Dr Albert Ellis - the father of psychotherapy

On his 90th birthday, Dr Ellis listened to congratulatory messages from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush. In honour of the occasion, he was given a white silk scarf that had been blessed by the Dalai Lama.

In 1959, Albert Ellis established the Institute for Rational Living, a non-profit organisation with the mission to advance and popularise REBT and to provide low-cost counselling to the public. In 1964, he used his personal funds to purchase a six-story mansion on 65th Street in Manhattan. This building housed what came to be called the Albert Ellis Institute.

He lived frugally in an apartment on the top floor, supporting the institute's mission by donating all his personal income to the institute's operation. For almost 50 years, the world's most famous living psychologist took only a $12,000 a year salary for himself, plus living accommodations and a promise of lifetime medical care. He could have been a millionaire many times over had he kept the income from his best-selling books and thousands of therapy sessions.

In 2004, after Dr Ellis experienced a life-threatening medical crisis, the board of trustees of the Albert Ellis Institute said his medical expenses had become too great and they stopped paying for the at-home nursing care that allowed him to continue working full time. Dr Ellis had always saved and wisely invested a portion of his small earnings. This cushion of funds was used to pay for his medical care.

In July 2005, the board of trustees barred him from using institute facilities for his popular Friday Night Workshops for the public, which had been a Manhattan fixture for more than four decades. Ellis responded by relocating his workshops and conducting them in exile in a rented building, aided by his wife Debbie Joffe. In front of standing-room-only crowds, they gave live demonstrations of REBT with audience volunteers.

The direction the Albert Ellis Institute will take in the future remains unresolved. Despite Dr Ellis' strong preference that the institute promote Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy as its sole mission, REBT is now only one of several approaches offered by the organisation that bears his name.

In October 2005, Dr Ellis sued his own institute after its trustees voted by a narrow margin to remove him from the board and to suspend him from all professional duties.

In a stunning decision, the Supreme Court for New York County returned Dr Ellis to the Board of Trustees in January 2006, with the judge calling the actions taken against Dr Ellis by the other trustees "disingenuous" and "offensive and contrary to our fundamental process of democratic and legal procedure, fair play and the spirit of the law".

Despite the judge's ruling, the board of trustees prevented Dr Ellis from any meaningful participation in running the Albert Ellis Institute and his professional duties were not restored.

Fans and professional colleagues used the Internet to create a spontaneous international network of support for Dr Ellis and REBT. Fan sites, discussion forums and web sites were created in his honour. The trustees of the Albert Ellis Institute then claimed trademark rights to the "Albert Ellis" name, threatening to sue his advocates and supporters for trademark infringement.

Dr Ellis rejected the Institute's trademark use of his name, calling the current Institute "fake" and likening its trustees to "pirates" who plundered his life's work.

Also left unresolved at the time of Dr Ellis' death is a breach-of-contract lawsuit seeking repayment of Dr Ellis' medical expenses, ownership of his extensive archives and return of the $20 million Albert Ellis Institute mansion in Manhattan through imposition of a constructive trust.