Ellis And Glasser
Albert Ellis and William Glasser have been
in the mainstream of psychological
society for over four decades. Both have
contributed greatly to modern
psychotherapy. The Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT) of Albert Ellis and
the Reality therapy of William Glasser
have endured the trendy world of
psychology and in fact as they are based in
ancient philosophy (Epictetus,
Marcus Aurelius), they also remain the
foundation for brief therapy, cognitive
behavioral therapy and ecclectisism.
Their strength is in the flexibility and
simplicity inherent in each. They go
directly to the problem and focus energy
there without lengthy psychotherapy.
Both prolific writers and dedicated
therapists have expanded their views and
adapted with the times. They are true
humanists in that through non-profit
organizations they have been able to
alleviate much human suffering by
providing sources for personal and
professional growth. In 1955, Albert Ellis
used the fundamental concept of truth
and logic to help people overcome the
obstacles in their lives. By using mans'
high power of rationality Ellis has
allowed us to use our cognitive abilities to
overcome environmental or social
situations. By 1975 Ellis combined Rational
Emotive Therapy (RET) with
Rational Behavior Training (RBT) and with the
collaboration of many other
noted therapists, created Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT). Ellis
tells us in a new Guide to Rational Living (1975): I (A.E.)
originated the
system around the early part of 1955 and gave a first paper on it
at the 1956
meeting of the American Psychological Association in Chicago Since
that time,
RET has gone through many minor and some major changes, originated by
myself
and some of my main collaborators-especially Dr. Robert A. Harper,
Dr.
H.Jon Geis, Edward Garcia, Dr. William Knause, Dr. John M. Gullo, Dr.
Paul
Hauck, Dr. Donald R. Meichenbaum, Dr. Janet L. Wolf, Dr. Arnold A.
Lazarus, Dr.
Aaron T. Beck, and (most notably) Dr. Maxie C. Maultsbie Jr.
It has taken on
other names than Ret-such as Rational Therapy (RT), semantic
therapy, cognitive
behavior therapy (CBT), and (quite popularly) rational
behavior training (RBT)+(pg.202)
Based on the strongest tenets of
cognitive and behavioral therapy, REBT helps
individuals to challenge the
cause and effect relationships they believe exist
between external events and
their own emotional states. Ellis writes: RET
employs an A-B-C method of
viewing human personality and disturbance. When
trying to help a person, the
therapist usually begins with C-the upsetting
emotional Consequence that he
[sic] has recently experienced. Typically he has
been rejected by someone
(this rejection can be called A, the Activating
Experience) and then
feels anxious, worthless or depressed at C. He wrongly
believes that A, his
being rejected has caused C, his feelings +; and he
may even overtly voice
this belief by saying something like, "She rejected
me and that made me
depressed." The individual can be shown that A does not
and cannot really
cause C- that an Activating Event in the outside world cannot
possibly create
any feeling or emotional consequence in his head and gut. For if
this were
true virtually everyone who gets rejected would have to feel just
as
depressed as he does; and this is obviously not the case. C, then is
really
caused by some intervening variable, or by B; and B is the individuals
belief
system. So there is the simplicity of Ellis and RET; the knowledge
that the
individual chooses to believe and behave in a way that causes the
distress. The
confrontational and often playful style of Ellis's REBT helps
people to
recognize and change parts of their thinking that are insensible,
inaccurate and
not useful. The counselor then confronts the client with this
truth and helps
them move towards greater self - control. "Disputing" is the
type of
confronting the therapist uses to help people rethink those
dysfunctional
beliefs into more healthy and reasonable ones. In the example
above, the dispute
was whether the A caused C. It is important for the client
to be confronted with
that disputation of his perception. It is not uncommon
for Ellis to call
irrational beliefs "nuttiness" or "nonsense" or
"silly"
or "idiotic". Other disputations have to do with
more complex or long
standing personal beliefs that encumber the client.
Statements like " I
am no good at reading, I will never get ahead!" or
" I am worthless no one
will ever love me!" have no helpful, healthy
basis for an individual's
thinking and may therefore be disputed or put to the
test of logic. Logic
implies that if something is true then it can be supported
by fact. If it
cannot be supported by fact, then it is an irrational belief.
Ellis is
quick to interject with "who said so?" or, "where is
your proof of that?" or
"where is it written?" The poor reader
needs to learn that reading ability
like the desire to grow for the better, are
things that can be changed. The
lonely, insecure person need only understand
that love can be reached like
any other goal with a little work and
perseverance. But Ellis can be very
emphatic in pointing out the illogic of
someone's thinking. It is up to the
therapist to teach clients new ways of
thinking, feeling and behaving so that
they can get better at reading to get
ahead or to find a new loveable
self-concept. But Ellis does not sugar coat the
lessons, he is abrupt,
direct, and confrontational. Ellis is like a father or
coach or teacher when
counseling. His REBT is both practical and goal oriented
as it focuses on new
ways of thinking, feeling and behaving towards personal
fulfillment. Goals
like reading better to get ahead or creating a new self -
image involve
attacking those inner obstacles of irrational beliefs. He
encourages strength
and bravery in the battle for self-fulfillment. Emphasis is
placed on
individual responsibility to enhance personal growth and deal with
problems
through hard work. Clients strive to think, feel and behave in a
more
functional manner through practice and homework. Owning those irrational
beliefs
causing emotional distress and accepting that they are the real place
to focus
energy, is key to REBT. Ellis will not let anyone slide. He may
support and
collaborate with the client to identify those existing problems
to learn new
behaviors. In the process of helping clients deal with the
unsavory aspects of
affect, Ellis ingeniously uses emotional and behavioral
techniques designed to
reduce the upset and maximize personal effectiveness.
These include guided
imagery, assertiveness training, behavioral homework,
communication skill
training and others. All of these focus on the present.
Regardless of past
realities or self-concepts, the client is allowed to try
new ways of looking at
the world. Guided imagery helps the client to perceive
and believe that success
is attainable by picturing or imagining a new
scenario where the client is
reading with more ability, or being loved or
winning in some other way. It is a
form of hypnosis usually done in a calm
atmosphere employed with progressive
relaxation techniques. The client
reframes the self-concept of the past with
images based on hope and logic.
Logic requires that for a person to change, one
must imagine that it is
possible and achievable with a little work. This
technique is preparatory in
nature for goals like conquering fears, but is very
important in creating a
relaxing state at any time. Guided imagery is a skill
that the client can use
as a post-therapy tool to be used for life if needed.
Assertiveness
training allows the client to act on the idea that personal worth
and rights
can be defended with quiet dignity or insistence. The idea is to
train
clients how to not be bullied, manipulated, or otherwise abused.
More
importantly it trains the individual how to express one's own needs and
desires
without resorting to bullying, manipulating or other abuse. Clients
often go
through guided imagery sessions prior to practicing assertiveness in
the real
world. Part of the therapy requires that a certain amount of
practical behaviors
be practiced away from therapy. Stimulus control is a way
to keep a client from
indulging in unwanted behaviors by having the presence
of mind to avoid chances
to do them. Ellis writes in How to Make Yourself
Happy (1999): "Is stimulus
control an inelegant solution to your indulgence
problems? Yes, to some extent
it is because if you allowed yourself to be in
tempting situations and still
resisted them, you would be working harder to
overcome your low frustration
tolerance (LFT) and would be changing your
irrational beliefs that create and
sustain this LFT. There is no reason you
can't do both: dispute your irrational
beliefs and also employ a measure of
stimulus control."(Pp 161-162) The
client may be required to do homework like
logging the amount of times one was
assertive or used profanity or practiced
phonics and reading or repeated self
affirmations. Interestingly sometimes
the task is paradoxical in nature. Do not
think of your fear of sidewalk
cracks is turned around to think of your fear of
sidewalk cracks. Ellis as
coach, parent, and teacher insists on clients taking
their work seriously.
The homework is checked in therapy and the client is
sometimes shamed for not
trying or not trying hard enough. REBT has a refreshing
if not startling
amount of confrontation in the conduct of sessions. This
doesn't suggest an
overall brusque manner on his part. Recently, Ellis has
written How to cope
with a Fatal Illness and Optimal Aging, and it is clear that
his style is
flexible in that he still confronts but is very aware of the
sensitivity
surrounding special issues like those of aging and dying. What is
consistent
across all his work is that he does not wish anyone to be miserable
if it is
possible to avoid it. To whit: he is very caring as a therapist as
person and
has dedicated his life to make people feel better in dealing with
life's
travails. The cognitive behavioral techniques of Albert Ellis' REBT
are
mirrored by William Glasser in Reality therapy. William Glasser is a
medical
doctor, a psychiatrist. He and Dr. G.L. Harrington developed Reality
therapy in
defiance of traditional psychotherapy, which they saw as severely
lacking, being
built on the wrong premises. People are not psychotic or
demented or
schizophrenic, but rather frustrated in fulfilling their basic
needs. Glasser
can reduce client distress down to a matter of three basic
concerns: Reality,
Responsibility and Right and wrong (rectitude).
Reality is the unchanging world
that the client must live in with all its'
rules, limitations and demands while
trying to fulfill basic psychological
needs like love and self respect.
Responsibility is inherent within the
individual to act in accordance with the
confines of its' rules, limitation,
and demands. Glasser (1965) writes:
"Responsibility+the ability to fulfill
one's needs, and to do so in a
way that does not deprive others from the
ability to fulfill their
needs."(Page 13) Right and wrong have more to do
with the choices of
behavior that people make and their inherent
consequences. Personal
responsibility for acting justly in life is the basis
for Reality therapy.
Reality therapy like REBT is based in the here and
now. Accepting that the past
may contribute to a clients' current condition,
Glasser writes in Reality
Therapy (1965) that past irresponsibility has
little to do with what can be
changed right now, calling past problems
"psychiatric garbage."(Page
37) The "what" of behavior is important then,
not the "why"
a client did something. The question is then, if the behavior
is one way, can it
be better? This is a very simple and straightforward look
at therapy. What
behavior is responsible for causing the difficulty and how
do we modify it? He
highlights in the Identity Society (1975) principles of
Reality therapy:
involvement of the therapist or helper, awareness of the
current behavior,
evaluating behavior to see if it is good for the client or
people who care about
the client, Planning responsible behavior, commitment
to the plan (usually with
a signed contract), non acceptance of excuses for
irresponsible behavior, non
punishment of failures (only praise and
reasonably agreed upon consequences).
(pp.77-102) The techniques employed by
Glasser are as simple as the concept
itself. Glasser is very paternal in his
demeanor and very patient but stern in
his approach to those resistant to
change. Perhaps his work in correctional
institutions and school systems has
tempered his style. He sets firm guidance
for change (acting responsibly) and
challenges the client to meet the grade. His
insistence on discipline
reflects his notion that when people refuse to meet the
rules of the world
they cannot be fulfilled. Glasser knows his clients can
succeed, so he sets
some high standards for changing. He is moralistic in his
approach also as he
posits that pleasure for pleasure sake is not redeeming.
(page 38) Glasser
wants mankind to act reasonably and with a purpose. His idea
of right and
wrong does not sit well with some psychologists who allow clients
to act
according to whim. Glasser does not agree that people who act bizarrely
or
irresponsibly are sick and therefore not responsible for their
actions;
rather, he believes that they are acting in a manner of trying to
get what they
want, and need to be reminded when their behavior is
inappropriate. He expects
the therapist to model behavior and engender trust
by that behavior. He suggests
in Reality Therapy (1965): "The therapist must
be a very responsible
person-tough, interested, human, and sensitive+ Neither
aloof, superior,
nor sacrosanct+ always strong never expedient. He [sic] must
withstand the
patients' requests for sympathy, for an excess of sedatives,
for justification
of his actions no matter how the patient pleads or
threatens"(page22). If
this sounds severe, it is actually based on a kind of
tough love. Glasser is
humanistic and very accepting of even the worst of
clients but he refuses to be
manipulated, wallow in the self-justification of
why someone does something. He
requires that the client accept the reality
that their irresponsible behaviors
may be harmful to themselves and others.
Like the alcoholic who must admit to
the reality of that lifestyle before
beginning the road to recovery, Glasser
leads clients to face reality. He is
sensitive enough not to push too hard, in
fact relies on the client to make
moves toward self- improvement as he patiently
offers his therapeutic
services. Unlike Ellis who will goad, cajole and
otherwise actively direct
the client toward change, Glasser leaves the client
with full responsibility
to make the initial first move. Glasser is not less
warm than Ellis but
perhaps more stoic and inflexible in his demeanor due to his
convictions. It
is simply a matter of technique when helping the client change.
Glasser
shows his human side in Choice Theory (1998): Huge numbers of people are
not
willing to settle for lives with no happiness. They are not willing to
turn
their lives over to the search for pleasure without happiness. Many of
these
unhappy people want very much to find others to love, but because of
the reality
of their life situations - they are poor, old, uneducated,
unattractive,
workless, homeless, sick or criminal, the list is long, - they
are unable to.
There may be an answer to the poignant question posed by
the Beatles: All the
lonely people, where do they all come from? They come
from a world in which they
are separated from their husbands, wives,
children, teachers, and employers by
this destructive psychology (external
locus of control). (Page 195) Glasser as
therapist person is very sensitive
and caring, he understands behavioral
training in the discipline arena and
juxtaposes it with societies' notion of
punishment reward
(stimulus/response). He will encourage an attempt at changing,
even if it
results in failure, thus exhibiting confidence in the clients ability
to
eventually win and not turning the situation in to one of conditional
regard
(I will help you only if you succeed all the time.) This is in the
tradition of
the very best coaches and mentors as well as therapists. Glasser
will give time
out only for the length of time it would take for an offender
to figure out a
way to negotiate a way to work within the rules. In this
ingenious way, he
always leaves the power, control and responsibility in the
clients' hands, where
he argues it should be. In The Reality Therapy Reader
(1976) Barbara Hobbie
writes: Reality therapy stresses warm human
involvement; shuns pedagogic
psychiatric categories such as dementia praecox,
paranoid schizophrenia, and
manic depression; avoids examination and analysis
of early trauma or past
history; holds patients responsible for their own
recovery; and, in fact,
rejects the idea that there is such a thing as mental
illness. What Reality
therapy seeks to do, in short, is to force people to
face their own reality and
reshape their behavior in order to fulfill their
needs. When people do not
fulfill their needs they regard themselves as
failures. (Page 253) The therapy
itself is in the hands of laymen as well as
those who come to therapy. Ellis and
Glasser offer uncomplicated ways to
help individuals change. Generally anyone
can read either therapist's works
and with enough desire can head toward change.
They are both matter of
fact, no nonsense therapies based in the here and now.
Both require the
client to evaluate, confront their behaviors, and seek goals of
attaining
alternative behaviors. REBT and Reality Therapy have stood the test of
time
and some of their techniques remain the cornerstone of many cognitive
and
behavioral as well as many eclectic therapies. They are simple in concept
and
easy to put into practical use. They are both user-friendly therapies
available
to laymen, in books, tapes, and videos and now on the Internet.
Both have
undergone revisions, adapting to the increased value on
multicultural
sensitivity. The original works of both Ellis and Glasser are
written in the
masculine second person with many sexist, racist (albeit
innocent terminology
based on the norms of that era) and ageist language.
What existed in the early
works of both and remain to date is an unparalleled
commitment to excellence in
the field of psychotherapy. Ellis and Glasser
were both reformers and breakaways
from the traditional psychotherapy of
their day. Both are closer to the nature
of human misery in that they have
defined what frustrates so many human beings,
and that is humans need to be
fulfilled with love and feelings of worth that
come from success in life.
They think and behave in order to become fulfilled
and when they are
unfulfilled, their thoughts and behaviors are the problem.
While Ellis
and Glasser recognized it they understood that many people are not
capable of
being scientific. To whit: most people routinely think
illogically,
irrationally and often with emotion based on impulse. What both
gentlemen have
offered is a rational way to see the world and a simple plan
to clarify that
view for better navigation within it. They pick up where
other therapies fall
short by allowing the client to experience the flush of
pride and strength that
comes from taking responsibility for their behaviors
and consequences that come
with them as they grow towards personal choice and
freedom. Other therapies do a
disservice by suggesting that the client is not
to blame for responding to the
forces of the world and the demands of
society. Those psychologists take the
responsibility away from clients and
deny them the refreshing touch of reality.
Both therapies give the client
a place in the world and strength to move through
it confidently without
drugs or denying their place in it. Both are highly
productive in a group
setting. They do what drugs cannot, that is: change
behaviors that weaken
nervous and immune systems in the first place. They do
have their fundamental
differences even though at face value they are
inconsequential when comparing
the two therapists. Albert Ellis is fun spirited
and takes life not so
seriously. It is part of his personal philosophy that
there are no "shoulds",
or musts or other absolutes with which to
govern ones life by. In fact he
revised his writing style to avoid hypocrisy
when other colleagues and
students noted that his first writings were full of
shoulds, musts and other
absolutes. He seems to enjoy life because he is not
bound by any absolutist
credo. He is free to work as hard or as lightly as he
pleases. Without such
pressure he is absolutely prolific, working sometimes 7
days a week, flying
all around the globe giving seminars and maintaining his
post as chairman of
the Albert Ellis Institute of Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy. William
Glasser on the other hand is kind but more sedate in his
professional
comportment. He is warm sensitive and caring but maintains a very
dignified
composure when working with clients. It is against his nature to
ridicule a
client, as he is certain that the risk of harming a client through
such
behavior does not justify the gamble. His view on confrontation is
basically
to read a client and see what the client is ready for. He likens
pushing too
much to denying young lovers to see each other only to force them to
elope.
William Glasser would rather coax a client towards growth with his appeal
as
a steadfast, competent, caring helper rather than behave in a way to scare
or
insult the client. He would never "shame" a client, as would
Ellis
because it is a form of punishment. Glasser does not believe in
punishment.
Punishment to him is an external control that can seldom be
effective because
people understand that they have choices and never
internalize (when the locus
of control is external) the lesson intended by
punishment. He was notably
successful for not using punishment when he worked
at the V.A. hospital, the
Ventura school and other institutions in
California through the years. Glasser
as well is very prolific in his works
and is chairman of the William
Glasser
Institute.
Bibliography
Bassin, A., Bratter, T. E.,
& Rachin R. L. (1976) The reality therapy
reader New York, NY, Harper and
Row Ellis, A. (1999) How to make yourself happy:
Atascadero, CA Impact
Publishers Ellis, A. (1973) Humanistic psychotherapy the
rational emotive
approach New York, NY Julian Press, Ellis, A. & Abrams M.
(1994) How to
cope with a fatal illness New York, NY Barricade Books Ellis, A.
& Harper
R. (1975) A new guide to rational living, No. Hollywood, CA
Wilshire Book
Company Ellis, A. & Velten E. (1998) Optimal aging Peru, IL
Carus
Publishers, Glasser, W. (1998) Choice theory, New York, NY Harper
Collins
Glasser, W. (1984) Control therapy New York, NY Harper and Row
Glasser, W.
(1971) The identity society, New York, NY Harper and Row Glasser,
W. (1965)
Reality therapy New York, NY Harper and Row