Dr. Albert Ellis's Response To The Statements Posted On The Albert Ellis Institute's Website By Dr. Broder And Others

Dr. Michael Broder has commandeered the Albert Ellis Institute's website in order to offer explanations for the unnecessary, perverse, and ultimately inexplicable acts that he and cronies on the Board have committed. Dr. Broder's self-serving comments are filled with half-truths and downright untruths. Here are my responses to some of them:

Lie Number One:
Dr. Broder claims that "The Board was compelled to remove Dr. Ellis from the Board . if they had not done so, they would have placed the Institute at serious risk for an IRS investigation and the loss of its tax-exempt status."

Fact: For more than 30 years, I received only a $12,000 per year salary from the Institute. I also donated the royalties from my books to the Institute. I donated the money to buy the building at 45 East 65th Street, which is now worth a lot of money.

Fact: There were extensive discussions about my nursing costs at the Board level. There was nothing that was done behind anyone's back, despite the implication in Dr. Broder's writing and in Mr. Kurtz's legal papers that I somehow improperly took money.

Fact: Dr. McMahon created a trust to help pay for my nursing expenses. Dr. Broder and another member of the Board were the Trustees. Dr. Broder, Dr. McMahon, and the entire Board knew what was going on at every step.

Lie Number Two:
Dr. Broder claims that there was no "arm-twisting at the Board meeting where the decision to remove Dr Ellis was made" and that the Board "had only one choice."

This is false. Dr. Broder's lawyer, Dan Kurtz, made serious but unjustified threats to the Board members at the September 18th Board meeting where Dr. Broder and his cronies fired me. Two members of the Board have described Mr. Kurtz's behavior at the meeting in their minority report. You can see their description at the following website: [LINK TO REPORT]

Fact: Dr. Broder and his cronies certainly did have other choices. They have rebuffed my repeated attempts to get them to mediate our disputes. I have been offering to do this for a year. Instead, Dr. Broder and his cronies unilaterally chose to end all negotiations with me. Their unilateral withdrawal from negotiations shows their bad faith.

Lie Number Three:
Rory Stuart, the President of the Board, emailed the entire Board prior to the September 18th meeting to tell everyone that no lawyers would be present. Yet Mr. Kurtz, the lawyer for the Institute, was there. It was a lie that he wouldn't be there.
Fact: I received a separate email from Rory Stuart specifically telling me not to bring my lawyer to the meeting. Yet Mr. Kurtz was there to push through Dr. Broder's agenda while I was unrepresented, ignored, and prevented from participating in the meeting.

Lie Number Four:
The By-Laws of the Albert Ellis Institute make perfectly clear that a removal of a Trustee can only occur at a special meeting called for that purpose with one week's notice and it was not. The meeting to remove me from the Board was illegal and I am challenging it in court. It seems to me the meeting was a definite lie.

Fact: The September 18th Board meeting was a regular Board meeting - not a special meeting, and there was no notice of the meeting and no notice that my removal was on the agenda.

Fact: Ironically - though not coincidentally - the only agenda item of the September 18th Board meeting was to start the process of finding a replacement for Dr. Broder as Executive Director.

Fact: I was illegally, and without explanation, excluded from the September 18th Board meeting.

Fact: The Board could have allowed me and my legal counsel to address the Board to discuss the unresolved issues between us.

Lie Number Five:
Dr. Broder claims that "The Institute's Board wants to help Dr Ellis with his nursing care and provide him with a retirement package."

Fact: I am not the "retiring type." I have no intention whatsoever of retiring. Dr. Broder wants me to retire so that he can continue to make the Albert Ellis Institute follow his own agenda, which is, in many ways, inconsistent with REBT.

Fact: Dr. Broder and Dr. McMahon had a secret plan to sell the building in which the Albert Ellis Institute resides. They had the building appraised in February, behind the rest of board's back, with this intent. Getting rid of me is part of that plan.

Fact: My lawyers negotiated with Broder's lawyer for 9 months. From the beginning I made it clear that I was more interested in basic "quality of life" issues and in the welfare of the Albert Ellis Institute than I was in money. The "quality of life" issues involved how I was (and continue to be) treated:

  • My ceiling has been leaking for 2 years.
  • Dr. Broder wanted my wife to have to enter and leave the building through the basement
  • I don't get my mail at the time that is is delivered to the Institute - sometimes I get it hours later, sometimes I get it days later. I don't even know whether I am getting all of my mail
  • I don't get supplies for my writing without delay.
  • My phone calls are screened.
  • My visitors are screened.

It's all very unpleasant and an invasion of my privacy.

Lie Number Six:
Dr. Broder claims that " The Institute continues to provide Dr Ellis with his salary, his apartment, office supplies, secretarial support and the same healthcare coverage that is available to all Institute employees, just as it always has. None of these benefits has been cut off."

Fact: Dr. Broder and Dr. McMahon promised to pay additional money for necessary nursing care. They have reneged on that promise. I would never accept any payment that was considered an excess benefit under the law, or otherwise be improper.

Fact: The Institute has been requiring that I put requests for office supplies in writing and pay for other office costs.

Fact: The Institute, without warning, stopped paying for my fax/telephone line. I only found out about this days before it was to be shut off. Thanks, Dr. Broder!

Lie Number Seven:
Dr. Broder claims that "Last December the Board began negotiating a retirement package . The Board made a generous proposal . Dr Ellis proposed a figure of $4 million. At that point the Board was unable to accommodate his request. The Board voted not to continue paying the lawyers Dr Ellis engaged to negotiate the retirement package on his behalf. The Board had already paid them approx. $130,000."

Fact: I have never asked for anything remotely approaching $4,000,000.

Fact: The first proposal that Dr. Broder made during the negotiations was very insulting. It would have had me serve entirely at the pleasure of Dr. Broder, who would be free to claim at any time that I was no longer competent and put me out at the curb. It also treated my wife Debbie as an anathema. She could not assist me with my workshops or even attend public events such as fundraising events.

Fact: Dr. Broder decided to stop paying my lawyers because he hoped they would go away. They have stood by me.

Lie Number Eight:
Dr. Broder claims that "On October 12, 2004, Debbie Joffe, Dr Ellis' current wife (this was before they were married), a former trainee and staff therapist of the Institute was dismissed for, among other things, an ethical breach that had taken place in one of our groups.."

Fact: Debbie Joffe did not commit any "ethical breaches" and the accusation is libelous.

Fact: Debbie Joffe was dismissed on October 12, 2004, with no reasons given and without anyone telling me about it.

Fact: Dr. Broder, Dr. Kristene Doyle and their cronies did not even do me the courtesy of telling me that they intended to fire Debbie Joffe, who was my personal assistant and a Fellow and Staff Therapist at the Albert Ellis Institute.

Fact: Debbie Joffe was not told of any of her so-called failings before her dismissal, as is done in all ethical dealings with employees. Indeed, she received high praise for her work, and her reviews were excellent.

Fact: Dr. Broder has an irrational and disturbing hatred of Debbie Joffe.

Fact: The Board never ratified the decision to dismiss her in signed writing as is the ethical procedure.

Lie Number Nine:  
Dr. Broder claims that "Andy Hopson volunteered to assist the Institute with Public Relations but then sat in on a group therapy session in violation of the professional standards the Institute is obliged to maintain."

Fact: Andy Hopson was providing public relations work to the Albert Ellis Institute pro bono - for free. He was trying to figure out ways to make up for the fact that Dr. Broder was not good at fundraising and at promotion of the Institute.

Fact: Andy Hopson was asked by Dr. Broder and Dr. Kristene Doyle, the associate Executive Director, to sit in on all kinds of Institute sessions, including my Group Session, and they asked me to let him attend.

Fact: Broder and Doyle's claim that I violated "professional standards" is self-serving claptrap. Mr. Hopson's creative ideas on promoting the Institute threatened Drs. Broder and Doyle.

Fact: Neither Debbie Joffe nor I committed any ethics violations. All the members of the group therapy session were informed beforehand that Mr. Hopson would attend and were specifically told that if they did not want him present during their discussions, he would leave.

Fact: If there had been a breach - which there has not- it would have been my breach, not Debbie Joffe's. If, on the other hand (and despite appearances to the contrary), Dr. Broder was committed to professional responsibility, he would have stepped down after it became apparent that he was not good at his job.

Fact: Dr. Broder is not even licensed as a Psychologist in New York, and may therefore have himself committed numerous ethical violations over the course of several years.

Lie Number Ten:
Dr. Broder claims that "after Dr Ellis's repeated requests," he became Executive Director.

Fact: This is false. Dr. Broder volunteered to be temporary, part-time Executive Director, and the Board voted him in as Executive Director. I had been friendly with Dr Broder for many years, and went along with the rest of the Board in making him Executive Director.

Fact: Dr. Broder's reign was supposed to be for a very short period of time.

Fact: As a part-time, temporary Executive Director, Dr. Broder took in excess of $250,000 in salary and benefits in 2004, and is on pace to earn in excess of $350,000 in 2005.

Lie Number Eleven:
Dr. Broder claims that "Because of the issues surrounding Dr Ellis , Dr Broder has been spending much more time on Institute Business than he ever envisioned and is being compensated accordingly."

Fact: This is supposed to be an explanation for Dr. Broder's $500,000 salary for 2004-2005. Yet he is directly responsible for the current "issues" at the Institute. Dr. Broder is running the Albert Ellis Institute into the ground. Not only is he taking an outrageously, ridiculously high salary, he is spending many thousands of the Institute's dollars on a big-time, expensive PR company and on legal fees to protect himself and his cronies from the trouble he caused.

Lie Number Twelve:
Dr. Broder claims that "Neither the Institute nor the Board seeks to diminish him [Dr Ellis], his great legacy or REBT in any way."

Fact: Drs. Broder and McMahon have openly discussed having the Institute move away from REBT.

Fact: Dr. Broder has used the Albert Ellis Institute as a way to promote his own books and the books of his wife, who is not even trained in REBT.

Lie Number Thirteen:
Dr. Broder claims that "Everything on this end has been totally above board and open to scrutiny."

Fact: As described above, my removal from the Board of Trustees was done in blatant violation of the Institute's Bylaws. Moreover, Dr. Broder and his cronies and their lawyer Dan Kurtz purposely and blatantly hid their intentions from me and excluded my lawyer from the meeting in which I was fired.

Fact: Members of the Board were told not to communicate with me. My emails were ignored and I was cut off from all communication.

Lie Number Fourteen:
Dr. Broder claims that: "The Institute's Board issued a resolution unanimously supporting this decision by Drs Broder/Doyle/DiGiuseppe to suspend Dr Ellis's famous Friday Night Workshop."

Fact: At least two Board members protested this decision firmly and are still opposed to suspending the Friday Night Workshop.

Fact: My Friday Night Workshops were - and currently are, and will continue to be - the best publicity for the Institute. They are the best-attended programs and they are a terrific calling card for the Institute and for REBT. They have been well-reviewed in the press as recently as this summer - in fact Dr. Broder cancelled them immediately after Time Out New York wrote a great article about the Workshops.

Lie Number Fifteen:
Dr. Broder claims that: "Dr Ellis and his wife refused the opportunity to use a Medicare or Medicaid nurse for his around the clock care."

Fact: This is false. Debbie and I investigated Medicare and Medicaid care and found that I was ineligible to use either one for the type of nursing care that I need. Dr. McMahon, who sits on the Institute Board, had previously investigated this suggestion and also found that I was ineligible.

Lie Number Sixteen:
Dr. Broder claims that "The support staff still handles Dr Ellis's work as it always has."

Fact: The support staff only handles some of my work, providing that I specifically get it approved by Dr. Doyle and/or Dr. Broder.

Fact: I have to ask in writing for supplies and for work to be done by the support staff. My requests have to be approved by Dr. Broder and/or Dr. Doyle and sometimes it can take a week to get a simple task done. Perhaps they are waiting until I run out of pens and can no longer make a written request!

Lie Number Seventeen:
Dr. Broder claims that "Nothing has changed for Dr Ellis other than his duties at the Institute."

Fact: I have been treated like shit for more than a year.

Fact: My roof has leaked for longer than that.

Fact: My friends have to sign in before they see me. The sign-in book was only used for my visitors for more than six months.

Fact: Institute staff have been instructed not to talk to my wife.

Fact: Dr. Broder and his cronies want to promote general therapy or watered-down REBT, even as the importance of REBT and my contribution to general cognitive forms of therapy have grown.

Fact: Dr. Broder has a secret plan to sell the Institute's building on East 65th Street

Lie Number Eighteen:
Dr. Broder claims that: "the Institute's Board voted to remove Dr Ellis because state law and IRS regulation required us to do so . had we not, we could lose our not-for-profit status and possibly our assets, including our building at 45 East 65th where Dr Ellis lives."

Fact: There are dozens of possible solutions that would allow the Institute to keep its not-for-profit status, allow the Institute to teach REBT and provide REBT training, and allow me to continue with my writing and my teaching. Dr. Broder and his lawyer Dan Kurtz, have seized on the narrowest interpretations of the law and have painted a picture that they had to act the way they did. This is nonsense.

Fact: My lawyers offered to go down to the IRS with Dan Kurtz to discuss the Institute's problems and Mr. Kurtz's interpretation of the law. Dr. Broder has refused this reasonable offer.

Lie Number Nineteen:
Dr. Broder claims that "[the estrangement from Dr Ellis] is not personal and that the Institute and Dr Albert Ellis's great work will go on."

Fact: Dr. Broder harbors personal animus toward me and my wife. It has been expressed clearly in emails and in other communications. He has performed nasty impersonations of my wife in front of my representatives.

Fact: Dr. Broder has promoted his work, his cronies' work, and his wife's work through the Institute even though much of it has little to do with REBT.

Lie Number Twenty:
Dr. Broder claims that "When the entire story is told, it will be clear that any responsible Executive Director had little choice but to work with the Board and senior management staff to carry out the unpleasant actions that needed to be taken."

Fact: When the entire story is told, it will be clear that Dr. Broder acted in a way to entrench himself at the Albert Ellis Institute in order to "inherit" the Institute. This is the only "logical" explanation for his actions.
This is a truly sad state of affairs for the Institute, and the Trustees of the Board of the Institute had better take some steps to rectify it. The Albert Ellis Institute has been - and preferably should become again - a shining beacon for the teaching and promotion of an extremely important school of psychology. Right now it has become a joke