"I wrote several articles criticizing psychoanalysis, but the analysts weren't listening to my objections. So I finally quit after practicing it for six years"
About this Quote
Ellis lands the punchline with a clinician's deadpan: he "practiced it for six years" and still had to "quit" because the analysts "weren't listening". The irony is surgical. Psychoanalysis, a discipline built on the sanctity of listening, is accused of professional deafness the moment critique comes from inside the club. By framing his departure as a response to being unheard, Ellis flips the therapeutic script: the patient is now the paradigm, and the paradigm is resisting insight.
The intent isn't just to dunk on Freud's heirs. It's to justify a break that could otherwise look like apostasy. Ellis is signaling that he didn't leave out of impatience or ignorance; he stayed long enough to learn the language, wrote "several articles" (a credentialing move), and only then walked. That sequencing matters. It casts psychoanalysis not as an evolving science but as a self-protective culture, one that can interpret anyone's dissent as a symptom rather than an argument.
Context gives the line its edge. Mid-20th-century American psychology was dominated by psychoanalytic institutions, with a hierarchical training pipeline and a premium on interpretive authority. Ellis, who helped pioneer Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, is staking out a rival ethos: transparent methods, disputable claims, measurable change. Under the humor sits a cultural critique of gatekept expertise. If a field can't hear objections, it's not doing therapy; it's doing theology with a couch.
The intent isn't just to dunk on Freud's heirs. It's to justify a break that could otherwise look like apostasy. Ellis is signaling that he didn't leave out of impatience or ignorance; he stayed long enough to learn the language, wrote "several articles" (a credentialing move), and only then walked. That sequencing matters. It casts psychoanalysis not as an evolving science but as a self-protective culture, one that can interpret anyone's dissent as a symptom rather than an argument.
Context gives the line its edge. Mid-20th-century American psychology was dominated by psychoanalytic institutions, with a hierarchical training pipeline and a premium on interpretive authority. Ellis, who helped pioneer Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, is staking out a rival ethos: transparent methods, disputable claims, measurable change. Under the humor sits a cultural critique of gatekept expertise. If a field can't hear objections, it's not doing therapy; it's doing theology with a couch.
Quote Details
| Topic | Quitting Job |
|---|
More Quotes by Albert
Add to List
