I started to call myself a "rational therapist" in January 1955; later I used the term "rational emotive." Now I call myself a "rational emotive behavior therapist." But from the start, I always included philosophic techniques as well as experiential, emotional and behavioral techniques.
Albert EllisAcceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they're alive and human.
Albert EllisI teach people to be flexible, scientific and logical in their thinking and therefore to be less prone to brainwashing by the therapist.
Albert EllisPeople don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. They always have the power to think, and to think about their thinking, and to think about thinking about their thinking, which the goddamn dolphin, as far as we know, can't do. Therefore they have much greater ability to change themselves than any other animal has, and I hope that REBT teaches them how to do it.
Albert EllisThere's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women or that men are more willing to surrender their irrational beliefs. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational.
Albert Ellis