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In the past year or so, The Atlantic has been running numerous articles decrying the growing overprotection of children by modern society. A recent issue featured an excellent article coauthored by one of my heroes, freedom of speech champion Greg Lukianoff1, and Jonathan Haidt titled, The Coddling of the American Mind2, with the teaser, In the name of emotional well-being, college students are increasingly demanding protection from words and ideas they don’t like. Here’s why that’s disastrous for education—and mental health.
The article concludes with a description of a number of cognitive behavior psychology principles that should be taught to students to help them fight thought distortions and increase their resilience in the face of ideas that might otherwise upset them.
It occurred to me when I was done reading, “Why isn’t Albert Ellis given credit for any of these principles?” One would think that the psychologists mentioned in the article came up with them, while they are in reality repeating or expanding upon what they learned from the previous generation of psychological thinkers.
My next thought was, “I am not a whole lot better.” While I’ve been declaring that my approach to bullying is consistent with almost every major school of psychotherapy, when I think back upon the psychologists who influenced me, I realize that the most significant was Albert Ellis, creator of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). I have mentioned Ellis in several of my writings, but never gave him the full credit that he deserves. So this is my attempt to make up for my failing.
Though he isn’t known as such, Albert Ellis was a master at teaching people how to stop being bullied. He didn’t do it by trying to rid society of bullies, an approach he would have seen as irrational. Instead, he taught them how to stop thinking like victims.
Unfortunately, bullying had only become a popular field of psychology towards the end of his long life (he died in 2007 at the age of 93). Thus, he was apparently unaware that the foundations of the bullying field are diametrically opposed to REBT. Nor was he aware that he had the answers to the bullying problem society is so desperately seeking.
Had the field of bullying become prominent when he was in his prime, I can’t imagine that he would have kept his mouth shut about it. He would have been singing, totally irrational! And because of his stature, the leaders of psychology would have listened to him (unlike to yours truly). He would have shown us how easy it is to solve the problem of bullying, and saved society the billions of dollars it has spent on the anti-bullying industry. Albert Ellis would have become known as the world’s bullying expert and REBT as the gold standard for bullying reduction.
Here are some gems from Albert Ellis, which can be found on the website, Brainy Quote.2
“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”
“We teach people that they upset themselves. We can't change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today.”
“You largely constructed your depression. It wasn't given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.”
“People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness.”
Compare these saying with the anti-bully psychology that tells us that our misery has nothing to do with ourselves but is caused by bullies, and that bullies are the ones who need to change. Victims don’t need to change, we are informed, because they aren’t doing anything wrong. If anti-bully psychologists were to read these quotes, they would surely complain with outrage that Ellis is “blaming victims.”
“I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair; that's the human condition.”
The anti-bully field is based on the idea that we all have a right to be treated fairly by other people—that social justice is the solution to bullying. No matter what is wrong with us, no matter how different and imperfect we are, we are entitled to live in a completely fair society in which everyone treats us as though we are perfect and never does anything that might disturb us.
“There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.”
The second two of these “musts” have been mandated by law thanks to lobbying by the anti-bully movement. Schools are now required to make sure that all students are treated well, and that students do not have to do anything to make this happen other than to inform the authorities when they are treated badly.
“Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world.”
The reason the anti-bully psychology has been getting poor results in the real world is that it is based on irrational beliefs. These beliefs include (but are not limited to): victims have nothing to do with the way they are treated; bullying is a strictly learned behavior; victims can’t handle bullies on their own because there is an imbalance of power; bullying could be eliminated if everyone in society would refuse to tolerate it; bystanders are the key to solving the bullying problem; strict enforcement of anti-bullying laws can eliminate bullying; schools aren’t doing enough to make bullying stop; and bullying researchers know the solution to bullying.
“I think the future of psychotherapy and psychology is in the school system. We need to teach every child how to rarely seriously disturb himself or herself and how to overcome disturbance when it occurs.”
I especially love the above. It is precisely what I have been doing in schools for the past four decades. It is also what The Atlantic article recommends. But the anti-bully field has been doing the opposite: requiring schools to teach all students that they don’t disturb themselves — others (bullies) do it to them, and that everyone other than themselves need to overcome the disturbance for them.
If you've somehow never heard of Albert Ellis, you might think that he was some kook who made up some newfangled ideas that have been disproved by modern psychology. On the contrary. As the website of the Albert Ellis Institute says, “Prior to his death in 2007, Psychology Today described him as the ‘greatest living psychologist.’”4
His ideas are the basis not only of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy but also of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), which has earned the reputation as the most effective system of psychotherapy.
Furthermore, Ellis didn’t take credit for his ideas. He attributed them to the Greek philosophers of thousands of years ago. When he found that the psychoanalysis he was practicing wasn’t doing his clients much good, he then turned to the philosophers and discovered they had the answers to life’s problems. The Albert Ellis Institute website has a section with 99 “Quotes on the Foundations of REBT/CBT.5”
We need Albert Ellis now more than ever. Thankfully his teachings are still here to help us.
2The Coddling of the American Mind
3Brainy Quote: Albert Ellis Quotes
5http://albertellis.org/quotes-on-the-foundations-of-rebt-cbt/
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