis

Albert Ellis Institute

This article describes how the author really became a therapist and workedon his own social and performance anxiety. He was at first a follower ofliberal psychoanalysis, but, in successfully using in vivo desensitization onhimself, he overcame his anxiety and became highly constructivist. Hefinally created rational emotive behavior therapy, the pioneering cognitive-behavior therapy; integrated it with emotional-evocative and experientialmethods; and used it to cope with much criticism he received about hisactive-directive techniques. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol/InSession 61: 945–948, 2005.

Keywords: psychotherapist; rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT);treatment methods; person of the therapist

Why did I (really) become a psychotherapist? In a word, because I primarily wanted tohelp myself become a much less anxious and much happier individual. Oh, yes, I wantedto help other people, too, and I wanted to help the world be a better place, with healthierand happier people who fought like hell to create better conditions. But I really andprimarily wanted to help me, me, me!

Not that I was that disturbed as a child. Unlike my brother, Paul, and my father,Henry, I was not seriously angry and rebellious. Unlike my sister, Janet, I was not severelydepressed and self-hating. But like my mother, Hettie, I was quite anxious about beingoutstandingly successful and about being universally approved. Not that I was terrified orpanicked. But I was worried about innumerable performances and was preoccupied withsucceeding at them and avoiding any risks of failing.

I was particularly phobic about speaking in public from the age of 5 onward, so I didmy damnedest to avoid doing so and beautifully succeeded. Naturally, with every avoid-ance of public speaking, I became more phobic about it, as is often the case!

Portions of this article also appear in the Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy pub-lished by Kluwer.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Albert Ellis, Ph.D., Albert Ellis Institute,45 E. 65th Street, New York, NY 10021; e-mail: aiellis@aol.com.

JCLP/In Session, Vol. 61(8), 945–948 (2005) © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/jclp.20166

Similarly, I began falling madly in love with a succession of girls from my fifth yearonward, and for fear of being rejected, I never talked to them if I could possibly help it.During my adolescence, I lusted after about 101 of 100 females and flirted with many ofthem at a distance, but, again, I never approached any of them and consequently neverhad a single date.

Naturally, I was disturbed about my phobias; equally naturally, I was anxious aboutmy anxiety—particularly because my younger brother, Paul, was an inveterate lady-killeras soon as he reached early adolescence. How shameful of me not to equal his exploitsand to be capable of talking with the girls to whom I was attracted only when theyapproached me first! Otherwise, my mouth was frantically closed.

I completely overcame my social anxiety at the age of 19 when I gave myself thehomework assignment of going to Bronx Botanical Gardens every day in August andforcing myself to sit next to and talk to 130 women on the park benches. I was enor-mously afraid of rejection but used philosophy to convince myself that nothing terriblewould happen if I kept failing to date them.

Actually, I failed miserably, for of 130 prospects, I made only one date—and shedidn’t show up! But I saw philosophically that nobody cut my balls off, no one calleda cop, and none of the women ran away vomiting. Although I was totally unre-inforced, and Fred Skinner (1971) would have thought I would have been extinguished,I valiantly continued, talking to another 100 women, and I made a few dates. Gone wasmy social anxiety!

I also worked on my performance anxiety, especially in sports, and was soon able toplay badly, acknowledge my many errors, and stubbornly refuse to put myself down. Myperformances were often bad, but I never saw myself as an inadequate person—just as alousy ballplayer.

As I have related elsewhere (Ellis, 2001b), I turned to philosophy, especially thephilosophy of happiness, in order to conquer my extreme shyness, as well as my panicabout speaking in public. My protective hobby, from the age of 16, was reading all theleading philosophers, ancient and modern, and learning from their constructivism. I par-ticularly learned from Gautama Buddha, Epicurus, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, John Dewey,and Bertrand Russell. I saw that Sigmund Freud and John B. Watson highly exaggeratedfamily and environmental causes of human disturbances. Instead, most of the philoso-phers I read clearly pointed out that people partly constructed their own feelings ofanxiety, depression, and rage. As Epictetus (1890) said 2000 years ago, “People aredisturbed not by events that happen to them, but by their view of these events.” This ideawas a revelation to me, which I took seriously and with which I trained myself to be muchless anxious about many things—but unfortunately not dating and public speaking. I wasstill scared shitless and phobic about those two enormously “risky” situations. Using myconstructivist tendencies, I finally cured myself of my phobias for public speaking andapproaching new women by using the in vivo desensitization techniques of John B. Wat-son and his associates (Watson, 1919). Without inquiring where a young child’s fear ofanimals originated, they desensitized several 6- to 9-year-olds to exposure to feared rab-bits or mice and, within 20 minutes or so, had the children pleasurably petting the animals.

Great! I combined my newly acquired philosophic teachings and forced myself, whenI was 19, to take the homework assignment of making myself speak in public twice aweek for 7 weeks. This exploit was also the first time for me and I was exceptionallyanxious about doing it. Voilà! I almost completely got over my panic states—yes, for therest of my life. In the process, I seem to have invented cognitive behavior therapy andprimed myself to create rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT) later. My readingpaid off very well!

946 JCLP/In Session, August 2005

I was thrilled with my quick cure of my phobias, told many of my relatives andfriends about it, discovered that they could also use my methods to lessen their owndisturbances, and became a volunteer psychotherapist at the age of 19. Mostly, however,my goal was to become a writer and to write essays, books, novels, plays, poems, andsongs with philosophic leanings. I wanted to spread the gospel according to Saint Albertto the heathens, especially in regard to bringing about a liberal sex revolution. So betweenthe ages of 19 and 28 I wrote many articles and 20 book-length manuscripts, most ofthem with my meticulous therapeutic messages.

Unfortunately, these articles and books were often given accolades by editors andpublishers—but, alas, still rejected. Nothing daunted, I decided to go to graduate schoolwhen I was 28 to become a professional therapist.

Naturally, I was already philosophically and behaviorally prepared. My graduateschool, Teachers College, Columbia University, was almost completely psychodynamicand client centered. So I gracefully put up with its psychotherapeutic teachings and wentmy own highly active-directive way. My philosophic and behavioral techniques, which Imainly learned from my reading, took a no-nonsense approach and often helped people toimprove themselves, very often in record time. So I adopted their hard-hitting methods.

I sidetracked myself for 6 years because I foolishly thought that the neo-Freudianpsychoanalysis of Fromm, Horney, and Alexander and French was deeper and moreintensive than other forms of psychological treatment. So I was trained in liberal psy-choanalysis by Richard Hulbeck, a training analyst of the Horney school, and practicedpsychodynamic therapy for 6 years. But I found that even liberal psychoanalysis wasquite long-winded and inefficient and was lacking in behavioral homework assign-ments. I therefore abandoned it after 6 years. I wrote two monographs summarizingscores of therapy techniques and started using REBT in January 1955. It soon becamethe first popular cognitive-behavior therapy, now one of the most used integrative ther-apies in the world.

REBT theorizes that people, in order to make themselves minimally disturbed, hadbetter achieve unconditional self-acceptance (USA), unconditional other-acceptance(UOA), unconditional life-acceptance (ULA), and a philosophy high frustration toler-ance (HFT). In my personal life, I follow my theory in all three of these major ways:

1. I give myself unconditional self-acceptance (USA), no matter what my personaland professional failings are—and they often are considerable! I also accept myselfunconditionally, no matter who disapproves of me and my therapy. Because REBTwas anathema to most therapists for many years and because I was reviled forcreating and practicing it, I was able to keep it going and turn it into one of themost popular psychotherapies by not giving much of a damn for the scathingcriticism that I and it kept engendering. Let the benighted faultfinders criticize! Ididn’t give that much of a shit. I accepted me with my crummy performances(Dryden, DiGiuseppe, & Neenan, 2003; Ellis, 2001a, 2001b, 2002; Ellis & Harper,1997; Walen, DiGiuseppe, & Dryden, 1992).

2. Although I have been unfairly presented to the professional and lay public manytimes because of my liberal sex and love views (Ellis, 2003; Ellis & Blau, 1998),and although some of the best elements of REBT have been unjustly copied with-out my consent by writers and therapists who gave me no credit, I have neverhated my detractors and purloiners and am not angry at them. In accordance withREBT theory, I deplore their unfair behaviors, but I do not denigrate them aspersons for behaving badly. I thereby use my and REBT’s philosophy of uncon-ditional other-acceptance (UOA) (Ellis & Blau, 1998).

Why I Became a Therapist 947

3. In spite of the hassles and adversities mentioned, and in spite of my physicaldisabilities—among other things, I have had insulin-dependent diabetes for 47years, with its innumerable problems and difficulties—I keep working to developREBT and to spread it around the world. My unconditional life-acceptance (ULA)and my high frustration tolerance (HFT) in this respect have enabled me to writemore than 75 books, to publish more than 700 articles, to see thousands of indi-vidual and group therapy clients, to give hundreds of lectures and workshops, totrain almost innumerable therapists, and to do various other nefarious things.How do I do it? With REBT theory in mind, I follow one of its main rules inces-santly: PYA—push your ass. So far, my ass hasn’t worn out, though I admit I’vefallen on it quite a few times (Ellis, 1962, 1994, 2003).

Am I, then, a self-made therapist? Not exactly—largely self-read and self-activated.But I had plenty of dead and living mentors for whom I am very grateful.

Summary

I really became a psychotherapist mainly because I was very anxious in several respectsand wanted to solve my own problems. This led me, first, to use the constructivism ofmany philosophies combined and integrated with the behavior therapy of John B. Watson(1919) and Fred Skinner (1971). To these techniques I later added the emotional-evocative and experiential methods of several Buddhist philosophers and of psychother-apists. But before I used them with other people, I actively-directively, philosophically,and emotionally tried them out on myself.

They worked! And they have continued to work with many of my clients, workshopattendees, and readers. In many respects, then, I have experimented with my favorite andmost fascinating subject: me. As the years go by, I continue these personal experimentsand the guidelines I discover from them to help others. But primarily, I help myself andtry to benefit others. Both/and, not either/or!

Select References/Recommended Readings

Dryden, W., DiGiuseppe, R., & Neenan, M. (2003). A primer on rational-emotive behavior therapy.Lafayette, IL: Research Press.

Ellis, A. (1962). Reason and emotion in psychotherapy. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel.

Ellis, A. (1994). Reason and emotion in psychotherapy (Rev. ed.). New York: Kensington.

Ellis, A. (2001a). Feeling better, getting better, staying better. Atascadero, CA: Impact.

Ellis, A. (2001b). Overcoming destructive beliefs, feelings, and behaviors. Amherst, NY: Prometheus.

Ellis, A. (2003). Rational-emotive behavior therapy: It works for me, it can work for you. Amherst,NY: Prometheus Books.

Ellis, A., & Blau, S. (1998). The Albert Ellis reader. New York: Kensington.

Ellis, A., & Harper, R.A. (1997). A guide to rational living (Rev. ed.). North Hollywood, CA:Melvin Powers/Wilshire.

Epictetus. (1890). Works of Epictetus. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Skinner, B.F. (1971). Beyond freedom and dignity. New York: Knopf.

Walen, S., DiGiuseppe, R., & Dryden, W. (1992). A practitioner’s guide to rational-emotive ther-apy. New York: Oxford.

Watson, J.B. (1919). Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. Philadelphia: Lippincott.

948 JCLP/In Session, August 2005