REBTOZ

Dear Friends and Colleagues, The masterful and great Albert Ellis PhD passed on July 24th, 2007. The years have flown by, and I wonder what he might think if he were still alive. I think it is highly likely that he would enjoy the remarkable progress of neuro-physiological research and findings, and the continuing embrace of the cognitive approach in psychotherapy (he heralded in the cognitive revolution in psychotherapy in the 1950's). I suspect that journalists would be clamoring to hear his views, on a regular basis, about the current state of our country and the world - and his responses would be sharp, rational, direct, and interspersed with his fine and piercing wit! He might regret that some of the people who, in his lifetime, championed the REBT approach are in recent years merging their work with a more general CBT approach, for as much as he immensely respected CBT and the outstanding research associated with it, it does not, as much as REBT does, emphasize the human...

Since NAPLAN was introduced ten years ago reading and numeracy have improved slightly and writing skills have gone down and despite all the resources that have been invested in our system of education we haven’t hit the lofty heights of excellence we were hoping for. School performance in NAPLAN it is accepted, reflects best teaching practise so teachers and students are under considerable pressure to perform. NAPLAN was the solution to a declared ‘crisis’ in education so we wouldn’t be ‘left behind’ our international peers. Educational discourse centred on concepts of ‘failure’, ‘crisis’, ‘measurement’, ‘benchmarks’, ‘assessment’, ‘reporting’, ‘good/bad teacher/student.’ Teacher’s professional worth was and continues to be questioned and discussed in the public arena. What makes a ‘good’ teacher? If teachers aren’t ‘good’ then are they ‘bad?’ ‘Bad’ teachers are the cause of falling standards etc. Greg Thompson asserts in T...

This is typical of conversations I've had over the years working with young people. From early childhood to senior high school age the theme of most topics relates to the idea of 'being' and 'doing.' This exchange serves to illustrate the point that somehow Fred has decided that what he does is indeed who he is. Dr Albert Ellis in his  Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture 1961  on General Semantics and Rational Emotive (Behaviour) Therapy acknowledges that Alfred Korzybski, the originator of general semantics heavily influenced his own pioneering work. Korzybski spoke of the 'is' of predication and Ellis explains this here saying that: ' ... statements like, "I am good" and "I am bad" are inaccurate over generalisations, because in reality I am a person who sometimes acts in a good and sometimes in a bad manner.'   The notion that one 'is' good or bad is an errant one which can harm the emotional and psychological we...