About Albert Ellis

Rational-Emotive-Behavior Theory

When Ellis presented his theory in the mid 1950's (Ellis, 1962), the role of cognition in emotional disturbance had not been fully addressed by the field of psychology. Ellis developed REB theory and therapy in reaction to what he saw as the inadequate techniques of psychoanalysis and behaviorism. He attributed the deficiency in the two camps' techniques to their conceptualization of personality and emotional disturbance. In particular, Ellis felt that by ignoring the role thinking played in emotional disturbance both psychoanalytic and behavior theory failed to explain how humans originally became disturbed and how they remained disturbed.

Ellis (1962) was influenced by a number of disciplines in his development of REB theory. From the field of philosophy Ellis was influenced by ancient Greek and Roman stoic philosophers, existential and humanistic philosophers and by the field of General Semantics (Dryden, 1990, 1991; Ellis 1962, 1973, 1979b; Ellis & Harper, 1975). Ellis introduces many of his works with a quote from Epictetus, paying tribute to the ancient Greek for his insight into the connection between thinking and emotional distress and the necessity of hard work to maintain an emotionally balanced life. REB theory (Ellis, 1973; Ellis et al., 1989; Dryden, 1991) also draws on Existential and Humanistic ideas of human freedom, uniqueness, self-interest, and fallibility.

Alfred Korzybski's (1948) theory of General Semantics is often cited by Ellis (1962, 1991) as an important influence on the development of REB theory. (General semantics is the study of the psychological impact of language.) According to Korzybski (1948) the use of the verb to be encourages absolutistic and dogmatic evaluations of objective reality. This occurs because the verb to be equates the subject with the object of the verb. For example, when we say ‘John is a liar’ we wrongly rate John as nothing but a liar. The use of the verb to be encourages all or nothing thinking and absolutistic thinking which Korzybski argued was the cause of emotional disturbance.

As Ellis notes, the development of REB theory was influenced by Watson’s behavioral theory, Horney’s tyranny of the shoulds, and especially Alfred Adler cognitive schemata (Dryden, 1990, 1991; Ellis 1962, 1973, 1979b; Ellis et al., 1975). Many of Adler's concepts are essentially the same as those of REB theory. Adler asserted that ideas about self and the world are responsible for behavioral and emotional reactions and that these ideas are not deeply hidden in the unconscious. One of the therapeutic methods of dealing with these disturbances is helping the client to understand the inconsistencies and mistakes in their schemata.

Drawing from his studies of philosophy and psychology, Ellis (1962) developed a psychological theory based on the role cognitions play in the development and maintenance of emotional disturbance. He argues that disturbed emotions especially sustained disturbed emotions are tied to the absolutistic and dogmatic shoulds, oughts, musts, needs and haves in our language. Ellis (1962, 1979a, 1990) also argues that the development of emotional disturbance is largely the result of certain biological factors which predispose humans to think irrationally about the fulfillment of innate goals for affiliation, comfort and achievement. Some of these factors are the ability to rate self and others, to reindoctrinate learning, to overgeneralize and to be motivated by short-term hedonism.

Ellis (1962) conceptualizes human psychological functioning as an efficient and interactive system of cognitions, emotions, behavior and biology responding to environmental conditions. He proposes that people function in four basic ways: they sense or perceive, emote, act, and think. Each of these operations interacts and interrelates to form a whole system. "Emotion, then, does not exist in its own right, as a special and almost mystical sort of entity: it is rather, an essential part of an entire sensing_moving_thinking_emoting complex (p. 47)."

According to Ellis (1962, 1979b, Ellis & Dryden, 1987; Ellis & Harper, 1975), the emotive component can be influenced by sensori_motor means, physiologically, and by thinking. Ellis is particularly interested in the role thinking played in the human emotional system. He argues that while there may be some immediate and noncognitive emotional reactions most emotions have cognitive aspects. REB theory is based on the assumption that emotion and thinking are integrally related.

Types of emotions are characterized by types of appraisals. When someone is thinking about something, they are calmly appraising the situation. When someone is emoting or feeling, they are passionately appraising the situation; and, when they have sustained emotions, they are rethinking or reindoctrinating their original appraisals. Emotional disturbance involves sustained self_defeating negative, or positive emotions characterized by irrational, self-verbalizations and self-defeating and other-defeating behaviors.

REB theory adheres to the concept of critical realism espoused by Karl Popper which asserts that humans are innately hypothetical_deductive reasoners (Ellis, 1962, 1973, 1979a, 1979e). Humans instinctively place an event in the context of whether it is beneficial, harmful, or neutral to their goals. When a goal is satisfied or frustrated by an event, humans tend to look for the cause of that event. They then deduct a conclusion about the connection between the cause and the event and form hypotheses or expectations based upon this conclusion.

The process of hypothetical-deductive thinking is basically logical and empirical. However, when humans find their goals frustrated, hypothetical-deductive thinking is distorted by the biological presses of the innate goals and the tendency to overgeneralize and to be motivated by short term hedonism. The result is that innate goals are elevated to absolute truths. Through the process of reindoctrination of learning, these absolutisms form into beliefs or convictions (Ellis, 1962, 1979e, 1985).

Ellis (1962, 1979e, 1985; Ellis & Dryden, 1987) hypothesizes that these absolutistic beliefs form the foundation of nearly all irrational beliefs and emotional disturbance and are linguistically defined by the words should, ought and must. The dogmatic and absolutistic nature of irrational belief impedes problem solving-abilities about goal satisfaction and lead to negative emotions such as depression, anxiety and guilt and to self-defeating behaviors (Ellis & Dryden, 1987).

Ellis (1962) originally developed a list of 11 irrational beliefs. This list included beliefs about a variety of content areas involving the irrational processes of absolutism, global-rating, awfulizing and low frustration tolerance. By the mid 1970's, Ellis (1979a; Ellis & Harper, 1975) began to emphasize fewer content areas of absolutistic beliefs and more clearly emphasize the idea that absolutism generates and is closely connected to global-rating, awfulizing and low frustration tolerance. The reduced list of content areas of absolutistic beliefs emphasized by Ellis (1979a; Ellis & Harper, 1975) include the demands for approval and success, fair treatment, and the demand for satisfying life conditions.

REB theorists vary in the phrasing of the irrational beliefs of the demands for fairness and satisfying conditions (Campbell, 1985; Ellis & Bernard, 1985; Walen, DiGiuseppe & Wessler, 1980). Ellis and Bernard (1985) combine the demands for fairness and easy life conditions under the general demand for few hassles or frustrations. They add the demand that solutions to life problems be quick, easy, and comfortable. In general, the reduced list of irrational beliefs currently emphasizes the demands for (a) approval from significant others, (b) success or competency, and (c) few frustrations or comfort. These three demands are referred to in this work as the three core, irrational beliefs or three core absolutisms.

The core, irrational beliefs of the demands for approval, success and comfort can lead to many illogical inferences. The refinements to REB theory, however, hypothesize that the most closely related inferences to the core, irrational beliefs are awfulizing, global-rating, and low frustration tolerance (Ellis, 1979e; A. E. Ellis, personal communication, April 15, 1998; Ellis & Dryden, 1987). These inferences are referred to as the derivatives of the core, irrational beliefs. He defines     global-rating as the tendency to condemn oneself or another and awfulizing as rating something as completely bad. Low frustration tolerance is defined as rating some event as intolerable. The nature of absolutism, the formation of absolutistic beliefs and their relationship to the derivatives marks one of the most complex components of REB theory.

The development of core absolutisms initially occurs in a linear manner. Through the innate process of reindoctrination and rehearsal this initial linear reasoning process becomes circular. For instance, a person may initially assume that he or she must have approval, conclude that not having approval is awful, and, because it is awful conclude that he or she must have approval. Irrational reasoning, therefore, does not operate in a linear manner, rather absolutisms encourage inferences that in turn, through the process of reindoctrination of learning, reinforce the absolutism. As Ellis (Ellis & Dryden, 1987) notes, the secondary, irrational processes of global-rating, awfulizing and low frustration tolerance probably are interdependent with absolutism. (evidence for this is supported in AC Jorn (2000), citation below)

As mentioned, REB theory (Ellis, 1991a; Ellis & Dryden, 1987) hypothesizes that the core absolutisms and the derivatives are likely reciprocally reinforcing. Therefore, it is not likely that any particular emotional disturbance includes only one absolutism or only one derivative. Instead, any given emotional disturbance involves some configuration of a core absolutism in combination with one or more of the derivatives (Ellis, 1962, 1979e; Ellis & Dryden, 1987; Walen et al., 1980).

The core, irrational beliefs include the demands for approval, success, and comfort. These core absolutisms are hypothesized to generate the derivatives of global-rating, awfulizing and low frustration tolerance. The core, irrational beliefs can be reduced further to demands relating to self-worth and demands relating to comfort and parallel the two major classes of emotional disturbance of Ego and Discomfort anxiety (Ellis, 1979e; Ellis & Dryden, 1987).

The model of emotional disturbance depicted in Figure 1 (see below) describes the major tenets of REB theory's conceptualization of irrational belief and emotional disturbance. The general classes of emotional disturbances discussed below, namely, the depressive disorders and the anxiety, anger, and impulse control disorders are detailed to show the general relationship between irrational belief and emotional disturbance.

Copyright Ann C. Jorn 2000. Comparison of Ellis's and Campbell's Models of Irrational Belief:Toward Resolving Ambiguities in Rational Emotive Behavior Theory. for complete work go to http://www.lulu.com/content/5468402

                                            References

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     Ellis, A. (1989) Comments on my critics: In M. E. Bernard & R. DiGiuseppe (Eds.), Inside rational_emotive therapy: A critical appraisal of the theory and therapy of Albert Ellis (pp. 223_ 228). Orlando, FL: Academic Press, Inc.
     Ellis, A. (1990). The biological basis of human irrationality. In W. Dryden (Ed.), The essential Albert Ellis: Seminal writings in psychotherapy (pp. 52_76). New York: Springer Publishing Company, Inc. (Original work published 1976)
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