linguistic:voice_change, stylistic:tone
History

Precursors of certain fundamental aspects of rational emotive behavior therapy have been identified in ancient philosophical traditions, particularly to Stoics Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus, Panaetius of Rhodes, Cicero, and Seneca, and early Asian philosophers Confucius and Gautama Buddha. In his first major book on rational therapy, Ellis wrote that the central principle of his approach, that people are rarely emotionally affected by external events but rather by their thinking about such events, "was originally discovered and stated by the ancient Stoic philosophers." Ellis illustrates this with a quote from the Enchiridion of Epictetus: "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them." Ellis noted that Shakespeare expressed a similar thought in Hamlet: "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so." Ellis also acknowledges early 20th century therapists, particularly Paul Charles Dubois, though he only read his work several years after developing his therapy.