A Review of
Albert Ellis, Ph.D.
Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better:
Profound Self-Help Therapy for Your Emotions
Impact Publisher’s, Inc.
2001
by Aiko
December
12, 2002
“People
are disturbed not by things, but by the view they take of them.”
--
Epictetus
Contents: [Overall Content] [Importance] [Structure] [Critique] [Additional Observations]
Is This Book for You?
This book would
be of interest to a person who would like to understand a method of changing
one’s response to adversity from detrimental thinking, feeling, and behaving to
beneficial thinking, feeling, and behaving.
One does not need to have an educational background in psychology to
understand the language that Ellis uses to explain concepts. It is simple enough for a layperson to
read. I would not recommend this book
to a person who wants an impartial view of a method of changing. Ellis states, “When you’ve read this book,
you’ll be able to tell the difference between what works, and what
merely sounds good.” In reading
this book, I have been informed of both positive and negative aspects of other
methods of change, but only the positive aspects of Ellis’ method.
Major Topics
Feeling Better (Ch. 1, p. 3): Feeling
better is an aspect of disturbing oneself less, but it is temporary because it
is accomplished by using methods of distractions such as yoga, meditation, and
exercising.
Distractions (Ch. 1, p. 4):
Distractions help to reduce self-disturbing by reducing irrational
beliefs, but only temporarily do so because they do not provide a means of
replacing irrational beliefs with rational beliefs. In this way, distractions temporarily help a person to feel
better, but not get better or stay better.
o
According to Ellis, any method that falls into the category of
Distractions, such as meditation, will only help you to feel better, which
means that you will only be better for a short period of time. Ellis designates these methods, as
Distractions because they instruct a person to focus on anything but the
adversity. How did Ellis come to the
conclusion that these methods are distractions and therefore do not lead to
lasting changes. He did not offer any
studies or research that point to soundness of his conclusions. I took a course in meditation where I
focused on something neutral, my breath.
Focusing on my breath put distance between me and my stressed thoughts
and feelings, so that I could act rationally and soundly. With practicing meditation, the distancing
process happened without having to sit down, close my eyes, and breath.
Getting Better (Ch. 1, p. 4): Getting
better is longer lasting than feeling better and more difficult to
achieve. It consists of eight elements:
feeling better, continue to feeling better, experiencing fewer disturbing
symptoms such as depression, minimizing the reoccurrence of your distress,
knowing how to reduce your distress when it reoccurs, using this knowledge
effectively, being less likely to create disturbing reactions when new
adversities occur in your life, being less likely to miserabilize yourself,
even when unusually bad events arise.
Staying Better (Ch. 13, p. 211):
Staying better is making somewhat permanent, the changes one has gained
through the use of REBT.
Rational Emotive
Behavioral Therapy (REBT) (Ch. 2, p. 15):
This theory holds that people become disturbed because of events that
happen and because of how they choose to think, feel, and behave on account of
those events. The key word is “choose”
because although one cannot choose which events will happen to them, one can
choose how they will respond to those events, therefore, people choose whether
they are disturbed with depression, rage, and self pity or not. The mere occurrence of an adversity does not
lead people to consequentially disturb themselves. It is how they choose to react to the adversity that leads people
to disturb themselves.
ABC Theory of
Human Disturbing (Ch. 2, p. 16): This
theory further demonstrates clearly how people arrive at disturbing themselves
in the structure of a formula. The
formula A x B = C states that the Consequence is the
product of Adversity and Beliefs. Both Adversity and Beliefs about the adversity lead
to the Consequence of disturbing oneself. To change the C, one usually doesn’t have the power to
change A, but one can choose to change B.
o
Although the phrase, Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy was not
familiar to me, its aspect of one being able to choose how they respond to an
event such as adversity is something that I practice in my own life. What I like about this aspect of choice is that
it gives the person responsibility over the consequences due to their own
actions. For example, if something that
I consider bad happens, such as getting a D on an assignment, I could choose to
become discouraged by it and give up on the class or I could choose to try
harder on the next assignment and get a better grade. If I take the first choice, I would definitely fail the class and
not graduate when I planned to, but if I took the second choice, it would be
possible that I could still pass the class and graduate when I planned to.
Rational
Beliefs (Ch. 2, p. 19):
Preferences, desires, and goals regarding adversity that foster healthy
negative feelings and behaviors such as disappointment, frustration, and
determination. For example, I have a goal
of completing a work assignment well and on time and my adversity is that I am
very unfamiliar with the subject matter of the assignment. A rational belief would be that I really
want to do this assignment well and get the approval of my supervisor which
would lead to the consequence of feelings of concern and determination to
research for the assignment well.
Irrational
Beliefs (Ch. 2, p. 19):
Absolutistic demands and commands regarding adversity that promotes
unhealthy feelings and behaviors of rage, depression, and panic. Given the work assignment example above, an
irrational belief would be that I absolutely must do a good job on this
assignment. If I don’t, my boss will
fire me and I will be unemployed. The
consequence of this irrational belief would be panicking and the inability to
focus on the assignment because all my focus will be on the fear of becoming
unemployed. Irrational beliefs can be
divided under three headings: “I must do well!” “Others must treat me fairly
and honestly!” and “I must not find life’s conditions very hard!”
Three-Way
Disputes (Ch. 9, p. 132): Disputing
is a method used in REBT to combat irrational beliefs. The three main methods of disputing are
realistic questioning, logical questioning, and practical or healthy
disputing. Realistic questioning is
closely examining one’s irrational beliefs and rational beliefs in your daily
life to determine if they are based on fact.
Logical questioning is investigating whether or not the conclusions
about irrational demanding and rational preferring follow from your assumptions
about them. Practical and healthy
disputing is questioning your philosophies to see if they are likely to lead to
results that are beneficial or harmful for you and other people.
Unconditional
Self-Acceptance (USA) (Ch. 2, p. 13): A factor
in feeling better and getting better and therefore in preventing self
disturbing and to minimize it when it happens. Unconditional Self-Acceptance is
the act of choosing to fully accept yourself separate from what you do,
although what you do; thinking, feeling, and behaving, may be good or bad. You are able to accept yourself because you
are alive, human, and unique. The
things you do are rated as “good” when they continue to allow you to stay alive
and help you to be happy. Those things
that you do that do not accomplish both of these things for you are rated as
“bad.” It needs to be remembered that
although you rate the things that you do, you never give yourself a global
rating. BUT, if you must give yourself
a global rating, rate yourself as “good,” for it is more valuable than globally
rating yourself as “bad” because rating yourself as “good” is valuable in
staying alive and maintaining happiness.
o USA can be used
to dispute the irrational belief of “I must do well!”
Unconditional
Other-Acceptance (UOA) (Ch. 2, p. 29): Another
factor imperative to feeling better and getting better and therefore, to
preventing self-disturbing and to minimize it when it happens is Unconditional
Other-Acceptance. UOA is choosing to
accept other people separate from their thinking, feeling, and behaving. That is to say that you can rate what a
person does as “good” or “bad,” but you do not give that person a global rating
of “good” or “bad.” You accept others,
just the same as you would accept yourself, because they are alive, human, and
unique. People can still be rated
according to your own personal values, but you prefer that they do so. If they do not behave in accordance with
your standards, you have healthy negative feelings of disappointment and sorry
when they fail. Absolutely demanding
that they hold to your standards leads to negative unhealthy raging and
depressing when they fail.
o UOA can be used
to dispute the irrational belief “Others must treat me fairly and honestly!”
o
USA and UOA are not terms that I am familiar with, but I am familiar
with the concept separating the sin from the sinner. As I remember it from the Bible it states that one should hate
the sin, not the sinner. It does not
say that we should like, accept, or even love those that sin. It just states that we should not hate those
who sin. USA and UOA state we should
accept ourselves and others because we are all alive, human, and unique. I have trouble with the word accept. What exactly does Ellis mean by the word
accept? I can accept that people who
murder and rape exist, but I cannot accept a person who murders and rapes into
my life as a trusted friend. I could
however accept, as an acquaintance, a convicted criminal who has served his/her
time and shown change away from criminal behavior.
o
I don’t understand why, Ellis first says that it is important that we
do not rate ourselves, but then he contradicts himself when he says that if we
absolutely must rate ourselves we should rate ourselves as “good” because it is
more helpful to staying alive and maintaining happiness than rating ourselves
as “bad.” Does he not believe that
everyone can accomplish this key element of USA? It’s like Ellis I saying, “It is crucial to your well being that
do not do this, but if you can’t keep yourself from doing it, do it this
way.” You still end up rating yourself,
when it was said that you shouldn’t do it.
I question the validity of Ellis’ method when he contradicts himself and
states that you can still rate yourself and achieve USA.
High Frustration
Tolerance (HFT) (Ch. 2, p. 32): The third
factor that is crucial to feeling better and getting better and therefore, to
preventing self-disturbing and to minimize it when it happens, is High
Frustration Tolerance. HFT allows one
to dislike a person or thing when it gets in the way of one’s goals, but one
cannot demand that the person or thing be eliminated. Events are rated as “good” when they maintain your goals of
staying alive and remaining happy and rated as “bad” when they hinder you from
accomplishing your goals. When a rating
is given to an event, it should not be absolutely “good” or “bad” rating, but
events should be seen for both their “good” and “bad” aspects. One should not awfulize events or rate
events as awful because it is demanding that these events must not exist,
thereby creating self-disturbing.
o HFT can be used
to dispute the irrational belief; “I must not find life’s conditions very
hard!”
o With HFT, Ellis
distinguishes between bad and awful, which is different than from how I define
those two words. Ellis says that when
we label an event as awful, we demand that it not be as bad as they actually
are. Essentially that “awful” is an
exaggeration of the adjective “bad.”
For me there are levels of bad and I would use awful to describe
something as very very bad. Bad is
getting a D for a course and awful is a three-car accident caused by speed and
alcohol and a child dying. To me, there
is a difference between these two events and therefore, there should be a
difference in the words that I would use to describe them.
These major
topics are related in the following way:
If you are seeking lasting change, your goal should not be to feel
better for it is temporary because they are distractions, but to get
better. REBT’s ABC theory of
self-disturbing states that consequences are a product of adversity and the
beliefs that you choose to have regarding the adversity. Beliefs about adversity are can be divided
into two categories, irrational beliefs and rational beliefs. RB’s will lead to healthy consequences such
as disappointment and determination, but IB’s will lead to unhealthy
consequences such as depressing, raging, and panicking. One can change irrational beliefs into
rational beliefs by disputing them with USA, UOA, and HFT. In disputing your IB over and over again,
you are well on you’re way to getting better and staying better.
Index for Section 1: [ABC Theory of Self-Disturbing] [Distractions] [Feeling
Better] [Getting Better] [High
Frustration Tolerance] [Irrational Beliefs]
[Rational Beliefs] [Rational
Emotive Behavior Therapy] [Staying Better] [Three-Way Disputes] [Unconditional
Other-Acceptance] [Unconditional Self-Acceptance]
Contents: [1. Overall
Content] [2. Importance] [3. Structure] [4. Critique] [5. Additional
Observations]
2. THE
BOOK’S IMPORTANCE
This book addresses the problem of disturbing oneself with
irrational thoughts that lead to unhealthy raging, depressing, and panic. Ellis offers several solutions that assist a
person to dispute these irrational thoughts and turn them into rational thoughts
that lead to healthy disappointment, determination, and sorry.
The topics discussed above are relevant to public concern
today and to psychology as a field. As
for the topics’ relevance to society, I think it is very strong, especially the
idea of being a constructor. I have
noticed that people’s first response to adversity is to blame it on everything
but themselves. The idea that how a
person decides to react to adversity affects the consequence, or outcome,
points the finger back at the person.
People need to start looking at themselves first when they are looking
for someone to blame. If someone looks
within himself or herself first, at least they’ve started with something they
can change. This is why the message of
choice needed in our society today. It
is also needed in psychology today so that it can be researched and have
supportive evidence of reliability and validity.
Pertaining
to the psychology field, Ellis offers a method of change, which would fit in to
the area of cognitive behavioral therapy.
I
think that REBT described in this book comes from combining the behavior and
cognitive approaches of psychology it changes feelings and behaviors with
changing thoughts and beliefs.
Contents: [1. Overall Content] [2. Importance] [3.
Structure] [4. Critique] [5.
Additional Observations]
Ellis provides an
overwhelming amount of exercises and activities that one can use to disturb
themselves less. One method that he
describes is called Cognitive Flooding.
This is confronting a persistent anxiety-causing event through imagining
it in very strong detail and purposefully exaggerating your irrational beliefs
about this event. You dispute your
irrational beliefs by continuing to feel the panic caused by irrational beliefs
until you become desensitized to it leading you to finally conquer the
event. Another way of combating or
disputing irrational beliefs is using Forceful Disputing. This includes vigorously recording one’s
irrational beliefs and statements that dispute those beliefs over and over
again, until one is able to feel the “falsity” of their irrational beliefs and
the validity of one’s disputing statements.
Another activity
described by Ellis that can be practiced by someone who wants disturb
themselves less is to see things in a humorous light. According to Ellis using humor challenges you to see things from
a different perspective and not only the negative, shows you that you have
control over your feelings, and it also disrupts dysfunctional patterns. Ellis has put his humor into the form of songs
directed at specific irrational beliefs.
He prescribes the following song if you consume yourself with raging at
people you can’t stand.
¯Glory, Glory
Hallelujah!¯
(Tune: Battle
Hymn of the Republic”)
Mine eyes have
seen the glory of relationships that glow
And then falter
by the wayside as love passions come – and go!
I’ve heard of
great romances where there is no slightest lull –
But I am
skeptical!
Glory, glory
hallelujah!
People have ya
till they screw ya!
If you’d lessen
how they do ya
Then don’t expect
they won’t!
Glory, glory hallelujah!
People cheer ya
–then pooh-pooh ya!
If you’d soften
how they screw ya!
Then don’t expect
they won’t
I think the songs are a good idea because songs are an easy way to remember and putting this combative humor in to a song may help a person remember disputing statements that lead to rational beliefs. The only thing that I can see that may hinder the helpfulness of these songs is that the tunes that Ellis has used are dated. This would make it difficult to someone who is unfamiliar with these songs to put the helpfulness of these songs into practice.
Other exercises that one can use to combat irrational thinking are realistic optimism, risk-taking methods, and staying in difficult situations. Realistic optimism includes realizing that you have great potential for learning and changing, believing that bad things will pass, and taking control of your own outcomes. Using these points will lead you to understand that life is difficult, but it is not awful. A risk-taking method involves confronting an exaggerated, but real fear by disputing the irrational beliefs in small steps. Ellis recommends staying in difficult situations closely examine your own raging to see if what is really causing your rage and then to determine the costs and benefits of staying in that situation.
In Ellis’ example of staying in difficult situations, he uses the case of Ron who was married to Edna with children. Ron and Edna had been married for ten years and Edna had begun to severely depress herself causing her to be angrier and meaner. Ron began to depress and anger himself in response to his wife’s behavior and he wanted to take his children and divorce her. With Ellis’ encouraging, Ron decided to put off the divorce and stay with Edna in order to practice at dealing with Edna’s behavior. Ron finally decided to follow through on the divorce, only after Edna, in a rage, broke the finger of one of their children. Why did it have to come to the point where she physically hurt their child for Ron to follow through on the divorce? It seemed obvious to me that Edna’s behavior seemed to be escalating and the possibility of the child getting hurt was inevitable. Yes Ron absolutely made the correct decision in the end, but at what expense?
Other structural
parts of the book include a selected references section and an index. The index is detailed and easy to use in
navigating the book and going back and forth between subject matter. I especially found it useful in completing
this report because it lead me directly to specific topics that I was searching
for. The selected references or
bibliography section was included by Ellis to serve as a reference to anyone
who is interested in seeking more information on works mentioned in this book,
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, and Cognitive Behavior Therapy.
A part of the
structure of the book that I did not agree with was the titles of the chapters
because I found them not descriptive enough of the content of the chapter. For example, Benefits of Getting Better
Over Feeling Better would have been a more fitting title of Chapter 1, than
The Difference between Feeling Better and Getting Better. The chapter does describe the difference
between feeling better and getting better and does so in the first two pages, but
the majority of the chapter Ellis seems to be persuading the reader that
getting better is better than feeling better.
“…many good techniques, such as cognitive distracting…work in the
short-run, and may actually interfere with permanently getting better and
staying better (p. 8).” Ellis sums up
the goal of the entire book with this phrase that methods that he has
designated as cognitive distractions only help you to feel better temporarily
and they are inferior to methods that help you to get better and stay better.
Ellis also states
that “I’ll encourage you to use some methods that are moderately helpful, but I
also hope to stimulate to employ the more effective ones that this book present
(p. 8).” From this statement, I gathered
that Ellis meant that he would be presenting various methods of getting better,
not just one. This is part of the
reason why Chapter 2 should be entitled Introduction to REBT and not Don’t
Just Feel Better, Get Better! The
subject matter of this chapter includes REBT theory; The ABC’s of disturbing
yourself, which is REBT’s “famous ABC theory of disturbing yourself” (p. 16);
and irrational beliefs. All of these
are essential to REBT and no other methods of getting better were mentioned. I felt I was being misled.
Contents: [1. Overall Content] [2. Importance] [3.
Structure] [4. Critique] [5.
Additional Observations]
…the key is not
will but will power; and will power invariably seems to include acting. No pain, no gain; no action, no will power. But acting to do “good” things that you don’t
like to do and to stop doing “bad” things that you distinctly enjoy involves
thinking – and often heavy thinking.
To choose to act is relatively easy; to determine and resolve
to act is harder. Both are choices,
decisions, and desires. But the second
process – strongly determining and resolving to act – will get you much further
toward pushing yourself and acting than will lightly choosing to do so.”
(Ellis, 1994, p. 232)
I like this quote
because it doesn’t only pertain to disturbing oneself less, but to all goals
that a person may have. It’s one thing
to say that I choose to go to finish my Christmas shopping this Saturday, but
it’s another thing to be determined and resolved to go to finish my Christmas shopping
this Saturday. It’s easy to just say,
“I choose to finish my Christmas Shopping this Saturday.” But to be determined and resolved to go to
attain this goal involves an action plan like making a list of people who I
still need to buy gifts for, creating a budget, search through newspaper ads to
see what is on sale, look on the Internet for ideas. These are all things that I will complete before Saturday. On the day of Saturday, I need to get myself
to the mall and make a plan of what shopping route I will follow and then go
through my shopping. During shopping, I
will refer to my list of people for whom I need to buy gifts for to insure that
one is bought for each person on my list.
The second part
of coming up with an action plan is more than lightly choosing to complete
something. I would describe it as
seriously and realistically choosing to follow through on my goal. Now that I have come up with a plan to
complete my Christmas shopping by Saturday, I am prepared and feel more
confident about a positive outcome because having a well thought out plan
motivates me to follow through on it.
Well, we shall see this coming Saturday.
In regards to
REBT theory, Ellis (1994) states the following:
…you don’t just
get disturbed from traumatic things that happen to you, you also choose to needlessly
upset yourself about these traumas.
Yes, you are a chooser, a constructor of how you react psychologically
and, fortunately, you can choose to refuse to create your upset and to work
toward more helpful ways of reactive.” (p. 15)
I really like this
part of the theory because it places responsibility of the consequence on to
how the person chose to respond to it.
Therefore, a person has the power to construct his or her own beliefs in
response to an adversity. The beliefs,
rational or irrational, that a person chooses to adhere to determine whether
the outcome will be healthy or unhealthy.
So, although we may not be able to choose what happens to us, we are
able to choose to become a victim or the victor of a situation.
I find this idea
very helpful to use especially in my line of work. I work at a transition house for teen males who have been locked
up. Their adversity is the situation
that they were born into. Many of them,
their parents do drugs and were and/or are locked up in a facility, and they
have been abused in various ways. In
general these teens have a victim mentality and they use it as an excuse to
justify their deviant behavior. I think
a lot of it has to do with the fact that society does treat them as victims due
to their circumstances and the teens become used to hearing people reason that
their behavior is due to their background, but this tells the teen that it’s
okay to display deviant behavior because they have reason to and the teen is
not motivated to change.
To explain to
these teens that it’s not okay to steal, to hurt others, to do drugs, or to
rage and that they have a choice in whether or not they do these things is a
whole different concept to them. A lot
of them tend to point their fingers and say that it’s because they are poor
that they had to steal or it’s the cop’s fault for bringing them in to the
station. These thoughts are irrational,
but they truly hold on to them and as long as they do, they will continue in their
negative activity. When a resident of
the house comes to me and begins to blame staff for him not changing, I ask
him, what has he done to change himself.
Usually, I know what his goals in life are and I lead him to question
whether or not his current thinking will lead him to behaviors that will get
him to achieving his goals. Then I
question him as to what thinking will lead to behaviors that will lead to
meeting goals.
An important
factor that I have found is that the person who needs to change needs to choose
it for him or herself. Just like the saying goes, “you can lead a
horse to water, but you can’t make it drink the water.” I can tell this teen all the reasons why he
should change and can change, but unless he realizes the power (as defined by
the first quote above) of choice to change for himself, he will not
change. This leads me to question why a
person, like this teen, who has the resources and support to change, simply
won’t change. I think that the teens
that I work with are scared of where change will lead them because it may lead
them away from situations that induced their deviant behavior such as family
and friends, leaving them alone with no one to turn to.
Strengths and Weaknesses
One strength of the
book was the great amount of information that Ellis was able to provide in a
relatively short book. Ellis offers
over thirty different methods of dealing with disturbing thoughts, which gives
a person a wide variety of methods to try and test out to find which one or
ones work best for an individual.
Another strength regarding the methods that Ells prescribes is that they
can be used in conjunction with each other.
In this way Ellis does not constrain a person to one method, but gives a
variety. Another strength is the
language that Ellis has used to put forth his book. It is easy to understand which facilitates in understanding the
concepts of REBT. The author’s repetitiveness
throughout the book also facilitates understanding of the concepts.
One weakness of
the book is the evidence of support that Ellis presents to show that REBT
works. First of all, the majority of
examples are cases in which he was the therapist. This leads me to question the effectiveness of this therapy. Is Ellis the only one who can properly carry
out REBT and if so, why? Also, Ellis
does not provide scientific research that shows REBT to be reliable and
valid. If I had evidence of this, I would
want to have it this book to show that I am not just saying these things about
REBT because I created it, but it’s effectiveness is supported by this
impartial research. Although Ellis’ use
of simple language aids in comprehension of REBT concepts, it also misleads the
reader into thinking that using this method is as simple as understanding
it. Finally, Ellis presents REBT as a
cure all for all self-disturbing without getting into the specifics. In reading this book, I really felt like
Ellis like a car salesman trying to sell me a lemon.
Other Reviews
“Perhaps the problem is that this book is aimed at too general an
audience anyone with any kind of disturbing emotions. Libraries are better served
by titles that explain cognitive-behavioral techniques for use with specific
complaints…”
“This theory
dismisses the psychoanalytic emphasis on childhood trauma as a cause of adult
problems. It embraces contemporary philosophies like constructivism; people can
(and should) create the environment that fosters unconditional
self-acceptance.”
Reviews by Former Generations
“Feeling
Better, Staying Better, Getting Better is a book that is centered on
improving an individuals health through the relief of stress. It deals with
negative feelings and how to minimize them.”
”A weakness about
the book would be its repetitive nature. It seems to be saying similar things
the whole time. I know other students were complaining about this with me.”
“Ellis gives the reader the opportunity to
understand why they think or act the way they do. He shares techniques and models for people to follow to help them
form solutions to counteract their unpleasant behavior.”
Contents: [1. Overall Content] [2. Importance] [3.
Structure] [4. Critique] [5.
Additional Observations]
Would
I follow what Ellis prescribes in this book?
The concepts of theory of REBT and concepts such
as irrational beliefs, rational beliefs, choice, USA, UOA, and HFT are
interesting and are concepts that I have been using in my daily life, but not
as consistently as I would like. But
the methods that Ellis prescribes to develop these concepts in myself are
overwhelming, giving me so much to choose from that I would not know where to
start. Also, as I have stated before, I
felt like Ellis was misleading because he was not specific enough when
explaining the goal he had in writing this book. It made me very suspicious his motivation is writing this
book. It did not seem genuine because
he used his successes to point out how REBT works, he also seemed to be
bragging, especially when on p. 94 he boasts about inventing the word
“catasthrophize” in 1956. How is
pointing this out help a person to get better?
I would not recommend this book to anybody.
