What is Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy?

History of Theory

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy or REBT is an approach to therapy started by Albert Ellis. Albert Ellis, born in 1913, published his first book on REBT in 1957 entitled How To Live With a Neurotic. He began his career thinking that he would be a great American novelist and did actually write two manuscripts but was never able to get them published. He first graduated from the City University of New York in business administration. However, he was collecting data for a piece he was writing called "the Case for Sexual Liberty," and he discovered that he really liked the field of counseling as well. So, in 1942 he returned to school at Columbia in the clinical-psychology program and received his Master's in 1943 and a doctorate in 1947. After working and researching he decided that psychoanalysis was what he wanted to do so he found a therapist to work with him and train him. He maintained many prestigious positions, such as a teacher at New York University and Rutgers, a senior clinical psychologist at the Northern New Jersey mental Hygiene Clinic. However, he was beginning to lose faith in the whole idea of psychotherapy.

Basically, he decided that psychotherapy was too passive; he wanted more of an active approach. he began to become more active, doing things like giving his patients advice and offering his interpretations of things that were said. He noticed that his clients seemed to improve more quickly so he began using some of the teachings that had worked for him in solving his own problems, like the philosophies of Marcus Aurelius and Bertrand Russell.

Eventually in 1955, he gave up psychoanalysis to concentrate on this new technique he had developed. He began to confront people about the beliefs they had that were just irrigational and tried to help them develop new beliefs.