ALBERT ELLIS ON EVALUATING SELVES

Robert C. ROBERTS *

Wheaton College

 
Abstract
An important aspect of Ellis’s theory and practice of therapy is the promotion of self- acceptance in the client. This is accomplished by getting the client to give up all self-evaluation. Ellis appears to give three different rationales for this practice/theory: 1) the selves are functions, 2) that selves are ontologically incapable of taking value-predicates, and 3) that it is therapeutically necessary to forswear self-evaluations. It is argued that Ellis needs a rationale for rejecting all self-evaluation, but on his own principles none of the three available to him works. Thus his psychotherapy fails a crucial test of theory adequacy: consistency. If RET is to became a rational system, a way must be found to eschew self-evaluation in terms of traits and behavior without forswearing all self-evaluation. For this purpose the theory needs to be supplemented with some plausible account of human dignity or value, in which clients can be rationally convinced that they share, independently of the value of their traits and behavior.

Key words: RET, self, evaluating selves

Pages: 11-18