Albert Ellis (1913-2007) 1971 Humanist of the Year.

"I would go so far as to say that a secular humanist outlook is itself one of the important aspects of emotional well-being"

--Albert Ellis in the March/April 1992 Humanist

Albert Ellis was a leading psychologist, psychotherapist, and psychological theorist whose revolutionary views on sexual liberation and psychology, 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 (Carl Rogers placed first and Sigmund Freud third).

Born September 27, 1913, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Ellis grew up in New York City in a Reform Jewish household. After his parents divorced when he was twelve, Ellis found it necessary as the oldest child to attend to his siblings' welfare. Added to this hardship, he suffered a serious kidney disorder throughout his childhood.

His original ambition was to become a novelist by first making his fortune in business and then retiring to write. Ellis earned a business degree from the City University of New York and began writing, however the Great Depression frustrated both enterprises. Ellis then discovered his forte in writing nonfiction, specifically on the subject of human sexuality, on which he soon found himself counseling friends.

Ellis discovered he enjoyed counseling as much as writing and in 1942 began a doctoral program in clinical psychology at Columbia University. After completing it in 1947, he began practicing classical psychoanalysis and teaching at Rutgers and New York University. But Ellis soon veered away from traditional psychoanalysis and began taking a more active approach with his patients, offering advice and teaching techniques he had employed himself when working through his own difficulties.

By 1955 Ellis had labeled his approach Rational Therapy and was teaching it to other therapists. His innovations were initially met with widespread professional scorn, as were his liberationist views on sexuality. But with the passage of time, the accumulation of clinical and other data, and Ellis' own persistence and charisma, the tide turned in his favor. He also modified and revised his views as he went along, renaming his system Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).

REBT divides all feelings and emotions into two distinct classes: appropriate (emotions that aid or encourage one's basic values) and inappropriate (emotions that block or sabotage one's values). Central to REBT's methods is the ancient psychological insight of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus: "What disturbs people's minds are not events but their judgments on events." Thus, how a person thinks about adversity determines, to a large extent, how that person copes with adversity.

In 1959 Ellis established the Institute for Rational Living, later renamed the Albert Ellis Institute, a non-profit organization for promoting REBT by training therapists, conducting research, and counseling clients. During his long career, he served as president of the Division of Consulting Psychology of the American Psychological Association and was the first president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. He wrote over 600 articles and seventy-nine books, the latest just completed before his death and slated for publication in 2008.

Though suffering extended illness in recent years, Ellis still managed to lead workshops and counsel clients. He died in his home on July 24, 2007, of heart and kidney failure. He was ninety-three.

HUMANISM is a rational philosophy informed by science, inspired by art, and motivated by compassion. Affirming the dignity of each human being, it supports liberty and opportunity consonant with social and planetary responsibility. Free of supernaturalism, humanism thus derives the goals of life from human need and interest rather than from theological or ideological abstractions, and asserts that humanity must take responsibility for its own destiny.