Rational-emotive therapy and religiousness: A review

Rational-emotive therapy has often been scrutinized and rejected by religious clinicians. Incompatibilities are frequently cited between rational-emotive psychology and theistic religious philisophies. Religious authors have been most notably oppossed to Ellis' ethical humanism, situational ethics and personal atheism. A review of these criticisms offers no evidence for a fundamental incompatibility between RET and religious faith. Several arguments exist for the application of cognitive-behavior therapy (RET in particular) to explicitly religious clients. The sparse empirical literature suggests that RET is effective with religious clients.W. Brad Johnson, M.A., is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary. A commissioned Lieutenant in the United States Navy, he is currently an intern at the National Naval Medical Center.The author wishes to express thanks to Raymond N. Sampson, Albert Ellis, Charles R. Ridley and Siang-Yang Tan for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Navy, Department of Defense nor the U.S. Government.