Legendary Therapist Albert Ellis Quits His Bitching
Sweary psychotherapist Albert Ellis has passed away at the age of 93. Ellis, who spent most of his Friday nights conducting seminars where he'd tell his patients to stop moaning and complaining, pioneered what might be called the "Sack Up" school of therapy.
Where the Freudians maintained that a painstaking exploration of childhood experience was critical to understanding neurosis and curing it, Dr. Ellis believed in short-term therapy that called on patients to focus on what was happening in their lives at the moment and to take immediate action to change their behavior. "Neurosis," he said, was "just a high-class word for whining."
With 75 books to his credit, Ellis changed the way many people think of therapy as both practice and theory. There's a terrific 2005 interview with him from here.
