A Review of Albert Ellis
Feeling
Better, Getting Better, Staying Better
Profound Self-Help Therapy for Your Emotions
Impact Publishers, 2001
By Marissa Namihira
December 11, 2002
Brief Overview:
1. The Book’s Overall Content
2. The Book’s Importance
3. The Book’s Structure
4. Critique of the Book
5. Additional Observation
The
Book’s Overall Content
Chapter 1: The
Difference Between Feeling Better & Getting Better, pages 2-12. Feeling better is defined as functioning
poorly when you feel bad and functioning better when you feel good. Getting better is feeling better, continuing
to feel better, experiencing fewer disturbing symptoms, seldom making your
distress occur, knowing how to reduce your stress when it reoccurs, using this
knowledge effectively, being less likely to create disturbing reactions, and
being less likely to miserablize yourself.
This is the fundamental basis of the book. These are the things that are trying to be achieved through
psychotherapy.
Chapter 2: Don’t Just Feel
Better, Get Better, pages 13-22. The concept that is first brought to
attention is USA, (Unconditional Self-Accepting). With USA you accept yourself because you are alive, human and
unique. You exist so therefore you are
an okay person. Being able to accept
yourself for all your faults and self-downing is the goal to not only feeling
better but getting better. A more
elegant process in this is the REBT. It
is Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.
REBT believes that you disturb yourself and that is why the problems
come about. You must learn to control
this habit because it is the self that chooses this. The ABC of disturbance is
adversity, beliefs, and consequences.
Chapter 3: Feeling Better and
Getting Better, pages 23-40. This
chapter shows us the difference between USA and CSA, (conditional
self-acceptance). CSA means that you
accept yourself when you think that you’ve done well and you tend to blame
yourself when you do badly. Ellis
states that USA is better because you accept yourself no matter if you do badly
or you do not have the approval of others.
Another concept that goes along with unconditional self-acceptance is
UOA (unconditional others-acceptance).
This term refers to accept others to make yourself reasonably happy.
Chapter 4: Feeling Better I: Thinking and Philosophizing
Methods, 41-52. This chapter deals with using cognitive distracting
techniques. The ones mentioned in the
book were, meditation, yoga, Jacobson Progression Relaxation Techniques,
Religious Rituals and Prayer, and Pleasurable Diversions. Each of these methods helps you to relax and
become more peaceful. The other topic
discussed is self=efficacy. According
to Bandura, self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and
execute the sources of action required to manage prospective situations. When you are high in self-efficacy you image
yourself to do good in something, and therefore you actually tend to do better
at them.
Chapter 6: Feeling Better III:
Behavioral and Activity Methods, pages 69-86. This chapter discussed behavioral and
activity methods such as: using breathing exercises, exercising methods, sports
and athletic games, yoga, and business and other practical distractions. He goes over each behavioral and activity
method to weight out the pros and cons it has on our life. I don’t agree with him on everything that he
says in this chapter. For instance, he
believes that making friends with others who play sports with you is a bad idea
because you only have one thing in common.
I think that a lot of people make friends starting with one thing in
common then they build from there.
Chapter 8: Getting Better II:
More Thinking and Philosophizing Methods, pages 95-128. This chapter deals with
catastrophes. A catastrophe is to
exaggerate adversities into something far worst then they actually are. I can see his point in bringing this up. Many people over exaggerate their situation
and stress even more than they need to when certain thing come up. Like the week before school ends, is a
common time that this happens. It is
already a high stress time and getting overly anxious can lead to catastrophe. Ellis teaches you how to deal with
catastrophizing behaviors and ways of stopping them. He beliefs that changing your what ifs, to so what if. Thinking of the worst-case scenario is the
better way of dealing with things Ellis believes.
Chapter 9: Getting Better III:
Still More Thinking and Philosophizing Methods, pages129-138. This chapter is about more ways of getting
better by disputing your irrational beliefs and coming up with rational
convictions to replace them. Dryden has
made up interesting observations of people who dispute their irrational beliefs
and replace them with rational ones. He
says that people only lightly hold on to rational convictions. Dryden gives several methods of questioning
and challenging rational as well as irrational beliefs in his recent
books. Ellis summarizes some of his
ideas in this chapter.
Chapter 12: Realistic, Logical,
and Pragmatic Methods, pages 197-210. The
philosophy of Beleiving-Emoting-Behavings has the potential to help you not
only get better and stay better, but feel better as well. Combinations of realistic and logical
outlooks, along with pragmatic cost-benefit considerations are the important
“tools” to help a person improve their mental health. Self-Downing and damning others are the areas in which he is
talking about. These steps are ways to
bring yourself into prospective and are able to handle your situations
better. Although I may not totally agree
that this method will work in every situation, it is a very good tool to use. In most cases I can see this approach
working.
In this book that Ellis wrote there is a definite progression
with the titles. However with the
content of the book, I beg to differ.
The books general reference is steps on making your life better. When I was reading the book from chapter to
chapter I did get very confused. He
deals with to many issues within each chapter.
I’m sure that Ellis can see his point of view and he thinks that the
book flows all together, but I don’t see it that way. The points and solutions that he offers are quite
ridiculous. There are some things in
this book at are way out there. For
instance he has these songs that are on page 160. The song states, “…love me, love me totally- really, really try
dear; but if you demand love too I’ll hate you till I die, dear”. Now that does not seem like a way to make
your life better.
Although I am sure that there are some valid issues that he
address in this book, but they seem rare and hard to find. In class we discussed each chapter with a
30-presentation from each student. I
believe that there maybe two times when we actually agreed as a class that his
theory was a good one. Ellis does not
appear to have really thought about his ideas, or he has thought about them so
intensely that it only makes sense to him.
The topics general definitions are to make your life a better
place, and yes I do agree with that.
Ellis is trying to help people who are loss within their own life from
all the external factors. He attempts to
change your situation from the inside out.
He did offer good solution to things like breathing exercises and yoga,
which have been very beneficial to people.
I am interested in the topics because they can bring forth
self-improvement, and making your life easier and more relaxing. Although reading this book is not too
relaxing, he does try and show us examples of how it can be done.
These topics that are discussed are not very familiar to
me. The only ones that are familiar are
the relaxation techniques. REBT is a
new concept that I have never heard of.
Ellis has a lot of quick fixes in his book. He does not seem to grasp the severity of problems by
oversimplifying them. If a person
needed real psychological help this book would do him any good. He seems to rationalize problems and not
take them for what they are worth. I
sure hope that someone does not buy this book thinking that it will help him or
her.
This book could be of interest to someone who may be looking
for mild guidance in his or her life.
As a student I believe that it is also helpful in learning different
things. Whether we would use this
information later is a different story.
The thing that Ellis should have done was making it clear that the
intentions of this book were not to be a permanent fix, rather a step to
getting better. Even though he may have
thought that it was a sure way to help people, reading this book and logically
assessing it, makes you think other wise.
Maybe those who over exaggerate things would be able to find a solution
within this book.
The
Book’s Importance
Some of the problems that this book talks about are
self-disturbing, irrational beliefs, awfulizing, and CSA. Self-disturbing is a solemn problem that comes
from irrational beliefs that keep ingesting away at your self. The response for
those who are trapped in this harmful cycle is to step back and think
rationally. Self-disturbing will go away and you will be able to control
yourself much better in even difficult situations.
In
chapter 8, page 109, Ellis briefly discussed Alfred Korzybski's idea that said
absolutistic thinking makes a person "unsane." Ellis gives some
suggestions in overcoming these ideas. One solution is to monitor your
awfulizing. Rather than saying, "This failure is totally bad," say,
"This failure may be very bad, but it could be worse and could lead to
worse results." Another solution is to, as mentioned before, change all
your shoulds and musts to realistic preferring. Another thing to keep in mind
is that failing one task does NOT mean that you will always fail and never
succeed. Also, be open-minded, skeptical and experimental, "absolute and
final truths do not seem to exist."
"Awefulizing" is the notion of
something exasperating absolutely should not exist. "I can’t stand
it" or "Its too much to bear" are irrational believes that just
assist problems. These sayings actually increase your frustrations and intolerance.
You must learn to tolerate the frustrating person by Unconditional
Other-Acceptance. You must learn to tolerate difficulties that come up because
everyone makes mistakes. This is the healthiest way to think.
Another problem this book talks about is
Conditional Self-Approval. This is a problem for
many because your happiness is not in your control but in another’s control.
You must learn to have U.S.A. and then you will have solved the C.S.A.
problem. CSA is the conditional
self-acceptance rule. We must lean
against the CSA and lean more towards USA.
The other concept that goes hand in hand with this is, UOA, or others
acceptance. With unconditional
acceptance of your self and others it makes it any easier place to live. Wasting time hating someone or something is
wasting energy towards something useless.
You can redirect that energy on something good, like doing your
homework. As they say, it takes less effort
to smile than it does to frown.
Disturbing yourself is the concept that we ourselves make
us disturbed. I have to agree with this
statement. As the last week of school approaches
I have noticed that I sit in class and ponder all the things that I still need
to do or else I will get bad grades for the semester, which I absolutely do not
want. Instead of thinking about them
and obsessing, Ellis believes that we should stop doing this too ourselves
because it depresses us. I can se his
point, when I feel overwhelmed I feel like crawling in bed and going to sleep
so that I no longer have to think about the situation.
The books topics are very relevant to the public. It is essential that we all are mental
healthy and I believe that is what Ellis is trying to do. He is able to present a wide range of
problems that do occur in people in our society. He explains problems and offers solutions for them. Like all solutions they only work for some
people. What works for me may
necessarily work for you. That is why
it is important that we have books like these for the general public to attain
and be able to guide themselves to getting better, and staying that way.
Dr. Ellis's message of USA and
non-musturbating is required in today's society because we all seem to be
impatient and have intolerant attitude towards one another and ourselves.
CSA will teach us to be able to be patient with ourselves and in turn teach us
to be patient with others. The society
as a whole has changed drastically over the past decades and it is not for the
better. People seem to be getting more
“corrupt” with their attitudes and their beliefs. In my opinion I think that fast food has changed the way we
live. Everything is expected fast and
in a certain way. If we do not get what
we order or if our food comes out messy we blow up and get mad at nothing. When in actuality we should be accepting and
realize that maybe we are not all perfect and mistakes are made.
Without this type of understanding of others we are not able
to get along and people tend to think that they are superior and deserved to be
treated like kings. Going along with my
fast food example, if you are not able to make food yourself, you should be
grateful that some else is. Instead of
placing blame outwards they should just be grateful that they are eating and
that they did not have to make the darn thing.
This book may not be the best answer for the problems discussed, however
I believe that no one has the absolute best answer that will make sense to
every single person who reads it.
I
think that this book fits in the social aspect of psychology. Since we are talking about feeling better
and getting along with others. Although
I think that this book would have been better as a self-help book in Borders
instead of classroom material, I am still glad that I had the opportunity to
read it. I think that as a psychology
major we must get a good basis of knowledge to be better suited for helping
others. Even though we may not totally
understand or agree with something it may be helpful to others.
The
Book’s Structure
Yes
the book does some exercises that are provided in the readings. For the most part all of the exercises are
geared to make you feel better and essentially make you get better. There were four that I can remember
freshly. The Jacobson’s Progressive
Relaxation Technique, breathing right, meditation, and recollection writing,
are the four that seemed to be the most useful. I have tried each of the four and will be describing the method, the
results I came up with, and why it is useful.
The
Jacobson technique requires you to relax every part of your body in
section. It is a musclerelaxer. You lie down or sit in a comfortable
position and start by focusing on relaxing your toes. You first flex the muscle then relax them. Next you go to your foot and flex that then
relax it. You work your way slowly
until you reach the top of your body.
By the end I felt really relaxed.
I tried after a long day of shopping and I fell right asleep. The more you focus on relaxing your muscles, the
less you will be able to focus on annoying, upsetting, and bothersome thoughts.
This
helps you to relax and to stop going in a negative cycle. You must make a conscience effort to relax
your muscles to it prevents you from thinking about your disturbing
thought. Half the battle is to stop
obsessing about things in order to feel better. Ellis believes that changing your thought can lead to changing
your action.
On
page 70 in the book they discuss the importance of breathing right. To become a right breather you must breath
with your stomach. Most often when you
are stressed or agitated you tend to breathe with your chest. Chest breathing can lead to hyperventilating. With
the exercise, they explain that you need to start off slow and in increments of
two minutes. Concentrating that long
for me was difficult. I found that I had
a very hard time to keep up with it. I
have a stomach breather all my life that it was very hard to switch over. I catch myself and try to change but keeping
up with it is difficult.
Changing
the way you breathe will make you breathe more effectively. While you are focusing on your breathing techniques
it is also advised to concentrate on your muscles as well to relax your
body. This is similar to the method
mentioned above. The benefits are the same;
you become more relaxed and in turn feel better.
The
third type of exercise was meditation.
I don’t ever do meditation because I tend to fall asleep while I do
it. I am always tired so if I take time
out to sit and be quite for a long period of time I tend to get really sleepy
and lire down for a nap. That is
exactly what happened. I came home from
school one day and decided that I had better do the exercise so that I could
put it in my report. Sure enough I fell
asleep after 15 minutes. It was a good
nap I have to say. Although I personally
cannot reap the benefits of meditation I know that a lot of other people do.
In chapter 8 Ellis
talks about how it is good if we write down our feelings and experiences that
we are having troubles with. This
exercise helps us to relieve our feelings that are disturbing us. Writing these feelings down can release the feelings
that in turn will help us to feel better.
In the past I used to write in a journal whenever I was going through a
rough time. I believe in this method a
100%. It has helped me to realize what
is going on and how to move on from them.
Reading the writing also makes you see things from a different
perspective that helps in healing your pain.
The benefits of this are very rewarding. It actually makes you able to talk about them and eventually you
can move on from them.
There were no tests in
the book that allows you to see your level of self-disturbing. The book tries
to focus on how to get better but does not look at how to measure the seriousness
of your problems. There also were no
tables or diagrams to illustrate better what Ellis is talking about. I would have liked to see some. Seeing theories or even exercises mapped out
in a table is the best way to understanding a concept.
There are literature review is wide
spread throughout the book. I am not
really sure if that is what it is. He
refers to the works of other authors as a mean of getting his point
across. He does review their literature
and help to close the gap between his concepts and the concepts that he is
referring to. Like on page 70, he
reviews the ideas that Robert Fried had on the best forms of relaxing and
helping your mind and body get ready for successful living is breathing
exercises.
There is a bibliography section that he
has in the end of the book, yet he states that he has not stated all the authors
and works that he has used in his book.
I suppose that he believes that some don’t need to be mentioned because we
should already be familiar with their works.
However, for a person who is unaware of theorist in psychology, they will
be confused. I think that was a bit
strange, however we must have his reasons for doing so.
There were no endnotes in this book but
there was an index. The index was brief
and straight to the point. It was long
enough to get the information needed out of it, and short enough that it was
not missing anything. He broke
everything down into the main topics and referred them to the sections they are
in. Overall, it was very easy to use
when I needed to refer back to them.
I did not really approve of he chapter
titles because they were al the same after chapter 3. The only difference was the first half of the title. He should have been more detailed when
naming the chapter. Instead of using
thinking and philosophizing methods he should have described what was in the
chapter. Chapter 4-15 was titled this
way. Before the class had started I flipped
through the book to get a feel for what I was getting into. I found that the titles were very vague and
did not explain much of what was going on.
I can definitely think of better
titles; for example chapter 6 could have named Breathing and exercising
methods. Each chapter could be renamed
in this fashion.
His layout was understandable because it
went in a sequential order. His entire
book went from feeling better, getting better, to staying better. Each chapter progressively went from one
step to the next. The reader was fine
and the print was just right. Most
books are printed in this size font a=or something similar.
Critique
of the Book
What I enjoyed most about this book was the
relaxing exercises. I found those to be
the most effective thing to feeling better.
It helps you to change the way that you are thinking and it has also
changed the way that I feel. It is such
a simple concept. If we all were to
just change the way we think, it can lead all of us the change the way that we
feel. That was what Ellis’ book was all
about. Showing us an alternative way of
dealing with the stressors in our life.
An interesting quote that I found
relating to myself was on page 101. It goes something like this "Watch it!
And I really mean watch it-but not compulsively or perfectionistically. For if
you take too much time to weigh all the advantages and disadvantages of doing
something, you may never do it." I
am sure that everyone has act compulsively at least once. Well this is a big problem for me. I used to hate when people take long to
think. But in actuality I realized that
it was me who always was too compulsive.
Although this habit still remains I am working on it now to eliminate
this bad habit.
“People are disturbed not by things, but
by the view they take of them” (p16). This
is very true statement. If you really think
about it, we could actually choose not to let things bother us if we were to
control our feelings. I normally just react
to things without thinking and have paid for it later. This normally happens when I think before I speak. When you just react without that a good look
at it first, you tend to take the wrong view of things. This is also something that I will be
working on. Ellis really captures the
nature of human s with this example.
What I learned while reading Ellis’ book
is that repetition can lose your interest.
I hate to read and the way that Ellis repeats himself got me feeling
bored. Although, it has made me able to
retain the information of the book, which is probably why he did it. The concept that captured me the most was
the USA and UOA. These two topics are
needed in our society and the more people try to accomplish it, the better
everyone else will be. Acceptance and
understanding are things that we must make a conscience effort in mastering,
and Ellis’ talks a good deal about these.
In Ellis’ book the main strength was
that he told a lot of stories to make point come across. There was a story in Chapter 8 that dealt
with the limits of self-help. Maury was very afraid of speaking in the public.
Maury used his solution focusing technique until it seemed to be failing. So he
used his solution focusing technique and disputed his IB’s until there was no
more anxiety of speaking in public. Together they made a powerful force to
oppose. I could really use this example to help conquer my fear of speaking in
public. I’m going to need it in a couple of weeks for my presentation.
The other strength that I thought would
be helpful to everyone was the way he explained the benefits of breathing and
relaxing. When life gets so stressed
that we do not have time to go to the gym, at least we can sit in a hot tub and
do these exercises. They will come in
handy for me one day, like the weekend before finals!!!
I did a search on the Internet for
relevant topics to this book and this is what I came up with:
Impact Publisher’s Inc. http://www.impactpublishers.com/reviews/fbgbsb.html
Robert V.
Heckle PhD http://www.midnet.sc.edu/scpa/Fbwntr01.htm#book
Menstuff http://www.menstuff.org/books/byissue/feelings-general.html#ellis1
Additional
Observations
As a whole my initial reaction after
reading the book was that I believe that is was a bunch of nonsense. However after writing the paper I realized
that there were a lot of good suggestions to making your life better. Any attempt to trying and making this
society a better place to live should be taken as a good effort. Even though these methods may not work for everyone
I am sure that it does work for some. Society
is so far from being perfect that we all should think of ways o making it
better. Ellis along with other
psychologists are doing just that. I have done some research o the Internet on
Ellis and found that he has a lot of other works published. He must know what he is doing, and have his
own little way of doing it.
I have taken some knowledge along with
me after this class and I hope that after reading my report you will too. The strongest thing that I liked about the
book was the realizing methods. I
always feel like my body is so tense that I am willing to do just about
anything to make it feel better.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. It is just like everything else in life...
