A Review of
Albert Ellis, Ph.D., Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better, ű 2001
By
Raemie Noelani Monces, December 12, 2002
Instructions
for this Report
_______________________________________________________
As I often say, if the Martians
ever get down here and they're sane, they'll die laughing.
- Albert Ellis Ph.D.
Overall
Content
Major Topics
Relation
Relevance
Audience
Importance
Problems/Solutions
Relevance
Structure
Activities
Importance
Content
Critique
Personal View
“Likes”
“Dislikes”
Additional Links
Additional
Observation
Personal Thoughts
Works
Cited
________________________________________________________
Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying
Better: Profound self-help therapy for
your emotions
Review
by: Raemie N. Monces
Only you can upset
yourself about events--the events themselves, no matter how undesirable, can
never upset you.
-Epictetus, Philosopher
Part I:
Overall Content
Major Topics
This
book revolves around the foundation of REBT, which represents Rational Emotive
Behavioral Therapy. REBT is basically getting the negative feelings, thoughts
and actions into positive ones, therefore creating a higher emotional
intelligence by getting your IR irrational beliefs to RB rational beliefs. This
type of therapy uses psychotherapy and self-help to enable an individual to:
disturb self less and lead a happy more fulfilling life (p.3, ¶2).
ABC:
theory of human disturbing
Chapter
2: (p.16-19)
When
an unwanted event occurs it this type of thinking helps YOU to create
disturbances that cause YOU to worry about created disturbances. The underlining point is that YOU are the
only person that can choose how you will think and behave after your feelings
have ensued.
Ways
that humans disturb themselves are through steps that work together. It starts with Adversity that
ultimately should initiate Belief and then creates the Consequence.
A
concept that is discussed in the text, which refers to the process in, which an
individual may react to a negative situation therefore causing them to disturb
themselves is the theory of human disturbing that is called ABC (p. 18,
¶ 3):
ABC
refers to
A-
Adversity
B-
Belief
(Believing-Emoting-Behaving) =emotional eliciting behaviors from belief.
n
Irrational = Illogical
self-defeating emotionally elicited behavior
n
Rational = Logical
self-helping emotionally elicited behavior
C-
Consequence
Discussed
in Chapter 7 pages 87-94 there are two more conditions that are involved in the
ABC’s of REBT. These two extra systems
are (p. 89; ¶ 3):
D-
Disputing Dysfunctional
beliefs
E-
Effective new
philosophy reducing negative emotions and behaviors.
The
ABCDE’s of REBT are used to realize your habits of feeling-thinking-acting. In
order for you to understand what beliefs are irrational and help your-self
develop your process of feeling-thinking-acting and better equip you with ways
that will help you think logically.
Irrational
and rational beliefs
Chapter
2: (p. 18-19)
Irrational
Beliefs are self-defeating (negative threefold self) and are illogical
unrealistic ways of thinking that hinder an individual from living accordingly
in the “real world.” It causes
individuals to develop mentally unhealthy neurosis about situations, people,
themselves and the world that can ultimately diminish happiness in their life.
Irrational
beliefs affect habits that work together that form from a stimulus, which
triggers the resulting feelings, thoughts and Behaviors. Causing someone to disturb him or herself.
Rational
beliefs are quite the opposite although it is still negative feelings, these feelings
are ones that are healthy and help an individual to cope with the realities of
life and perhaps overcome them with a logical mindset.
Musturbation
Chapter
3: (p. 23-40)
As
humans, we can never attain a perfect state of physical or psychological existence. In life, we are faced with a myriad of
triumphs and trials. The way in which
we react to negative life experiences ultimately affects your state of being. When you encounter a negative event in life,
it is your choice in what ways you will deal with such occurrences. There are three states of thinking that many
individuals create in their lives that make it much harder for them to
positively mentally develop to their full potential. These three emotionally unintelligent desires are as follows
(p.32, ¶3):
1.
“I absolutely must do important things well and be approved
by significant others, or I am worthless.”
2.
You must treat me kindly and considerately or else you are a
rotten person.”
3. Conditions
absolutely must be the way I want them to be and not unduly block me from
pleasures and goals, or my life is horrible!”
There
are three ways in which individuals think in order for themselves to be content
with life, but the irony of it all is that it is impossible to create a utopia
here on Earth above all you are unable to create the exact perfect life you
must have.
This
level of thinking is Egocentric; the person views everything from his or
her own point of view (Papalia & Olds, 1998). It is a self-centered understanding that is a part of centration
that Piaget explains that young children are so self-centered that they are
unable to take on another person’s point of view (Papalia & Olds,
1998). Leads to illogical conclusion.
Unconditional
self-acceptance (USA)
Chapter
3: (p. 23-19)
This
topic of REBT is accepting yourself because you are YOU. It is not loving yourself more or less
because you may have done wrong or because you excelled in a particular goal
that you wanted to achieve. To my understanding
when you unconditionally accept yourself it is disregarding illogical negative
feelings-thoughts-behaviors that cause you to disturb yourself. When you accept yourself it plants the seed
for positivity to grow, therefore creating positive cycle to begin and persist.
In
contrast, conditional self-acceptance is not accepting that you are a unique
individual that makes mistakes and can overcome them. Setting conditions for yourself to achieve in order to love
yourself is a dangerous path that ultimately causes you to panic, feel
depressed, rage etc.
Because
you set conditions that you must achieve in order to love yourself, you can not
be prepared for an unexpected event that may hinder your exact plan that you
absolutely should achieve. This is a
mentally unhealthy way live, because you are ultimately setting yourself up for
failure. Remember that no one is
perfect therefore, no one should expect that in order to love yourself (or
others) you must be perfect.
Understanding
conditional self-acceptance one can have a better view of what is unconditional
self-acceptance. By loving yourself for
who you are and not your actions you can ultimately see the others and the
world in a new perspective. Because,
negative feelings, thoughts, and actions tend to shift from other/world to self
and if these feelings-thoughts and actions are positive, Dr. Ellis is hoping
that you can feel better, get better and finally stay better.
You
are telling yourself:
-
What I did was bad.
n
When an individual
thinks that the action is bad, it provides them with hope that they are able to
change the action.
Instead
of:
-
I am bad.
n
When an individual
thinks s/he is bad it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. An individual act as though as if they are
bad.
Unconditional
other acceptance (UOA)
Chapter
3: (p. 29-32)
No one on Earth
is psychologically similar to another.
We are all apart of the same world but vary in our experiences and
feelings-thoughts-actions (three-fold self).
When we realize that people in general are imperfect (as we are), we
tend to shy away from them because they do not fit our requirements of
acceptance. We become egocentric,
wanting people to comply with our needs and wants. When we set conditions for people to meet in order to receive
them for who they are, we are Conditionally accepting others.
Unconditional
other accepting helps us to diminish our egocentric selves, and become more
empathetic and logical thinkers. You
come to realize that a person cannot be labeled as all bad, because that would
mean that someone has the potential to be positively absolutely good. We are individuals that do good and bad
things (some more than others).
We
want to stay away from judgment of others and lean towards acceptance of an
individual not through their actions but as a person who has just as much right
to live on this Earth as any one else.
This is a tough concept to grasp.
There is a thin line between acceptance and ignorance. We cannot select who we will accept as a
human or not, because by what guidelines will you use in order to decipher who
deserves your acceptance or not.
Unconditional life
acceptance (ULA)
Chapter 3: (p.
37)
Unconditional
life acceptance is basically the same as acceptance of self and others. This acceptance involves your life. Life hands out a myriad of experiences that
are unique and unimaginable, one needs to realize that we cannot change
life. There is no way to reverse
experiences or specifically live a life that is strategically planned. There
are going to be things in life that are not going to be pleasant, and by
accepting this you will not have false (illogical) expectations that will cause
you to be bitter when things do not develop as you had planned.
Through
acceptance in life an individual will be able to cope more efficiently with
negative unwanted circumstances, because they will not be overcome by negative
feelings, thoughts and actions that hinder them from overcoming the stressor
and learning from it.
High
frustration tolerance (HFT)
Chapter
3: (p. 32-33)
High
Frustration tolerance is when you dislike what a person or thing does to you
that may have stopped or delayed you from achieving goals. This does not lead to negative thoughts that
cause you to act out aggressively or with destructive behavior.
HFT
does however cause someone to view things negatively, but not hopeless. When a person or something disrupts someone
from achieving goals they may become upset and feel as if they cannot bear the
current situation, by thinking this way an individual may cause themselves to
make them more awful than it really is.
Low
Frustration Tolerance (LFT)
Chapter
3: (p. 33-34)
Low
frustration tolerance is a being unable to tolerate problems encountered in
life involving your self, others or the world.
It causes you to think in “MUSTS” instead of preferences. Because of this low tolerance to life’s
trials your feelings negative instead of positive causing the negative thoughts
and actions to ensue. Thinking that
everything is:
n
Awful
n
Horrible
n
Terrible
You
refuse to tolerate occurrences in life that cause frustration, which causes you
to disturb yourself, because you chose not to accept circumstance, learn from
them and move on. With low frustration
tolerance one cannot attain happiness, there will always be something you will
not be satisfied with.
This
way of thinking may cause you to seek immediate gratification which may help
you feel better for an allotted amount of time, but in the end it will not help
you get better or stay better. In life, one needs to be able to cope
appropriately with negative circumstances that arise in our experiences with
life.
Relation
of topics
These
topics are the foundation of REBT. It
is through the understanding of these topics that one may be able to feel
better and get better, which ultimately provides you with ways and
understandings that help you stay better.
These
topics are posed at the beginning of the book in order to help the reader to be
better acquainted with techniques brought up in the later chapters. It is a progression that begins with
introducing the ABC as it helps you to understand that there is a chain of
events that occur when a stimulus happens.
There is also a description of irrational and rational beliefs so that
an individual understands what is the negative beliefs that are holding
themselves back from reaching ‘emotional intelligence’, meaning positive
feelings, thoughts, and behaviors towards self and the world by understanding,
managing, perceiving and expressing their emotions.
The
topics progress to “musturbation” as it prepares the reader to fully understand
that the three “musts” are connected with the types of acceptance:
Must #1
I must do well! |
Unconditional
self-acceptance Accept yourself for who you are not by what you do. |
Must #2
Others must treat me
honestly and fairly |
Unconditional
other-acceptance Accept others for being fallible humans, and realize that
people will treat you unfairly. It
does not make the negative action okay, but it is bearable. |
Must #3
Conditions must not be
very frustrating or they are intolerable |
Unconditional
life-acceptance Life is not perfect if things do not happen the way that
you plan it is not the end of the world. |
Relevance
to feeling better, getting better, staying better
REBT
works in several ways connecting the self and other/world along with life to
create a better YOU! It explains ways
that can help you cross over the to the positive side of life. By understanding, the way your mind works
and how there is a connection between feelings, thoughts, and actions, one will
be able to become emotionally intelligent.
Choosing the positive thoughts and actions over the negative ones, in
order to create a positive cycle in life to live by and make the person become
emotionally healthy.
Audience
This
book seems to speak to the audience not just one of the members. As a hobby I play the ukulele, I am able to
distinguish some aspects, such as when someone is playing a wrong note in a
song. When I was younger, I sat and
listened to, two girls playing a song that I had learned previously, it was
horrible. Some notes were a little off
key and there was no tempo. My parents
and sister thought it was beautiful, calming, relaxing etc. I on the other hand was unsatisfied,
understanding that some notes, were not played correctly at the right time.
This
book is similar to the concert that night.
I believe that this book speaks to the people, not necessarily those who
are part of the psychology world that may be more educated on such topics. My mother found it to speak to her as an
individual and said, “This is an easy to understand book, I like it!”
Part
II: Importance
Problem
and Solutions
This
text provides many ways in which a person can feel better, get better, and stay
better. These potential attainable
goals are obstructed by self-disturbing.
The main concern and problem of all individuals seems that human disturb
themselves. We develop either a high or
low frustration tolerance that enables us to view a particular person, situation
or the self in a disturbing way, through our musturbations.
Our
musturbations are habits that negative and developed that affect your train of
thinking that ultimately cause you to think that things will be absolutely bad
if certain criteria is not met from yourself, others or in life. It is through these musturbations that
people begin to awfulize situations and disturb themselves more.
These
disturbing feelings, thoughts, and actions can develop into negative habits of
living, which ultimately can cause panic attacks, depression and other
disabling mental disorders.
The
solution is through REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy). It is through this concept that a person can
achieve the positive through the negative.
It helps an individual cross the red or blue bridge as termed by Dr.
Leon James when referring to the four options and enables them to develop a
positive three-fold self.
REBT
sessions basically take the illogical, irrational beliefs and develop ways that
can help you change them into rational, logical beliefs, through techniques
described in the text that are apart of feeling better, getting better and
staying better. An REBT form reviews
the ABCDE’s of REBT. The individual
starts with the A aspect which is the activating event and describes their
situation whether it is real or imagined, past, present or future and if it is
external or internal. From there they
explain the Consequences which are their negative emotionas and behaviors. The Irrational beliefs are identified and
then Disputed in order to develop rational beliefs and create new effective
healthy emotions and behaviors.
Relevance
Today
the fast pace and get it or its gone society we live in, it is obvious that
many more individuals are mentally breaking down, because life just seems
unbearable. On a web site that wants to
conquer anxiety I found these statistics:
figure 1: http://www.conqueranxiety.com/anxiety_statistics.asp
Considering
the self-help and psychotherapy advantages of REBT one must understand that
this is a beneficial cook to a nation that seems to thrive off of depressing
itself. This is a book that caters to
person’s needs that are easy to understand and simple to follow. It does not focus on short-term results,
such as focusing only on breathing and meditation cognitive distractions, but
relies on changing the whole self from feelings to thoughts to behaviors.
I
feel that this is a good text to read if you are interested or in the
psychology field. It is not only
written by a world-renowned psychologist, but it provides the reader with ideas
and theories that can be rebutted or accepted to your preference. It helps develop the readers cognitive
capabilities in order to spark an idea such as what are some useful cognitive
distractions that anyone could use.
Take for instance the health conscious individual who might want to take
yoga as a form of relaxation, or a religious individual who prefers prayer or
meditation. It helps a psychology major
to understand that there are not one exact way to treat a patient, but several
possibilities that one needs to examine in order to help that individual “stay
better”.
Part
III: Structure
Activities
This
book contained various exercises that would help an individual through REBT. It
focused in three areas, which were: feeling better, getting better, and staying
better. Feeling better and Getting
better have some exercises that one can do to enhance themselves in these two
areas. Staying better involves
reexamining the feeling better and getting better and defining them to your
preferences and in more detail to how you would go about for example choosing
your goals through research. Staying
better also discusses to choose with a conscious so that you will benefit.
Feeling
better techniques
Some
Feeling Better Techniques: Cognitive Distractions
These
are used to take your focus off of disturbing yourself (philosophizing) Taking
your mind off the Irrational
|
Jacobson’s Progressive
relaxation |
Relaxing muscles from head
to toes, as you say a mantra, “relax…relax” My experiences: My speech professor Mrs. Yokotake told me about this technique and I
enjoyed it. I found it to be relaxing
and calmed my nerves when I needed to give a speech for class. The difference is that she had told me to
tense the muscles for 10 seconds and then relax. |
Meditation
|
There are several forms of
meditation one is to say a mantra, “Peace…Peace…Peace” and focus on your
breathing My experiences: I tried this when I needed to give my oral presentation for this class
because my chapter reviewed cognitive distraction. I thought it was okay, but I couldn’t do it sitting up
straight, I remember laying down on the couch and doing this technique and
then I fell asleep. |
|
Yoga |
Gentle exercises that
require you to concentrate carefully on your movements. My experiences: My mother bought a $9.00 video “Yoga conditioning for weight loss” I
tried the video for two minutes and got disinterested because it was slow and
un-amusing. |
|
Religious rituals and
prayers |
My experiences: I usually pray at all times of the day. I find it to be relaxing and it gives me hope that whatever the
circumstances I encounter throughout the day I will be facing them with
God. |
|
Pleasurable diversions |
Diversions that you can
engage in that to keep disturbing thoughts out of your head My experiences: My favorite cognitive distraction is playing my ukulele and writing
songs. Going to the beach and
spending the day in the sun and riding my skateboard. |
ABCDE’s
of REBT
Getting
better involves changing your set of negative feelings, thoughts and
behaviors. One of the ways you might be
able to deal with this is through writing I particularly thought that this way
of dealing with a situation is most beneficial to a person. I decided to fill out the exercise on page
121 of our text:
This
ABCDE’s of REBT is a very interesting concept as it seems to motivate you to
think of alternative feelings and behaviors that you choose to deal with
negative circumstances through making yourself think of logically. A site, which I thought was most helpful and
very detailed in its approach to filling out this form, is at: Drednottingham.com.
Vivo
desensitization
Another
behavioral activity method is vivo desensitization. It involves desensitizing patient to certain
phobias that may cause them to needlessly disturb themselves, which is accomplished
through exposure of what is feared. Taking slow steps to go against your
irrational feelings, thoughts and behaviors.
There
are several behavioral methods that that use in vivo desensitization, they are:
|
Exposure to irrationally Feared
Events |
Exposing yourself slowly
to events that you are afraid of irrationally. |
|
Risk-Taking Methods |
Showing that you are
needlessly panicking to a situation by doing something risky. |
|
Staying in difficult
situation |
Sometimes exposing yourself
to a situation helps you to realize you were thinking irrationally and there
fore ultimately causing you to think logically. |
It
is through some of these techniques discussed in the text that one might get an
idea to what exercises they can do to help develop their irrational beliefs
into positive ones.
Importance
Through
the techniques I learned that it takes your will power and determination to
commit yourself to doing these exercises when a situation occurs that will ultimately
get you started to feeling, thinking, and behaving positively. You can study and learn the concepts,
however if you CHOOSE not to incorporate them into your daily life and
situations, there is no possibility for change.
If
you decide to push yourself to do these techniques you will find that it will
not be as much work as first anticipated, because it will change your habits of
dealing with specific situations. I
believe that when you are not disturbing yourself your mind is not cluttered
with turmoil that holds you back from experiencing a rich and fulfilling
life. With less panic, anxiety and
depression ruling over your life. It
enables YOU to CHOOSE and not be controlled by your disturbing, awfulizing,
terrible thoughts.
I
found that this book may serve an ex
Contents
of Text:
Feeling Better, Getting
Better, Staying Better: profound self-help therapy for your emotions
Written by: Albert Ellis,
Ph.D.
|
Introduction Chapter 1: The Difference Between Feeling Better and
Getting Better -
Does meditation work? -
Relaxation?Exercise? Hobbies? -
How about psychotherapy? Chapter 2: Don’t Just Feel Better, Get Better! -
You disturb yourself! -
The ABC’s of disturbing yourself -
Who, me irrational? -
“But, I’m really upset about this!” -
How common irrational beliefs lead to emotional
disturbance -
So what can you do about yourself disturbing beliefs? Chapter 3: Feeling Better and Getting Better -
Unconditional self- acceptance -
Unconditional other-acceptance -
High frustration tolerance (HFT) -
Using your fine constructivist potential Chapter 4: Feeling Better I: Thinking and philosophizing
Methods -
Using cognitive distracting techniques -
Achieving a vital absorbing interest -
Using self-efficacy -
Staying in the present Chapter 5: Feeling Better II: Emotive, Evocative, and
Experiential Methods -
Other-approval and self-approval -
When the “other” is a therapist -
Using support groups -
Religious faith -
Spiritual Beliefs Chapter 6: Feeling Better III: Behavioral and Activity
Methods -
Using breathing exercises -
Exercising methods -
Sports and Athletic Games -
Yoga exercises -
Business and other practical distractions -
Skill training methods Chapter 7: Getting Better I: Thinking and philosophizing
Methods -
Disputing core irrational believing: absolutistic, shoulds,
oughts, and musts. -
And now it’s your turn Chapter 8: Getting Better II: More thinking and
Philosophizing Methods -
Dealing with catastrophizing thinking about the future -
Applying a cost-benefit analysis to what you do and what
happens to you -
Overcoming the need for perfectionizing -
Using modeling methods to overcome handicapping and
disturbing yourself -
Using problem-solving methods -
Minimizing overgeneralizing and absolutistic thinking -
How to stop disturbing yourself about disturbing yourself -
Constructivist solution-focused methods of helping
yourself -
Self-help has limits -
Imaging techniques -
Writing about past or present feelings or experiences -
Reframing and checking your negative perceptions of
adversities -
Using anti-catastrophizing and anti-awfulizing -
Using cognitive flooding methods Chapter 9: Getting Better III: Still More Thinking and
Philosophizing methods -
Three-way disputes -
Disputing inflexible shoulding and musting -
Preferable shoulding and wishing -
Disputing unconditional self-accepting, unconditional
other-accepting, and unconditional condition-accepting -
High frustration tolerating wishing and preferring Chapter 10: Getting Better IV: Emotive, Evocative and
Experiential Methods -
Using forceful disputing of irrational beliefs -
Using forceful coping self-statements -
Rational Emotive Imagery -
Shame-Attacking Exercises -
Rational role-playing -
Using humor to interrupt and dispute disturbing -
Realistic optimism and self-encouragement -
Seeking fun and pleaure -
Multiple-chair Role-playing Chapter 11: Getting Better V: Behavioral and Activity
Methods -
Introducing…in vivo desensitization -
Using in vivo desensitizing: exposure to irrationally
feared events -
Using risk- taking methods -
Staying in difficult situations -
Using activity homework -
Using paradoxical activity homework -
Using reinforcing and penalizing -
Using penelizing imagery against irrational
believing-emoting-behaving (IB’s) -
Using relapse prevention -
Dealing with addicting and personality disorders -
Commitment to therapy Chapter 12: Getting Better VI: Realistic, Logical, and
Pragmatic Methods -
Philosophies to combat self-downing -
Philosophies to combat demanding of other people -
Philosophies to minimize low-frustration tolerating -
Stopping your demanding, musturbating and overgeneralizing -
Unconditionally accepting yourself -
“…And do unto others…” -
Achieving high frustration tolerating (HFT) -
Applying a cost-benefit ratio to pleasures and misfortunes Chapter 13: Staying Better I: Avoiding Self-Disturbing
Beliefs-Emotions-Behaviors -
“Good” likes and “Bad” dislikes -
Whats so awful? -
Self-disturbing philosophizing -
Don’t you believe it! -
Are you bringing on yourself? Chapter 14: Staying Better II: Avoiding Inelegant Methods
of Change -
Unrealistic and relatively ineffective methods of dealing
with unhealthy feeling and behaving -
Distracting methods that tend to temporarily and
palliatively interrupt your unhealthy feelings and behaviors -
Realistic but philosophically inelegant and limited
methods of dealing with your unhealthy negative feelings and behaviors Chapter 15: Staying Better III: Implementing Your Resolve
to Change what you can Change Chapter 16: Final Wisdom on Feeling Better, Getting
Better, and Staying Better -
To choose or not to choose -
Making conscious choices -
Choosing individual vs. social values -
Balancing act -
Choosing health over disturbance -
Helping yourself feel, get, and stay better Selected References Index |
This book develops nicely into
organized sections, which allows readers to easily find specific parts in the text
that they might want to come back to or review.