Mike Abrams (psychologist)

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Abrams

Mike Abrams (born July 16, 1953) is an American psychologist and co-author with Albert Ellis of several works on rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). He is best known for extending CBT to include principles of evolutionary psychology and collaborating with the founder of CBT Albert Ellis to develop many new applications to for these clinical modalities. His new clinical method which applies evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics to CBT is called Informed Cognitive Therapy (ICT).

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Dr. Abrams is an Adjunct Full Professor in the M.A. Program in Psychology at New York University where he teaches graduate level courses in modern psychotherapeutic technique, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and the Psychology of Sexuality. Abrams is also the managing partner of psychology for NJ, LLC a private self-funded clinical research organization. He is a contributor to About.com and is on the editorial board of Counseling and Psychotherapy Transcripts and several other journals. He actively researches the changing views and expectations of psychotherapy.

Prior to his work with Ellis and his more recent contributions to psychotherapy research, Abrams worked with people suffering from life-threatening illnesses and was the first non-gay psychologist to volunteer to counsel people with AIDS at the Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York. This work led to a book co-authored with Ellis on Death and Dying. In it, he and Ellis rejected the stage theory of Kubler-Ross and replaced it with a constructivist model of the psychology of confronting mortality.

Work With Albert Ellis

Dr. Abrams was instrumental in the formalization of Albert Ellis' model of personality. Prior to the collaboration of Albert Ellis with Mike Abrams the REBT model of personality was limited to the ABCDE model of disturbed thinking and emotions. Their collaboration led to a more comprehensive explanation of normative and pathological personality by setting forth an iterative model of personality development. This more detailed explanation argued that the universal tendency towards irrational thinking that Ellis stated was universal. The Ellis - Abrams model proposed that people are innately and evolutionarily inclined towards rigid cognitive styles that included demandingness, absolutism, or dichotomous thinking. These irrational thinking styles were said to be exacerbated or attenuated during development by both life adversities and innate temperaments. This and related REBT personality theories were presented in the text Abrams coauthored with Ellis which was Ellis’s only college textbook Personality Theories: Critical Perspectives. [1]

In addition, to his personality studies with Ellis, Abrams' research with Ellis into REBT and CBT led him to propose that all successful psychotherapies were actually performing CBT - irrespective of their stated theoretical orientation. Abrams argued that the equivalence of most psychotherapies found in outcome studies was a result the tendency of competent therapists to gradually progress to REBT/CBT techniques - irrespective of their claimed orientation or approach.

Work on Evolutionary Psychology

After Ellis' death, Abrams continued Ellis's work on sexuality by taking an evolutionary psychology perspective to love and intimacy. This work reached fruition in his book on sexuality titled Sexuality: Development, Differences, and Disorders. [2] The book is only textbook on human sexuality that takes an exclusively evolutionary perspective.

Abrams wrote the book utilizing a journalistic approach interviewing many of the best known evolutionary psychologists such as David Buss, Doug Kenrick, Helen Fisher, and J. Philipe Rushton to provide multiple and often conflicting perspectives. He further extended the work of Ellis by publishing the first article, along with David Buss, to apply evolutionary psychology to CBT. [3]

Informed Cognitive Therapy

Recently, Abrams expanded upon the synthesis of CBT and evolutionary psychology with the book The New CBT: Clinical Evolutionary Psychology. [4] This book which set forth a new variation of CBT called informed cognitive therapy (ICT) took what was implied in much of Ellis' work and made it explicit. Abrams combined evidence from behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology to add to the effectiveness of CBT in a clinical text proposing a new variant of CBT. Abrams argues that most psychological disorders overlie a latent factor common to virtually all pathologies. According to his model this latent factor is heritable and is supported by genome-wide studies of mental pathologies. In addition, he proposed that all psychopathologies have a heritable component that is often associated with mismatched evolutionary adaptations. Consequently, his ICT therapy requires that clinicians become familiar with behavioral genetics, evolutionary psychology, and the relationship that these sciences have with psychological problems. Abrams' premise has been supported by evolutionary psychologists like Todd Shackelford, behavioral geneticists like Robert Plomin and cognitive/memory psychologists like Elizabeth Loftus.

Published works

Related Research Articles

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Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a psycho-social intervention that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression and anxiety disorders. CBT focuses on challenging and changing cognitive distortions and behaviors, improving emotional regulation, and the development of personal coping strategies that target solving current problems. Though it was originally designed to treat depression, its uses have been expanded to include the treatment of a number of mental health conditions, including anxiety, alcohol and drug use problems, marital problems, and eating disorders. CBT includes a number of cognitive or behavior psychotherapies that treat defined psychopathologies using evidence-based techniques and strategies.

Index of psychology articles Wikipedia list article

Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally, in addition or opposition to employing the scientific method, it also relies on symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, although these traditions have tended to be less pronounced than in other social sciences, such as sociology. Psychologists study phenomena such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also study the unconscious mind.

Abnormal psychology Sub-discipline of psychology

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Albert Ellis American psychologist (1913–2007)

Albert Ellis was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was certified by the American Board of Professional Psychology (ABPP). He also founded, and was the President of, the New York City-based Albert Ellis Institute. He is generally considered to be one of the originators of the cognitive revolutionary paradigm shift in psychotherapy and an early proponent and developer of cognitive-behavioral therapies.

Clinical psychology Branch of psychology

Clinical psychology is an integration of science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment, clinical formulation, and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration. In many countries, clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession.

Aaron Beck American psychiatrist and academic (1921–2021)

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A cognitive distortion is an exaggerated or irrational thought pattern involved in the onset or perpetuation of psychopathological states, such as depression and anxiety.

Rational emotive behavior therapy Psychotherapy

Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), previously called rational therapy and rational emotive therapy, is an active-directive, philosophically and empirically based psychotherapy, the aim of which is to resolve emotional and behavioral problems and disturbances and to help people to lead happier and more fulfilling lives.

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History of psychotherapy

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References

  1. Ellis, A; Abrams, M (2008). Personality theories : critical perspectives. SAGE Publications. ISBN   978-1412970624.
  2. Abrams, M (2016). Sexuality: Development, Differences, and Disorders. Thousand Oaks, Ca: Sage Publications.
  3. Buss, D.M.; Abrams, M. "Jealousy, infidelity, and the difficulty of diagnosing pathology: A CBT approach to coping with sexual betrayal and the green-eyed monster". Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy. 35 (2): 150–172.
  4. Abrams, M (2020). The New CBT: Evolutionary Clinical Psychology. San Diego, Ca.: Cognella Press.