by Mark Schiffman, M.S.
This past week has been a very religious week throughout the world, and here in New York City in particular. On Friday morning, Pope Francis was less than a mile north of The Albert Ellis Institute, addressing the General Assembly at the United Nations. While we invited him to come to Friday Night Live, he was already booked a mile west of the Ellis Institute for Mass at Madison Square Garden. In addition to the Pope’s visit, Jews all over the world celebrated Yom Kippur from Tuesday evening to Wednesday evening, and Muslims celebrated Eid al-Adha from Wednesday evening to Thursday evening.
In a speech at the Institute of Rational Emotive Therapy in 1961, Albert Ellis disparaged religion as being “on almost every conceivable count, directly opposed to the goals of mental health.” However, over the next 40 years, Ellis’s views on religion and mental health changed dramatically. In 2001, he co-authored a book “Counseling and Psychotherapy with Religious Persons: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Approach.” While remaining devoutly atheist, Ellis demonstrated how core REBT values and principles are compatible with many religious systems of beliefs.
At the core of REBT is to challenge irrational beliefs that lead to dysfunctional emotions or behaviors. However, an REBT therapist does not question or challenge the value system of a client. Because of this, when incorporated in a culturally and religiously sensitive way, REBT techniques can be used very effectively with religious individuals. In an article from 1990, Dr. Raymond DiGiuseppe observed that many religiously-related irrational beliefs are not caused by the religious belief per se, but rather by the client selectively abstracting only part of the religious belief system at the exclusion of attending to others.
In a soon to be released REBT Master Therapist DVD, Steve Johnson, Ph.D., demonstrates how REBT can be used with a Christian client who is struggling with depression caused by self-downing. Dr. Johnson, with knowledge of Christian theology and a deeply empathic and Socratic style, helped the client realize that his irrational beliefs are actually inconsistent with some of the client’s own deeply held religious beliefs. In this scenario, the client’s religious beliefs actually helped him identify and dispute his irrational beliefs.
