The character arc of Albert Ellis
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born on 27 September 1913 in Pittsburgh and raised in the Bronx from a young age, the eldest of three children, with a father often away on business who showed his children little affection, and parents who divorced in his teenage years. Between then and his death sit exaggerated fears of public speaking, extreme shyness around women, a deliberate campaign at nineteen to speak to a hundred strangers in a botanical garden, master's and doctoral degrees at Columbia, the founding of a therapy and an institute, a dispute with his own board, and a ranking as the second most influential psychotherapist in history. The line below draws the whole story.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of his life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Albert Ellis?
A hundred strangers in a park. That was the experiment.
He was born in Pittsburgh and raised in the Bronx from a young age, the eldest of three children. His paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. His father was a broker, often away on business, who by the record's account showed only a modicum of affection to his children, and by his teenage years his parents had divorced and he lived with his mother.
He had exaggerated fears of speaking in public, and in adolescence he was extremely shy around women. Then, at nineteen, he did the thing the whole of his later work is built on. He forced himself to talk to a hundred women in the Bronx Botanical Garden. He was not trying to get dates. He was testing whether the catastrophe he expected would actually arrive, and finding out what he could survive. The record notes that he was already, at that age, thinking like a cognitive behavioural therapist, decades before the phrase existed.
He took master's and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology at Columbia and was board certified. He founded rational emotive behavior therapy, and is generally considered one of the originators of the cognitive revolution in psychotherapy and an early developer of cognitive behavioural therapies. He founded the institute in New York that carries his name, and was its president. His thinking drew on Horney, Adler, Fromm and Sullivan, and on a book about language and general semantics.
In a 1982 survey of American and Canadian psychologists he was ranked the second most influential psychotherapist in history, behind Carl Rogers and ahead of Freud. A magazine wrote that no individual, not even Freud, has had a greater impact on modern psychotherapy.
In 2005 he was removed from all professional duties and from the board of his own institute after a dispute over its management policies. He was reinstated in January 2006 after winning civil proceedings. Despite a series of health problems and profound hearing loss he never stopped working, assisted by his wife, the psychologist Debbie Joffe Ellis. He was hospitalised in April 2006 and died on 24 July 2007.
The moments
Albert Ellis's timeline.
The 1920s
A father mostly away
Setback, and it changed everything. A father away on business, and not much warmth when he was home.
The 1930s
Too frightened to speak
Setback, and it changed everything. He could not speak in public and could not speak to women.
Avoid it, or walk into it
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: talk to a hundred of them, taken, or keep avoiding it. The logic of that experiment became rational emotive behavior therapy.
A hundred women in a park
Milestone, and it changed everything. One hundred deliberate conversations, to find out what would actually happen.
The 1940s
Columbia
Milestone, and it changed his direction. Two degrees at Columbia, and board certification.
The 1950s
Rational emotive behavior therapy
Milestone, and it changed everything. A therapy built on the same logic as the walk round the park.
His own institute
Milestone, and it changed everything. An institute of his own, in New York, with his name on it.
The 1960s
The people he read
Milestone. He credited a book about how language works as much as any psychologist.
The 1980s
Second most influential ever
Milestone, and it changed everything. Second in history, in a survey of his own profession, ahead of Freud.
The 2000s
Removed from his own board
Setback, and it changed everything. Ninety two years old, and thrown off the board of the institute he founded.
He wins, and goes back
Milestone, and it changed everything. He took them to court at ninety two, and won.
Hospitalised, still working
Setback, and it changed his direction. Deaf, ill, in hospital, and still seeing people.
He dies at ninety three
Milestone, and it changed everything. Ninety three years old, and working until near the end.
The therapy he built is inside almost every talking treatment now offered anywhere. What he set moving started in a public park in the Bronx, with a boy too frightened to speak deciding to find out what would actually happen if he did it a hundred times.
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Sources
- Albert Ellis, English Wikipedia biography.
- Columbia University records for his master's and doctoral degrees in clinical psychology.
- The 1982 professional survey of American and Canadian psychologists, and Psychology Today, as that biography quotes them.
- The record reached gives no place of death beyond his country, so this page says no more.