Two Forms of Humanistic Psychology Rational-Emotive Therapy Vs
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Two Forms of Humanistic Psychology Rational-Emotive Therapy vs. Transpersonal Psychology Humanistic psychology has been a major force in the past decade and a half. Albert Ellis believes that one aspect of it, transpersonal psychology, is basically mystical and anti-scientific and also anti-humanistic. In the following article, Ellis presents an alternative form of psychotherapy, rational-emotive therapy, which he originated and which he maintains avoids the religious excesses of transpersonal psychotherapy. Albert Ellis ranspersonal psychology (TP) has become enormously between the two systems and the different kinds of therapeutic popular in the United States during the past fifteen results they produce. Tyears and now may well be the main influence on Transpersonal psychology covers a multitude of theories humanistic psychotherapists and psychologists. As has been and methods and is often wrongly confused with humanistic often pointed out, transpersonal psychology largely stems from psychology. Some of the main tenets of TP are: Eastern rather than Western philosophy, but it is also strongly 1. A higher form of consciousness exists that transcends influenced by ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Middle East mystics, normal sensation and cognition. Hegelian philosophy, and the transcendentalists of the 1840s 2. There are universal, all-encompassing forms of energy (like Emerson and Bronson Alcott) who brought some of the and light that we can tap into to cure ourselves of most physical Asian philosophy to America. and mental ills. Rational-emotive therapy (RET) is a school of psycho- 3. All living and inanimate things merge into one funda- therapy that I orginated in 1955 after I became disillusioned mental Unity. By understanding and blending with this undi- with practicing psychoanalysis and with trying other modern vided Oneness, we can overcome our human limitations, get forms of psychotherapy. Although it employs existential phi- directly in touch with God, eradicate all our problems and losophy and uses some of the ideas of the ancient East— handicaps, and achieve boundless bliss. particularly those of Confucius and Buddha—it is mainly a 4. It is good to surrender our personal identity or ego and Western, scientifically oriented form of psychotherapy, and reach a state of mindlessness, egolessness, detachment, and most of its principles and practices are opposed to mysticism, desirelessness—nirvana. occultism, transcendentalism, supernaturalism, and religiosity. 5. By following transcendental teachings we can achieve RET significantly differs in many ways from Transpersonal perfect knowledge, peace, unity with the universe, joy, and Psychology and its offshoot, transpersonal psychotherapy. In physical and mental well-being. what follows, I will discuss some of the major differences 6. God-like leaders, gurus, masters, or "Holinesses" can be found who understand transcendental teachings, have miracu- lous powers, and are able to diagnose and cure human ills Albert Ellis, a clinical psychologist, is executive director of the magically. Institute for Rational-Emotive Therapy. He is the author of 7. There are holy scriptures—like the Bible, the Upanishad, many books, including The American Sexual Tragedy and A the Kabala, and H. P. Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine—that reveal Guide to Rational Living. the Sacred Truth about the world and are to be devoutly followed. 14 FREE INQUIRY 8. The universe is ruled by a superhuman God or Supreme surrender their desires and goals and supposedly merge their Being, our acknowledgment and worship of whom guarantees identities with the inanimate objects of the universe. It sub- perfect enlightenment, peace, and happiness. scribes to an individual's complete submission to a hypothe- 9. Paranormal experiences—like ESP, psychokinesis, astral sized Supreme Deity, bowing to this god's interest and whims projection, fortune telling, UFOs, witchcraft, and psychic and refusing to determine or actualize his or her own goals. It surgery—exist and can be obtained by adopting a transpersonal places the love and devotion to God or a "Higher Conscious- outlook. ness" above intimacy with other humans. It champions living 10. By tapping into transcendental and higher conscious- life on earth with a view to achieving happiness in a highly ness sources, we can create miracles and magical results that unlikely afterlife or heavenly existence. It fosters censorship, benefit us enormously. oppression, fascism, violence, terrorism, religious war, and 11. Afterlife experiences, reincarnation, and the immor- genocide—all fanatically perpetrated in the name of some tality of our souls have been empirically proven. authoritarian supreme power who commands that his or her 12. Absolute Reality can be found; and when we find it zealous followers subjugate and destroy their opponents and we reach absolute, invariant, unchangeable, ineffable Truth. thereby achieve sanctification in a conjectured heaven. It deni- 13. We are ruled by inexorable karma or fate and there- grates human consciousness in favor of the alleged achieve- fore cannot decide our own destiny or make our own choices ment of "Divine Consciousness." It pleads for the achievement or decisions. of "ultimate values" and "ultimate meaning," not to mention 14. We not only have a body and mind but also an inef- absolute perfection and truth. It spurs its adherents to achieve fable and immortal soul or spirit whose disembodied essence perfection—which for highly fallible mortals is anti-humanistic. will persist forever. Its obsession with superhuman, subhuman, and nonhuman 15. We all have a God within us who enables us to be entities denigrates the importance of what is uniquely and perfect, to ward off harm, and to miraculously cure ourselves distinctly human. of ills. One of TP's main goals is for humanity to achieve what J. F. T. Bugental (1971) calls the search for the hidden God The Goals of Psychotherapy within ourselves. But this is the essence of what Christopher Lasch calls the evil of the "me-generation": autistic self- sychotherapy has many goals, none of which are beneficial absorption to the point of shutting out other humans. Humans Pfor all clients at all times but many of which are generally accepted as being reasonably good for many or most clients much of the time. These goals can be either abetted or under- mined by rational-emotive therapy and transpersonal psy- chology. Rational-emotive therapy is frankly humanistic and expressly teaches its clients many of the principles of secular humanism. It particularly holds that people must achieve a balance between acknowledging and developing their personal identity and individuality while living harmoniously within their social group and cultivating (especially in today's nuclear- powered world) social interest. RET also teaches that, while people had better humanistically cherish and protect lower animal life and the ecology in which we live, human interests (including survival and happiness) come first and are at least a little more important than the interests of inanimate objects and of hypothetical gods. It fully accepts the fallibility of humans and resists all notions of individuals becoming sub- human or superhuman (Ellis 1962; 1973; 1983; 1985). Transpersonal psychology professes to be humanistic and endorses many of the principles of organizations like the Asso- ciation for Humanistic Psychology and the Division of Human- istic Psychology of the American Psychological Association. In several important respects, however, it is exceptionally anti- humanistic. Transpersonal psychology places the awareness of inani- mate objects on a par with human consciousness. As Arthur Deikman (1972, p. 1) avers: "The awareness of a tree is not different from our own, it is continuous with it like awareness is the origin of the entire system." It advocates egolessness, Albert Ellis nirvana, or selflessness—a state in which humans completely Fall 1985 15 are uniquely immersed in cultural and social mores, precon- TP adherents believe in "Absolute Truth," which they allege is ceptions and conceptions, self-direction, and interpersonal con- self-experienced and cannot be disproved by any empirical data cerns. If Bugental and his fellow transpersonal therapists had or logical analysis. their way, they would help to dehumanize, decerebrate, and In spite of science's inability to confirm telepathy, pre- desocialize "earthians"—and render them much less humanistic! cognition, psychokinesis, clairvoyance, fortune-telling, out-of- body phenomena, psychic surgery, exorcism, and monsters, TP Advancement of Scientific Thinking often devoutly and unqualifiedly upholds their existence. It continually resorts to definitional and tautological statements— ational-emotive therapy, perhaps more than any other such as Hegel's statement about "Spirit's discovery of Spirit as Rmajor school of psychotherapy, endorses scientific think- Spirit" (cited in Wilber 1982)—that contain no empirical ing and uses it in several important ways. It holds that people referents but are accepted as truths. It persistently and stoutly disturb themselves with anti-scientific, absolutistic, dogmatic, posits unfalsifiable hypotheses that cannot, as Karl Popper has rigid, unrealistic, and illogical thinking. Neuroses would be shown, be scientifically checked. For example: "The fundamen- tal source of individual being ... is beyond ordinary awareness; mystics call it the Self or Truth or Knowledge" (Deikman "Rational-emotive therapy teaches people