Albert Ellis

Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist who in 1955 developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University and the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). 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 one of the founders of cognitive-behavioral therapies. Based on a 1982 professional survey of US and Canadian psychologists, he was considered as the second most influential psychotherapist in history (Carl Rogers ranked first in the survey; Sigmund Freud was ranked third). Psychology Today noted, "No individual—not even Freud himself—has had a greater impact on modern psychotherapy." 2Early life Ellis was born to a Jewish family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US, in 1913. He was the eldest of three children. Ellis' father was a businessman, often away from home on business trips, who reportedly showed only a modicum of affection to his children. In his autobiography, Ellis characterized his mother as a self-absorbed woman with a bipolar disorder. At times, according to Ellis, she was a "bustling chatterbox who never listened." She would expound on her strong opinions on most subjects, but rarely provided a factual basis for these view