Dr. Albert Ellis needs your help! (Founder of REBT)
Posted by:
Cosmophilospher
()
Date: October 15, 2005 07:54PM
Dr. Albert Ellis, who is 92 years old, has been ousted from his own Institute, The Albert Ellis Institute, a non-profit corporation.
I have spoken about Dr Ellis many times and the amazing work he has done, who is the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).
There is a lot to this story, but the bottom line is that his Institute has been seized by people who in my view are after the capital assets and huge intellectual assets of the Institute.
Dr. Ellis is ill, and they CUT OFF HIS MEDICAL BENEFITS, at 92 years of age.
Dr. Ellis has taken a very modest salary for decades, and now his own Institute has been seized by outsiders, and he is literally left with nothing.
My times is short right now, but I will post some info and links, and follow up ASAP.
I will also post the article from the NYT describing this situtation.
Please post whatever info you can to Newsgroups, Usenet, popular internet sites, psychological webboards, etc. The key with this is to raise a HUGE STINK, and to put pressure on these people, and get the situation reversed.
-------------------------------
Call for the Reinstatement of Dr Albert Ellis as President of the Albert Ellis Institute, New York,
[www.petitiononline.com]
[rebt.cc]
Complain to the Albert Ellis Institute here.
[rebt.cc]
(this is the bad guy who took over the Institute, give him hell!!)
Michael S. Broder, Ph.D. Executive Director
Drbroder@aol.com
------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Albert Ellis [mailto:AlbertEllis@albertellis.info]
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 12:58 AM
Subject: A letter from Albert Ellis
Dear Supporters:
Thank you to all who have written to offer support in my serious disagreements with the Albert Ellis Institute. I appreciate all of your kind words and thoughts. Many of you have expressed an interest in forming or joining a committee to help me in my current struggles, and I am, again, very appreciative of these thoughts. I have heard that there is, in fact, such a committee being formed. As I understand it, the main goals of the committee are to:
1. Raise awareness in the psychological community -- and in the broader community -- about what has happened to me and the Institute;
2. Return me to the Board of Trustees of the Institute so that I can continue to play a role in shaping the future of the Institute;
3. Return the main focus of the Institute to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, as opposed to the watered-down general forms of therapy that are favored by the current management of the Institute (I have always been and continue to be open to new developments within the study of REBT, but I am not in favor of forms of therapy that run counter to the very essence of REBT);
4. Return me to "Active Duty" so that I can restart the Friday Night Workshops at the Institute. They were cancelled without reason by the Institute.
5. Raise money to assist me with my legal bills and other costs associated with my struggles.
You should all be hearing from the founders of this committee over the next several weeks, and your support will be critical in our efforts. If you would be interested in assisting the committee please let me know and I will pass that information along to committee’s founders
Respectfully yours,
Dr. Albert Ellis
AlbertEllis@albertellis.info
--------------------
[www.albertellis.info]
Albert Ellis needs your help
An unfortunate situation that has arisen at the Albert Ellis Institute which endangers both the welfare of Dr. Albert Ellis and the future of REBT. In short, the AEI institute is a public, non-profit agency, which is run by a Board of Directors or trustees. Dr. Ellis has been the President of the Board for many years. Within the past year Dr. Ellis has been persuaded to step down as director to the position of President Emeritus.
As you may know, Dr. Ellis will be celebrated his 92nd birthday recently. He is physically weak, with multiple medical conditions, requiring round the clock medical care. HOWEVER, Dr. Ellis is lucid as ever, still very much productive in his writings, and very much able to conduct individual and group therapy, as well as his traditional Friday Night workshops.
Disagreements have arisen between Dr. Ellis and the Board’s new president and several members of the board. Dr. Ellis has found that the new president, Dr. Michael Broder, is not interested in promoting REBT, but rather a more generic CBT-like method of treatment. This and some personal issues which ought to have no place in the running of an Institute have led to Dr. Broder and the Board to restricting Dr. Ellis’s activities at the Institute, and finally, on September 16, to vote him off the Board.
Dr. Ellis, the founder of REBT, the man whose name the AEI Institute bears, has worked tirelessly all of his life to promote this very effective form of therapy; has worked with thousands of grateful clients; has led innumerable groups ad workshops; and has taught hundreds of interns how to help themselves and others overcome emotional difficulties.
Dr. Ellis was carrying out these activities as usual, and was told that he could no longer do so at the Institute. The very popular Friday Night Workshops were discontinued, with no explanation. The management of the institute has implied that Dr. Ellis is no longer fit to have public contact. This is in spite of a large number of licensed psychologists who have met with him and found him to be of sound mind. Now Dr. Ellis may only see clients in his studio on the sixth floor of the building, and the Institute refuses to provide any receptionist, secretarial or billing services. His ability to receive mail, documents, and any support services has been limited to cut off. In effect, Dr. Ellis is being treated as a virtual hostage in his own institute.
Dr. Ellis has always directed that all royalties from his many publications, talks, and professional services benefit the Institute directly, and he has only drawn a moderate salary for himself. So despite creating tremendous assets, Dr. Ellis is left with only minimal personal wealth. Recently, since Dr. Ellis has required extensive nursing care. The Institute was paying for these services, as part of his compensation, and to allow him to carry on his work. As of the Board Meeting on September 16, the Institute will no longer pay for these medical services, and Dr. Ellis, who has had little concern for his own financial well-being in the past, now finds himself with limited resources to pay for his own care! The Board is also no longer paying for Dr. Ellis’s legal counsel, nor for his assistant’s services.
Recently you may have received a brochure from the AEI Institute listing several continuing education classes. You may have noticed that Dr. Ellis’s name is only mentioned because the Institute bears his name, and REBT is mentioned in the description of only one of the workshops. This is not an REBT brochure, but rather a generic continuing education brochure. Without its unique REBT perspective, the AEI Institute will just be a large building with several psychologists carrying out a group practice which has little to do with Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy!
Dr. Ellis – Al – true to form is applying all the principles of REBT to not upset himself over his predicament. He showed himself to be lucid and reasonable, still with a sense of humor, at a recent meeting he held with some of his supporters. However, it is unlikely that the stress of seeing what is happening to the Institute is not affecting his fragile health. Moreover, to disenfranchise the man who made the Institute what it is today, to show so little respect and humanity to ANY 92-year-old colleague, is abhorrent!
If you feel that you want to show your support to a man who has changed so many of our lives to the better;
If you want to help give the AEI Institute a fighting chance to continue to be an Institute that practices and teachers REBT;
Albert Ellis needs your support. Dr. Ellis needs to pay legal expenses to fight the current Board of Directors, to put the AEI back on track to teaching and doing REBT.
Debbie@AlbertEllis.info
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 11, 2005
A Psychologist, 92, Is at Odds With the Institute He Founded
By BENEDICT CAREY and DAN HURLEY
In a drama worthy of a field that thrives on conflict, a bitter feud has erupted between Albert Ellis, one of the most provocative and influential figures in modern psychology, and the Upper East Side psychotherapy institute he founded almost a half-century ago.
Dr. Ellis, 92, has filed a lawsuit against the Albert Ellis Institute, after the institute kicked him off its board of directors and canceled his popular Friday evening seminars.
Dr. Ellis and his defenders claim that the nonprofit institute has fallen into the hands of psychologists who are moving it away from the revolutionary therapy techniques pioneered by Dr. Ellis in the 1960's and 1970's.
The lawsuit, reported on Sunday by The New York Post, charges that the board acted improperly in removing Dr. Ellis and seeks his reinstatement, as well as unspecified damages. But Daniel Kurtz, a lawyer for the institute, said that the board acted out of economic necessity: payouts to Dr. Ellis for medical and other expenses were jeopardizing the institute's tax-exempt status and its viability, he said.
Dr. Ellis, who lives above the institute on East 65th Street, has been in declining health since an infection that nearly killed him several years ago and has daily nursing care.
In the last year, the dispute has turned personal. Some board members have said they were uncomfortable with Dr. Ellis's confrontational style and eccentricities, and saw him as a liability, said Andy Hopson, a volunteer consultant hired by the institute at Dr. Ellis's urging.
And some of Dr. Ellis's supporters have hinted that the institute's current managers are little more than overpaid self-promoters, intent on turning the institute into an outlet for pop psychology in the style of Dr. Phil, according to Mike Abrams, a psychologist in private practice in New Jersey who has worked with Dr. Ellis.
The board also fired Dr. Ellis's assistant, whom he has now married, a fact that he has interpreted as additional evidence of personal animosity on the part of board members.
In an interview from his bedside yesterday, Dr. Ellis said that neither money nor his health was the most important issue in the dispute.
It is natural for any psychological institute to change and adapt with the times, he said, "but it's unusual for them to change and go completely against the main principles" of its founder "and still call it the Albert Ellis Institute, and say they're doing the therapy, which they are not."
The history of psychology is replete with personality clashes between charismatic gurus and their students, perhaps the most famous being the break between Sigmund Freud and his disciples Carl Jung and Alfred Adler in the early 1900's.
But historians say that the current quarrel is unusual, given the relationship between Dr. Ellis and the institute.
"I can't think of anything else where somebody had a theory and a practice and an institute in their name and that there was a coup going on internally over it," said David Baker, a professor of psychology at the University of Akron and director of the Archives of the History of American Psychology there. "This sounds nasty."
Dr. Baker said of Dr. Ellis: "He's always been provocative. He may not be willing to change with the times, and the times change - that's something we know from the lessons of history."
In a typical Friday evening session, Dr. Ellis - stooped in recent years, with a wisp of white hair and large black glasses - would advise, cajole and entertain groups of 100 or more students, psychologists and others looking for answers, often lacing his comments with obscenities for effect.
"Do you know why your family is trying to control you?" he barked at one attendee at a seminar last year. "Because they're out of their minds!"
Most therapists thought Dr. Ellis was off-track when he founded the institute in 1959 and used it as a platform to promote a revolution in psychotherapy.
At the time, psychotherapy drew its methods and inspiration from Freudian theory, which held that mental distress could be traced to unconscious conflicts rooted in early childhood. In a radical departure, Dr. Ellis insisted that therapists spend less time probing distant childhood experiences and concentrate instead on what was happening in people's lives at the moment.
In his own practice, he had observed that people's conscious personal philosophies and beliefs - the need to be appreciated, the fear of never finding anyone to love - often drove them to despair and distraction.
Dr. Ellis devised a method for exposing and defusing these habits, called rational emotive behavior therapy. Around the same time, a psychiatrist, Dr. Aaron Beck, now at the University of Pennsylvania, developed similar techniques, and the two men are considered the fathers of cognitive behavior therapy. Subsequent research has shown that the therapy is as effective as medication - and sometimes more so - in treating depression, relieving anxiety and ameliorating other types of distress.
Dr. Ellis was a board member at the institute for 46 years and hired most of its employees. But his personal style began to wear on some in management years ago, according to psychologists who have worked at the clinic. "I have worked with Dr. Ellis for years, and truly he is a first-class genius," Dr. Abrams said, "but that genius does not cross into every domain, and management is not his strength. I've told him that to his face."
By early 2004, with Dr. Ellis in declining health, the board began to negotiate with him about his future role at the institute, Mr. Kurtz said. The two sides could not come to agreement about Dr. Ellis's payment or title, Mr. Kurtz said, and in July, institute officials canceled the Friday evening sessions that had been a staple there for 30 years.
Dr. Ellis's lawyer, Michael de Leeuw, said: "Either these people really believe he is losing it, which he is not - in which case their lack of sympathy and fairness is appalling - or it's a palace coup.
"They have created a lot of animus. It's not what anyone would want to do to a guy who's 92 and the founder of a major school of psychology, especially one from whom they have all been directly enriched."
Mr. Kurtz said that the board's action in no way challenged the importance of Dr. Ellis's contributions but that those contributions were ultimately irrelevant to the ouster.
"We had someone who was working part time by any standard and who received financial benefits in the range of $500,000 to $600,000; it was just an outrageous situation," he said, referring mostly to medical benefits.
Mr. Kurtz, an expert in the laws governing nonprofits, said that in the nonprofit world, "there's something called founder's syndrome, and this is an extreme case of that: he sees this as something he can use as he wishes, and he can't."
Michael Broder, the director of the Institute, said yesterday that the action by the board was not personal and was within the law. Dr. Ellis's lawyers responded that Dr. Broder himself earned more than $200,000 last year and that Dr. Ellis's expenses were legitimate, especially given his modest salary - less than $50,000 a year - and his years of devotion to the institute.
Mr. Hopson said that the personal friction between Dr. Ellis and top managers was evident.
"It became apparent to me very quickly in my interviewing process that the relationship between Dr. Broder and Dr. Ellis was tenuous at best," he said. "Dr. Ellis didn't trust Dr. Broder and was frustrated that even though he was president of the board, Dr. Broder often ignored his directives."
Mr. Hopson said that Dr. Ellis also believed that Dr. Broder was manipulating the board.
"He frequently lamented to me that he didn't trust Dr. Broder," Mr. Hopson said.
In his new identity as a therapist unaffiliated with the Albert Ellis Institute, Dr. Ellis said he has been seeing a few clients. He said he does not hate those who removed him from the institute, nor is he angry about it.
"I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair, that's the human condition," he said.
I have spoken about Dr Ellis many times and the amazing work he has done, who is the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).
There is a lot to this story, but the bottom line is that his Institute has been seized by people who in my view are after the capital assets and huge intellectual assets of the Institute.
Dr. Ellis is ill, and they CUT OFF HIS MEDICAL BENEFITS, at 92 years of age.
Dr. Ellis has taken a very modest salary for decades, and now his own Institute has been seized by outsiders, and he is literally left with nothing.
My times is short right now, but I will post some info and links, and follow up ASAP.
I will also post the article from the NYT describing this situtation.
Please post whatever info you can to Newsgroups, Usenet, popular internet sites, psychological webboards, etc. The key with this is to raise a HUGE STINK, and to put pressure on these people, and get the situation reversed.
-------------------------------
Call for the Reinstatement of Dr Albert Ellis as President of the Albert Ellis Institute, New York,
[www.petitiononline.com]
[rebt.cc]
Complain to the Albert Ellis Institute here.
[rebt.cc]
(this is the bad guy who took over the Institute, give him hell!!)
Michael S. Broder, Ph.D. Executive Director
Drbroder@aol.com
------------------------
-----Original Message-----
From: Albert Ellis [mailto:AlbertEllis@albertellis.info]
Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 12:58 AM
Subject: A letter from Albert Ellis
Dear Supporters:
Thank you to all who have written to offer support in my serious disagreements with the Albert Ellis Institute. I appreciate all of your kind words and thoughts. Many of you have expressed an interest in forming or joining a committee to help me in my current struggles, and I am, again, very appreciative of these thoughts. I have heard that there is, in fact, such a committee being formed. As I understand it, the main goals of the committee are to:
1. Raise awareness in the psychological community -- and in the broader community -- about what has happened to me and the Institute;
2. Return me to the Board of Trustees of the Institute so that I can continue to play a role in shaping the future of the Institute;
3. Return the main focus of the Institute to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, as opposed to the watered-down general forms of therapy that are favored by the current management of the Institute (I have always been and continue to be open to new developments within the study of REBT, but I am not in favor of forms of therapy that run counter to the very essence of REBT);
4. Return me to "Active Duty" so that I can restart the Friday Night Workshops at the Institute. They were cancelled without reason by the Institute.
5. Raise money to assist me with my legal bills and other costs associated with my struggles.
You should all be hearing from the founders of this committee over the next several weeks, and your support will be critical in our efforts. If you would be interested in assisting the committee please let me know and I will pass that information along to committee’s founders
Respectfully yours,
Dr. Albert Ellis
AlbertEllis@albertellis.info
--------------------
[www.albertellis.info]
Albert Ellis needs your help
An unfortunate situation that has arisen at the Albert Ellis Institute which endangers both the welfare of Dr. Albert Ellis and the future of REBT. In short, the AEI institute is a public, non-profit agency, which is run by a Board of Directors or trustees. Dr. Ellis has been the President of the Board for many years. Within the past year Dr. Ellis has been persuaded to step down as director to the position of President Emeritus.
As you may know, Dr. Ellis will be celebrated his 92nd birthday recently. He is physically weak, with multiple medical conditions, requiring round the clock medical care. HOWEVER, Dr. Ellis is lucid as ever, still very much productive in his writings, and very much able to conduct individual and group therapy, as well as his traditional Friday Night workshops.
Disagreements have arisen between Dr. Ellis and the Board’s new president and several members of the board. Dr. Ellis has found that the new president, Dr. Michael Broder, is not interested in promoting REBT, but rather a more generic CBT-like method of treatment. This and some personal issues which ought to have no place in the running of an Institute have led to Dr. Broder and the Board to restricting Dr. Ellis’s activities at the Institute, and finally, on September 16, to vote him off the Board.
Dr. Ellis, the founder of REBT, the man whose name the AEI Institute bears, has worked tirelessly all of his life to promote this very effective form of therapy; has worked with thousands of grateful clients; has led innumerable groups ad workshops; and has taught hundreds of interns how to help themselves and others overcome emotional difficulties.
Dr. Ellis was carrying out these activities as usual, and was told that he could no longer do so at the Institute. The very popular Friday Night Workshops were discontinued, with no explanation. The management of the institute has implied that Dr. Ellis is no longer fit to have public contact. This is in spite of a large number of licensed psychologists who have met with him and found him to be of sound mind. Now Dr. Ellis may only see clients in his studio on the sixth floor of the building, and the Institute refuses to provide any receptionist, secretarial or billing services. His ability to receive mail, documents, and any support services has been limited to cut off. In effect, Dr. Ellis is being treated as a virtual hostage in his own institute.
Dr. Ellis has always directed that all royalties from his many publications, talks, and professional services benefit the Institute directly, and he has only drawn a moderate salary for himself. So despite creating tremendous assets, Dr. Ellis is left with only minimal personal wealth. Recently, since Dr. Ellis has required extensive nursing care. The Institute was paying for these services, as part of his compensation, and to allow him to carry on his work. As of the Board Meeting on September 16, the Institute will no longer pay for these medical services, and Dr. Ellis, who has had little concern for his own financial well-being in the past, now finds himself with limited resources to pay for his own care! The Board is also no longer paying for Dr. Ellis’s legal counsel, nor for his assistant’s services.
Recently you may have received a brochure from the AEI Institute listing several continuing education classes. You may have noticed that Dr. Ellis’s name is only mentioned because the Institute bears his name, and REBT is mentioned in the description of only one of the workshops. This is not an REBT brochure, but rather a generic continuing education brochure. Without its unique REBT perspective, the AEI Institute will just be a large building with several psychologists carrying out a group practice which has little to do with Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy!
Dr. Ellis – Al – true to form is applying all the principles of REBT to not upset himself over his predicament. He showed himself to be lucid and reasonable, still with a sense of humor, at a recent meeting he held with some of his supporters. However, it is unlikely that the stress of seeing what is happening to the Institute is not affecting his fragile health. Moreover, to disenfranchise the man who made the Institute what it is today, to show so little respect and humanity to ANY 92-year-old colleague, is abhorrent!
If you feel that you want to show your support to a man who has changed so many of our lives to the better;
If you want to help give the AEI Institute a fighting chance to continue to be an Institute that practices and teachers REBT;
Albert Ellis needs your support. Dr. Ellis needs to pay legal expenses to fight the current Board of Directors, to put the AEI back on track to teaching and doing REBT.
Debbie@AlbertEllis.info
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 11, 2005
A Psychologist, 92, Is at Odds With the Institute He Founded
By BENEDICT CAREY and DAN HURLEY
In a drama worthy of a field that thrives on conflict, a bitter feud has erupted between Albert Ellis, one of the most provocative and influential figures in modern psychology, and the Upper East Side psychotherapy institute he founded almost a half-century ago.
Dr. Ellis, 92, has filed a lawsuit against the Albert Ellis Institute, after the institute kicked him off its board of directors and canceled his popular Friday evening seminars.
Dr. Ellis and his defenders claim that the nonprofit institute has fallen into the hands of psychologists who are moving it away from the revolutionary therapy techniques pioneered by Dr. Ellis in the 1960's and 1970's.
The lawsuit, reported on Sunday by The New York Post, charges that the board acted improperly in removing Dr. Ellis and seeks his reinstatement, as well as unspecified damages. But Daniel Kurtz, a lawyer for the institute, said that the board acted out of economic necessity: payouts to Dr. Ellis for medical and other expenses were jeopardizing the institute's tax-exempt status and its viability, he said.
Dr. Ellis, who lives above the institute on East 65th Street, has been in declining health since an infection that nearly killed him several years ago and has daily nursing care.
In the last year, the dispute has turned personal. Some board members have said they were uncomfortable with Dr. Ellis's confrontational style and eccentricities, and saw him as a liability, said Andy Hopson, a volunteer consultant hired by the institute at Dr. Ellis's urging.
And some of Dr. Ellis's supporters have hinted that the institute's current managers are little more than overpaid self-promoters, intent on turning the institute into an outlet for pop psychology in the style of Dr. Phil, according to Mike Abrams, a psychologist in private practice in New Jersey who has worked with Dr. Ellis.
The board also fired Dr. Ellis's assistant, whom he has now married, a fact that he has interpreted as additional evidence of personal animosity on the part of board members.
In an interview from his bedside yesterday, Dr. Ellis said that neither money nor his health was the most important issue in the dispute.
It is natural for any psychological institute to change and adapt with the times, he said, "but it's unusual for them to change and go completely against the main principles" of its founder "and still call it the Albert Ellis Institute, and say they're doing the therapy, which they are not."
The history of psychology is replete with personality clashes between charismatic gurus and their students, perhaps the most famous being the break between Sigmund Freud and his disciples Carl Jung and Alfred Adler in the early 1900's.
But historians say that the current quarrel is unusual, given the relationship between Dr. Ellis and the institute.
"I can't think of anything else where somebody had a theory and a practice and an institute in their name and that there was a coup going on internally over it," said David Baker, a professor of psychology at the University of Akron and director of the Archives of the History of American Psychology there. "This sounds nasty."
Dr. Baker said of Dr. Ellis: "He's always been provocative. He may not be willing to change with the times, and the times change - that's something we know from the lessons of history."
In a typical Friday evening session, Dr. Ellis - stooped in recent years, with a wisp of white hair and large black glasses - would advise, cajole and entertain groups of 100 or more students, psychologists and others looking for answers, often lacing his comments with obscenities for effect.
"Do you know why your family is trying to control you?" he barked at one attendee at a seminar last year. "Because they're out of their minds!"
Most therapists thought Dr. Ellis was off-track when he founded the institute in 1959 and used it as a platform to promote a revolution in psychotherapy.
At the time, psychotherapy drew its methods and inspiration from Freudian theory, which held that mental distress could be traced to unconscious conflicts rooted in early childhood. In a radical departure, Dr. Ellis insisted that therapists spend less time probing distant childhood experiences and concentrate instead on what was happening in people's lives at the moment.
In his own practice, he had observed that people's conscious personal philosophies and beliefs - the need to be appreciated, the fear of never finding anyone to love - often drove them to despair and distraction.
Dr. Ellis devised a method for exposing and defusing these habits, called rational emotive behavior therapy. Around the same time, a psychiatrist, Dr. Aaron Beck, now at the University of Pennsylvania, developed similar techniques, and the two men are considered the fathers of cognitive behavior therapy. Subsequent research has shown that the therapy is as effective as medication - and sometimes more so - in treating depression, relieving anxiety and ameliorating other types of distress.
Dr. Ellis was a board member at the institute for 46 years and hired most of its employees. But his personal style began to wear on some in management years ago, according to psychologists who have worked at the clinic. "I have worked with Dr. Ellis for years, and truly he is a first-class genius," Dr. Abrams said, "but that genius does not cross into every domain, and management is not his strength. I've told him that to his face."
By early 2004, with Dr. Ellis in declining health, the board began to negotiate with him about his future role at the institute, Mr. Kurtz said. The two sides could not come to agreement about Dr. Ellis's payment or title, Mr. Kurtz said, and in July, institute officials canceled the Friday evening sessions that had been a staple there for 30 years.
Dr. Ellis's lawyer, Michael de Leeuw, said: "Either these people really believe he is losing it, which he is not - in which case their lack of sympathy and fairness is appalling - or it's a palace coup.
"They have created a lot of animus. It's not what anyone would want to do to a guy who's 92 and the founder of a major school of psychology, especially one from whom they have all been directly enriched."
Mr. Kurtz said that the board's action in no way challenged the importance of Dr. Ellis's contributions but that those contributions were ultimately irrelevant to the ouster.
"We had someone who was working part time by any standard and who received financial benefits in the range of $500,000 to $600,000; it was just an outrageous situation," he said, referring mostly to medical benefits.
Mr. Kurtz, an expert in the laws governing nonprofits, said that in the nonprofit world, "there's something called founder's syndrome, and this is an extreme case of that: he sees this as something he can use as he wishes, and he can't."
Michael Broder, the director of the Institute, said yesterday that the action by the board was not personal and was within the law. Dr. Ellis's lawyers responded that Dr. Broder himself earned more than $200,000 last year and that Dr. Ellis's expenses were legitimate, especially given his modest salary - less than $50,000 a year - and his years of devotion to the institute.
Mr. Hopson said that the personal friction between Dr. Ellis and top managers was evident.
"It became apparent to me very quickly in my interviewing process that the relationship between Dr. Broder and Dr. Ellis was tenuous at best," he said. "Dr. Ellis didn't trust Dr. Broder and was frustrated that even though he was president of the board, Dr. Broder often ignored his directives."
Mr. Hopson said that Dr. Ellis also believed that Dr. Broder was manipulating the board.
"He frequently lamented to me that he didn't trust Dr. Broder," Mr. Hopson said.
In his new identity as a therapist unaffiliated with the Albert Ellis Institute, Dr. Ellis said he has been seeing a few clients. He said he does not hate those who removed him from the institute, nor is he angry about it.
"I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair, that's the human condition," he said.
Dr. Albert Ellis needs your help! (Founder of REBT)
Posted by:
Cosmophilospher
()
Date: October 18, 2005 07:28AM
More information is coming about now about the travesty at the Albert Ellis Institute.
Please consider signing the petition, and also sending emails, and contacting people concerned with this type of issue.
There certainly is a "culty" feel to the statements put out by the board who deposed Albert Ellis. Its full of newspeak, deception, twisting the facts, and many other methods we are well aware of here.
Publicity is the enemy of Dr. Broder, who was the one who carried out this act, which might be illegal. Please publicize this anywhere you can. The bad PR might be enough to turn this around...
Here is some reliable information that was posted recently...
--------------
1) The decision to dismiss Dr. Ellis was made at a regular board meeting, despite the fact that there is a legal requirement for such decisions to be made at a special meeting convened for the sole purpose of discussing the intended dismissal.
2) Dr. Ellis was informed that no lawyers would be present at the meeting. This turned out not to be the case; a lawyer for the board was present. Dr. Ellis was unrepresented.
3) Undue pressure was put on board members who wanted to vote against dismissing Dr. Ellis. They were told that they would be held personally responsible -- presumably in the event of the AEI suffering financial repercussions -- and would be subject to litigation unless they voted for a dismissal.
4) Board members who opposed the sacking of Dr. Ellis voted in favor of his dismissal, in part, because of the legal pressure put on them, and partly because they adopted a "what the heck" attitude knowing that the dismissal was invalid because of the illegality of the meeting.
5) Dr. Broder refused to give other board members access to the auditors' reports that showed he drew a salary of approximately $260,000 in 2004, and a salary estimated to be between $350,000 and $400,000 in 2005.
Please consider signing the petition, and also sending emails, and contacting people concerned with this type of issue.
There certainly is a "culty" feel to the statements put out by the board who deposed Albert Ellis. Its full of newspeak, deception, twisting the facts, and many other methods we are well aware of here.
Publicity is the enemy of Dr. Broder, who was the one who carried out this act, which might be illegal. Please publicize this anywhere you can. The bad PR might be enough to turn this around...
Here is some reliable information that was posted recently...
--------------
1) The decision to dismiss Dr. Ellis was made at a regular board meeting, despite the fact that there is a legal requirement for such decisions to be made at a special meeting convened for the sole purpose of discussing the intended dismissal.
2) Dr. Ellis was informed that no lawyers would be present at the meeting. This turned out not to be the case; a lawyer for the board was present. Dr. Ellis was unrepresented.
3) Undue pressure was put on board members who wanted to vote against dismissing Dr. Ellis. They were told that they would be held personally responsible -- presumably in the event of the AEI suffering financial repercussions -- and would be subject to litigation unless they voted for a dismissal.
4) Board members who opposed the sacking of Dr. Ellis voted in favor of his dismissal, in part, because of the legal pressure put on them, and partly because they adopted a "what the heck" attitude knowing that the dismissal was invalid because of the illegality of the meeting.
5) Dr. Broder refused to give other board members access to the auditors' reports that showed he drew a salary of approximately $260,000 in 2004, and a salary estimated to be between $350,000 and $400,000 in 2005.
Dr. Albert Ellis needs your help! (Founder of REBT)
Posted by:
Cosmophilospher
()
Date: October 28, 2005 06:52AM
The Institute that did a coup to get rid of Albert Ellis, also shut
down the web forum they were running, due to all of their customers complaining about what they did to Dr. Ellis. They censored and deleted all the critical posts that were there.
Straight up censorship, and suppression of dissent.
I have just been notified that a new web forum has just been put up, and information about this situation is accumulating there, concerning actions to take, a civil protest, legal action, etc.
Please assist Dr. Ellis if you can, by sending emails, making this public, etc. There are links there about who you can email.
REBT is a wonderful and powerful form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that has helped many people in their recovery.
The new forum can be found here..
REBT CBT Workshop
[s14.invisionfree.com]
down the web forum they were running, due to all of their customers complaining about what they did to Dr. Ellis. They censored and deleted all the critical posts that were there.
Straight up censorship, and suppression of dissent.
I have just been notified that a new web forum has just been put up, and information about this situation is accumulating there, concerning actions to take, a civil protest, legal action, etc.
Please assist Dr. Ellis if you can, by sending emails, making this public, etc. There are links there about who you can email.
REBT is a wonderful and powerful form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that has helped many people in their recovery.
The new forum can be found here..
REBT CBT Workshop
[s14.invisionfree.com]
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