Dr. Albert Ellis died July 24.

That's big news in psychology, but not unexpected because Ellis was 93 and had been ill for years. He was a force in shaping clinical psychology for 50 years.

Never one to be modest, he commented that his work has taken psychotherapy from Dr. Freud to Dr. Phil. His influence helped change clinical psychology from something mysterious and arcane to something understandable, practical and accessible.

Ellis was a radical from the beginning, and he never really stopped being controversial. It was difficult for many general audiences to listen to his confrontational, profane style, yet he always had therapeutic reasons for his approaches. The clients he treated and the therapists he taught got better.

He was trained in Freudian psychoanalysis, the patient-on-the-couch treatment you see in the movies, but found that the insights psychoanalysis produced often did not make much difference in a patient's actions.

In reaction to that observation, he created what is now known as Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) in the 1950s. His inspiration was a quote from Ancient Greek Philosopher Epictetus: “People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.”

This new direction began the branch of psychotherapy called Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Its main tenet is that our thoughts influence our emotions and behavior, so we can change how we manage our lives by changing our patterns of thinking.

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Ellis encoded his ideas in an ABC model to describe the motives for behavior and the mechanism for changing behavior and emotional problems.

A is for “Activating Event,” which starts the process that leads to a disturbance. It can be something real or imagined, in the past, present or future. Examples would include not being able to find a parking spot and thinking that you might fail your final exam.

B is for “Beliefs,” our views, judgments and evaluations about that Activating Event.

C is for “Consequences,” our emotional and behavioral reactions.

When our Beliefs are realistic or rational, our Consequences will tend to be healthy and manageable. When they are irrational, the Consequences tend to be unproductive, exaggerated and often damaging.

For example, if I am standing on a street corner and somebody bumps me from behind, pushing me into the street, that's an Activating Event.

If I Believe, “That person shouldn't have pushed me; I could have been killed!” I am likely to be very angry because somebody violated my personal rules for other people's actions. I will likely confront the person who pushed me. I might want to take revenge. Anger, confrontation and revenge are emotional and behavioral Consequences, all of which could cause trouble.

If I want to have different Consequences, I will have to change my Beliefs because it's already too late to change the Activating Event. I prefer to avoid Activating Events, but there is no way to live in this world and never have them happen.

So let's look at what happens if I have different Beliefs. Imagine that I get pushed into the street, but turn to see that the person who pushed me is blind. My Belief will likely be rational: “That was dangerous, but he couldn't help it.” My emotion is less likely to be anger, more likely to be concern or annoyance. My behavior is less likely to be confrontational and vengeful.

While the ABCs are simple in concept, they are profound in effect and often complex in their application.

For example, in his psychotherapy sessions and in presentations to professional groups, Ellis would invariably swear up a storm. That bothered a lot of people, but Ellis' lesson was that people were not bothered because he was swearing. Rather, they were bothered because they believed he should not be swearing and the fact that he was swearing violated their unrealistic demands.

A realistic view of Ellis was that he did swear, regardless of others' opinions. If people were bothered, they were free to not attend his seminars.

As is true of most of our actions, his swearing did have consequences. It probably kept him from being invited onto television talk shows, but he did not seem to need them to carry out his work.

There will be a memorial for Ellis in September at Columbia University, but, rather than mourning him, it would probably be a better tribute to apply his principles:

Sure, he's gone, and that's too bad, but what the hell, life will go on for the rest of us and we don't NEED him to apply the tools he taught us and even to extend his work to better our own lives and the world around us.

You may find more information on Albert Ellis at www.rebt .org and www.rebt.ws. I especially like the section on “Recent Publications about Albert Ellis.” Some of those publications, by the way, contain swearing, and I don't think Dr. Ellis cares if we disapprove of that.

Dr. Andrew Millar is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Santa Maria. Past articles from this column are available at http://DrAndrewMillar.GooglePa ges.com and at www.santamaria times.com. For questions regarding this column or to schedule a personal consultation, call 934-8421 or e-mail DrAndrewMillar@ Gmail.com.