Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy

Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy, a seminal work in twentieth-century psychology, was the first book on rational-emotive therapy. Written for psychotherapists, it soon became one of the most important and most quoted books in the field. Although intended for professionals, it has since become a widely popular and indispensable self-help book. This updated and revised edition reflects new findings by Dr. Albert Ellis and his colleagues, Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy started the cognitive-behavior movement in psychotherapy. When Dr. Ellis began practicing this groundbreaking new therapy in 1955, his was a little-heard voice. Two main forms of psychotherapy, both passive, then dominated the field: Freudian psychoanalysis, with its interminable listening to troubled people's complaints and supposedly unraveling their unconscious "complexes" and purportedly healing them of childhood traumas; and Carl Rogers's client-centered therapy, which forbade therapists from using any active-directive techniques to show clients what really troubled them or what to do about it. Other forms of therapy, such as Adlerian, Gestalt, Jungian, and behavior therapy, existed but had few followers. Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy helped change all this. Including Dr. Ellis's major papers, it was the pioneering work in cognitive-behavior therapy and presented a revolutionary, powerful, brief, and effective psychological treatment that was deeper and more intensive than either psychoanalysis or the therapy of Rogers and his followers. Dr. Ellis's new approach caught the imagination of practitioners all over the world, and by the late 1960s he was joined by Aaron Beck, William Glasser, DonaldMeichenbaum, and a host of other therapists who primarily followed his theories and practices. By the 1970s, Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and cognitive-behavior therapy were supported by scores of experimental studies and were being used by innumerable mental health practitioners. Today, REBT continues to be increasingly popular and effective. Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy helped so many therapists and laypeople over the years that a new edition might have seemed unnecessary. But psychotherapy, including REBT, moves on, and Dr. Ellis has expanded his original theory and practice and has added a large number of cognitive, emotive, and behavioral techniques to its innovative multimodal approach. This revised edition therefore includes all the important original theories and practices, as well as significant number of corrections and changes derived from clinical experience and experimentation, featuring a revision of its famous ABC's on human neurosis. A great many of the therapeutic techniques have been perfected since 1955, and the teachings of unconditional self-acceptance (USA) have been updated.