Albert Ellis, 1971 Humanist of the Year, Mourned
July 25, 2007
Humanists across the nation awoke this morning to the sad news that leading
humanistic psychologist Albert Ellis had died Tuesday, July 24.
Named by the American Humanist Association as its 1971 Humanist of the Year,
Ellis was a leading sexologist, psychologist, psychotherapist, and
psychological theorist. His revolutionary views on psychology and sexual
liberation, plus his forthright atheism, made him an iconoclastic figure in
the 1960s and 70s. In a 1982 survey conducted by the American Psychological
Association he was ranked the second most influential psychotherapist of the
previous hundred years (with Carl Rogers, the 1964 Humanist of the Year,
placing first and Sigmund Freud third).
Considered by many to be the founder of cognitive-behavioral therapies,
Ellis pioneered the development of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT),
a "humanistic, action-oriented approach to emotional growth." He
acknowledged that his method takes a page from the philosophy of the ancient
Stoics; it regards how people think about adversity as determining, to a
large extent, how they cope with adversity. In the 1990s Ellis wrote on this
subject in a regular column in the Humanist magazine.
"As a long-time admirer and personal acquaintance of Dr. Ellis, I am greatly
saddened by his death," said Fred Edwords, director of communications for
the American Humanist Association. "But as one who shares his philosophy, I
accept the inevitability of this moment and take pleasure in the positive
impact his work has had and will continue to have on countless lives."
Ellis was born on September 27, 1913, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to a
Reformed Jewish family, which he regarded as the cradle of his atheism, and
grew up in New York City. He received his doctorate in psychology from
Columbia University in 1947 and began teaching at Rutgers and New York
University. In 1959 Ellis established the Albert Ellis Institute (then
called the Institute for Rational Living), a non-profit organization whose
mission was and remains to promote REBT by training therapists, conducting
research, and counseling clients. He personally practiced psychotherapy,
marriage and family counseling, and sex therapy for over 60 years and wrote
over 600 articles. His 79th book, a textbook on Personality Theory, was
completed shortly before his death and will be published posthumously in
early 2008.
"The humanist movement has lost an irreplaceable theorist and advocate of
humanism," declared American Humanist Association President Mel Lipman. "He
put the humanist philosophy to work in ordinary people's lives and proved
how liberating humanism can be."
