A Review of Dr. Albert EllisA Review of Dr. Albert Ellis
Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better
Profound Self-Help Therapy for Your Emotions
Impact Publishers, Inc., 2001
The major theme of this book is getting better and staying better. Ellis tells how we can get better and stay there. On the road to getting better, Ellis uses some terms that were new to me. These terms are also the focus of the major topics that he discusses to getting better.
The major topics of this book are as follows:
All of these topics are related in that they either help you get better or prevent you from getting better. Unconditionally self accepting yourself, holding rational beliefs, and having a high frustration tolerance will help you get better. Whereas accepting yourself only on some conditions, holding irrational beliefs, and having a low frustration tolerance will prevent you from getting better.
Although I've heard of these terms before, the whole concept of getting better and staying better was new to me. I did find these topics quite interesting. I could see their relevance in getting better and preventing disturbing thoughts that often make us feel rotten.
This book will be of interest to everyone and anyone who wants to change themselves for the better. At first I thought it was only for depressed people or people who have severe problems but it really is for everyone. I believe that everyone has room for improvement within themselves and this book can help. Young adults to the elderly can utilize this book. Some may find Dr. Ellis' terms confusing but with some patience, I believe they'll find this book useful and worthwhile.
Dr. Ellis discusses how humans often resort to just feeling better rather than getting better. He says that we often distract ourselves of any or all disturbing thoughts by doing Yoga, meditating, reading, writing, painting, or even praying. According to Dr. Ellis, techniques such as these are only temporary and do not cure anything. He states that we should strive to getting better and staying better. Using his Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, Ellis says we can get rid of any disturbing thoughts and replace them with good feeling thoughts.
Because the society that we live in today is just as or even more competitive than our parents or grandparents time, I do believe that the book's topics are relevant and important for the public's concern and in psychology. One of the problems that Dr. Ellis discusses in his book is our idea of perfectionism. Many of us feel that we need to do our best and be the best of the bunch. Can you imagine all of the people in the world feeling like this? What chaos it would bring when they realize that they can't be the best all the time. And I think this is what's happening in our world. Students at some colleges commit suicide because they fail at an exam or someone in their class did better than they did. This is really sad. Like Ellis said, we can all strive to do our best but not be the best. This is a more realistic goal. As a step in getting better, we need to take another look at our goals and values in life. We need to change our self-defeating values with more self-enhancing values. When we re-evaluate our goals and values in life, we may lessen our need to be depressed or have anxiety attacks. Psychologists, like Dr. Ellis, can spread the word of getting better to the outside world. If only everyone in the world, even outside the United States would consider changing their self-defeating values to self-enhancing values, maybe we could live in a happier and safer place.
I think this book fits in the realm of behavioral and cognitive psychology. Cognitive psychology is the study of how we think. Behavioral psychology is the study of our behavior. Getting better and staying better is about changing how we think and therefore behaving differently in any given situation.
The book offers many exercises and techniques in getting better. For example in Chapter 8 page 110, Ellis suggests that 'when you depress, panic, or enrage yourself, suspect that you are doing some unconditional, absolutistic shoulding and musting, find it, and change it into realistic preferring.'
He also challenges you to watch your overgeneralizing; your use of "all" and "never". I find this funny because in relationship battles, I've often used "all" and "never". Like I've accused my partner of never spending quality time with me or all his spare time is spent on his guy friends. These statements often leave me feeling disturbed and unworthy. I end up feeling that I'm not a good person or a fun person and that's why my partner doesn't want to spend his time with me. Which in reality made no sense, I was just over exaggerating.
Another example of an exercise is on page 121, the REBT self-help form. You write in your ABC's for a particular situation, then you also write in your IBs, Disputing your Ibs, RBs, and then the new effects (healthy negative emotions, for example, disappointment, concern, annoyance, sadness, regret, or frustration.) Writing it all out and seeing it in front of you helps you analyze what is really going on. Sometimes you say things that you don't really mean.
My favorite exercise from this book is using humor to interrupt and dispute disturbing thoughts. One way Ellis does this is by changing the lyrics to songs and singing them to catchy tunes. This is an example from page 160:
Love Me, Love Me, Only Me!
(Tune: "Yankee Doodle Dandy")
Love me, love me, only me
Or I will die without you!
O, make your love a guarantee
So I can never doubt you!
Love me, love me totally -- really, really try dear;
But if you demand love, too
I'll hate you till I die, dear!
Love me, love me all the time
Thoroughly and wholly!
My life turns into slushy slime
Unless you love me solely!
Love me with great tenderness
With no ifs or buts, dear.
If you love me somewhat less,
I'll hate your goddamned guts, dear!
I found most of his exercises silly and fun-ny. I think this is a good way to remember that your disturbing thoughts are often just that, silly. Doing his exercises and utilizing his techniques can help us get better. Changes won't happen over night but with practice and repetition, changes will occur.
Although I found his index to be useful, short, and easy to use, I didn't like his chapter titles. I enjoy titles that are short and catchy. His titles were long and consisted of terminology that I didn't understand at first glance. I think he uses too much psychological jargon that may scare off your average reader.
These are some of the changes I would make:
Chapter 1: Feeling Better vs. Getting Better, Temporary Results vs. Permanent Results
Chapter 2: Get Better!
I would skip chapters 3-6. Why stress on the factors of feeling better when the results are only temporary. Besides, the book is about getting better and staying better. One chapter on feeling better is sufficient.
Chapters 7-12 should be condensed. I understand that repetition gets the message across but it could also scare away a reader.
This book had a lot to offer. I enjoyed most of all his silly songs. It took a different note to everything. The book sets a serious tone to changing our thinking and behaving, then you come to chapter 8, and Dr. Ellis sings. It would be great to hear him sing.
On page 100, he states, 'Your time and energy are almost always limited--especially since you live a certain number of years and no more.'
I like this quote because it simply states that life is short. One can take it to use your time wisely and don't waste any energy on negative energy.
Some of the strengths of this book are that it explains to us how we can get better and stay better. He tells us how we can eradicate self-defeating values and replace them with self-enhancing values. He provides us numerous exercises to try and techniques to utilize. He offers humor to distract and dispute our
disturbing thoughts.One of his weaknesses is over explaining his concepts. There was too much repetitiveness. Although some may find repetition strength, I think overall it was a weakness. This book was too long, and as I said before, his chapters could be condensed. I found that reading the book was difficult partly because many of his concepts seemed redundant.
Other book reviews on Dr. Ellis' book:
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/459s2002/sublime/bookreview.html
http://www.soc.hawaii.edu/leonj/459s2002/markymark/bookreview.htm
5. Additional Observations
Give the book a chance. I too, had a difficult time reading it because of his repetitive jargon and long chapters. With lots of patience and the goal to learn something new and useful, I was able to read the book. Between the lines, you can learn a thing or two from Dr. Ellis. I learned that life is too short to worry about trivial matters. Just like the Lion King movie, 'Don't worry, Be Happy!"