Dr. Albert Ellis needs our help!!
Dr Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy was mentioned a number of times in this thread, so I feel its appropriate to post this information, as Dr Ellis has asked for help from the public.
I wanted to bring to your attention a very serious injustice which has been brought upon Dr. Albert Ellis, the founder of REBT, and renowned humanist, psychologist and promoter of reason in psychotherapy. In 1971 the American Humanist Association named Albert Ellis as the Humanist of the Year, and Ellis is now regarded as one of the most influential psychotherapists of the last century.
Dr. Ellis has recently been removed from the Institute he has run for more than 50 years in a hostile takeover and "palace coup". My view is that this has been done for the personal financial advantage of those who have illegally stolen the Institute out from under him.
Dr Ellis is 92 years old, and needs a lot of medical care, but he is still very lucid and mentally sharp. Ellis could have been a multi-millionaire, but instead Dr. Ellis has always directed that all royalties from his many publications, talks, and professional services benefit the Albert Ellis Institute directly, a non-profit educational body he established decades ago, while Dr. Ellis has only drawn a small honorarium as a salary. Now Dr. Ellis has no medical benefits, is basically destitute, has lost the rights to his 92 books, and has been forbidden from carrying on his famous Friday Night Workshops which he has been giving for decades.
An article in the NYT gives a backgrounder on this.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/11/nyregion/11psych.html?ex=1129867200&en=7e2859d11b0055b8&ei=5070
(the full text of the NYT article can be found down a bit on this page)
www.rebt.cc
Dr. Ellis, after more than 50 years of service to the public, is calling on us to help him. I will include his open letter below. He has mentioned 5 things we can do, here are 2 of them.
1) Raise awareness in the psychological community -- and in the broader community -- about what has happened to Dr. Ellis and the Institute;
2) Raise money to assist Dr. Ellis with his legal bills and other costs associated with his struggles.
There is a petition to reinstate Dr. Albert Ellis here.
http://www.petitiononline.com/abc4rebt/petition.html
Detailed daily updates can be found at this website.
www.rebt.cc
More background for this information can be found here.
www.albertellis.info
The person people can write to to complain, is Dr Michael Broder, as he is the Executive Director who has executed this ruthless "palace coup".
Drbroder@aol.com
Full contacts can be found here.
http://www.rebt.org/contact.htm
----------------------------
(here is the open letter from Dr. Albert Ellis)
Dear Supporters:
Thank you to all who have written to offer support in my serious disagreements with the Albert Ellis Institute. I appreciate all of your kind words and thoughts. Many of you have expressed an interest in forming or joining a committee to help me in my current struggles, and I am, again, very appreciative of these thoughts. I have heard that there is, in fact, such a committee being formed. As I understand it, the main goals of the committee are to:
1. Raise awareness in the psychological community -- and in the broader community -- about what has happened to me and the Institute;
2. Return me to the Board of Trustees of the Institute so that I can continue to play a role in shaping the future of the Institute;
3. Return the main focus of the Institute to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, as opposed to the watered-down general forms of therapy that are favored by the current management of the Institute (I have always been and continue to be open to new developments within the study of REBT, but I am not in favor of forms of therapy that run counter to the very essence of REBT);
4. Return me to "Active Duty" so that I can restart the Friday Night Workshops at the Institute. They were cancelled without reason by the Institute.
5. Raise money to assist me with my legal bills and other costs associated with my struggles.
You should all be hearing from the founders of this committee over the next several weeks, and your support will be critical in our efforts. If you would be interested in assisting the committee please let me know and I will pass that information along to the committee’s founders.
Respectfully yours,
Dr. Albert Ellis
