Abrams, M., Abrams, L., Ellis, A. (2007) A Brief Biography of Dr. Albert Ellis 1913-2007. Exerpts retrieved at: http://www.rebt.ws/albertellisbiography.html
Albert Ellis(psychologist) (2009). Retrieved at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ellis_%28psychologist%29
National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists (2009) What is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy? Retrieved at: http://www.nacbt.org/whatiscbt.htm.
So a few weeks ago i took an evening and decided to watch a debate Between Albert Ellis and Thomas Szasz called Mental Illness- Fact or Myth?. This video was from the 1970's. I think the most interesting thing about the debate was the format. The forward in the video gave a brief synopsis of the forum. Basically, Ellis and Szasz met for this debate, which was hours long. After careful (in their words, not mine) editing, the debate was made into a one hour battle royal between Dr. Ellis and Dr. Szasz. I did a bit of research on Dr. Ellis and this is what I discovered.
Albert Ellis was an American born Clinical Psychologist from Pittsburgh. Although he was a trained psychoanalyst, he refuted a great deal of the beliefs that Pyschoanalysis holds. He believed that although the theory is fascinating it is not based in scientific thought or reasoning. Ellis practice in New Jersey as a clinician for years and wrote many books. Ellis has been said to be one of the originators of what is today know in the field of psychology as Cognitive behavioral Therapy or CBT. CBT is a form of chemotherapeutic practice that combines cognitive therapy with behavioral therapy. During the time that Ellis introduced CBT, many individuals in the field were not interested in this methodology as effective. However, today, CBT is more widely used in the field of Psychology and many would argue that it is a very efficient and effective way or helping people with specific disorders ranging form mood disorders to anxiety disorders. In addition to his contribution to the development of CBT in the field; Ellis also played a role in sexual psychology (or sexology). His theories about sex were at the time very liberal and Albert played a very permissive role in the notions of human sexuality. Ellis is most famous for his book Sex without Guilt which was republished in 2001. Throughout his career, he maintained his belief that psychoanalysis is a comonation of spiritualism and mysticism and not real science. One could thus assume that because of his beliefs about the validity of such treatments as CBT that Ellis found Thomas Szasz to be detramental to the potential 'cure' of mental illness.
The debate between Szasz and Ellis was a combat of two opposing schools of thought in some respects. Although, they did find things they both agreed on, they held vastly different views on mental illness. From the actual debate a few key points were discussed that i found the most interesting. One being that although Ellis believes that the term mental illness has been abused he still does not refute the notion that there are mentally ill individuals. From the perspective of Szasz, he says that although he doesn't disbelieve that mental illness exists per-se, he does feel hat the term and thus the pathology that it implies has negative social affinities. Szasz goes on to explain the detriment of labeling individuals as mentally ill. He also goes on to explain that unlike physical ailments, mental illness holds no weight in the physical world, e.g., that mental illness does not have physical component to it. Ellis makes his rebuttal by saying that he does believe that mental illness has physical components. He (Ellis) also states that the use of labels are important because it provides guidelines for how certain disorders can be combated in the lives of individuals.
Overall the sound quality of the video is horrible and makes it difficult at times to sit through. However, the debaters made the topic very interesting and had some great insight into their opinions. For highlights from the debate go here. They also poked a bit of fun at one another which i found the must interesting of the whole experience. As of now, i am almost done reading the book Sex by Perscription and so I'll have an entry for that in the next few days. Til then, question everything.
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