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.
The beginning of the book supplies
the reader with foundation and topics that will be fully discussed in the later
chapters. Through these foundations you
are slowly being prepared for Feeling Better which deals with problems
externally. This means that the
techniques or theories in these “Feeling Better” chapter help you to deal with
problems that cause you to disturb yourself with distractions that will focus your
attention off of wallowing in negativity.
Once you are able to do that, your mind is open to activities
surrounding getting better. Getting
better seems to deal with the internal.
Looking at your feelings, thoughts, and emotions and finding ways to
bridge the negative irrational undesirable beliefs into positive rational
desirable ones. Through exercises such
as in vivo desensitization and cognitive writing exercises such as the REBT
self-help form.
Staying better relies on the
determination and practice of the person who wants the help
Part
IV: Critique
I
did enjoy the book though there may have been some controversial topics such
as: How can one truly unconditionally accept others. I truly believe that people “disturb” themselves much more than
we have come to realize. I believe also
that this is a problem in society because it causes depression, anxiety and
panic, which lead to other psychological disabilities that have an impact on
your whole life.
“Likes”
I
am in Psychology 342, which is a course on aging, and development and I have
learned that many older adults reaching their later years in life choose to use
humor as a coping mechanism. It dampens
the stressors and difficulties associated with aging as well as create a blissful
atmosphere instead of a dark one. The
ending of Chapter 9 in our text seems to deal soley on humor as Dr. Ellis put a
variety of songs for the disturbed individual.
He writes (p. 159; ¶ 1):
On the contrary, deliberately
taking things lightly when you are beset with problems is hardly a cure-all –
in fact, it may distract you from solving them if you take them too lightly –
but it has great advantages. For
example, seeing things, even difficulties, in a humorous light:
Prevents you from self-depressing
Challenges you to see alternatives in stead
of grim results
Blocks your tendencies to view things only as
black and white
Adds a sense of play to your life
Helps you laugh at the behavior of yourself
and others instead of seeing only the dark side
Punctures your and other people’s grandiosity
Shows you that you have some real control
over your feelings
Dramatically interrupts some of your
dysfunctional patterns
Lets you relate better to people, including
some difficult ones
Shows you that your human foibles are
universal
I
agree, with Dr. Ellis that humor helps.
However, too much humor or being compulsively funny and disregarding the
problem will only create a bigger problem, because although you may have
laughed about the situation or take your mind off of your present suffering you
will find that the problem is still there.
Dr.
Phil a nationally renowned psychologist once said that, “Your Perception is
your Reality!” I truly believe this is
true. I believe that using humor or
finding something to smile, laugh or be merry about in life helps the
individual to create a positive outlook through adversity. Keeping this positive outlook creates a
chain reaction with in the thinking and behaving aspects in their life helping
them to cope and find creative possibilities to overcome unwanted obstacles.
“Dislikes”
I believe that in order to
completely change there are three aspects that need to be addressed and
developed they are: body, mind and spirit.
The feeling better aspect deals with the body, the getting better deals with
cognition. However there is no
reference to the spirit, which ultimately is the determining factor of who you
are! Someone may be able to think and
behave accordingly to societal pressures and create a physical life that is
comfortable or decent, however the spirit is your true self.
In regards to unconditional other-acceptance it is
difficult to understand how one can accept a person when they commit crimes or
are disobedient, because it is not the actions that stem from who they
are? When you consider that by
accepting them as a human who has a right to live and breath along with the
rest of us, you enhance yourself to be a better person.
Consider
the topic which I had discussed previously which revolves around people being
egocentric. I find that if you accept
others not for their actions but as a person who may not fulfill your
expectations you release yourself from being egocentric therefore expanding
your mind to become rational thinkers that are able to forgive, help and make a
positive difference up on the world, ultimately having this positivity cycle
towards you, others and the world.
Additonal Links:
Impact Publishers (2002). Feeling Better, Getting
Better Staying Better Retrieved December 1, 2002, from http://www.impactpublishers.com/books/fbgbsb.html
Horwatt, S. (n.d.). News and Views Book review of
Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better. Retrieved December 1, 2002, from
http://www.division42.org/MembersArea/Nws_Views
/articles/Reviews_Books/feeling_better.html
Johnson, C. (2002). Bookreview Feeling Better,
Getting Better, Staying Better.
Retrieved December 1, 2002, from http://www.anxietysupport.org/cc19menu.htm
Additional Observation
This book definitely spoke
to those who are in need of help instead of those that are in the psychology
profession. The terms and stories
written in the text were ones that many people who seek help go through
daily. The writings in this book are
blunt and the use of profanity such as Push Your Ass (PYA) is definitely not a
concept that seems to be one that is empirically studied and labeled. I truly believe that the terms, stories and
verbal language is one that may actually speak to those that want to seek help.
“Push Your Ass “ is
something that I recall hearing in my younger days, while paddling on a canoe
team in town. The majority of my
teammates did not grow-up in affluent neighborhood in fact many of them were
living in difficult circumstances. When
the coach would scream, “Push your Ass, stop cruising!” Those girls, including myself knew what she
meant. It is unfortunate that the
language and concepts seem too simple with out thought, BUT I do believe that
it will have some affect on those who want to read a book that is easy to understand
and covers basic steps that might help them achieve a more positive way of
emotionally living.
Many times we forget that
majority of those that need help cannot or are unable to get the psychological
help that they need. There are numerous
amounts of individuals who do not have the money, time or insurance to pay for
treatment offered in psychology sessions.
This book with its faults is overall a handy book for anyone who may
need help in areas in their life and they just do not know where to get
started.
In Seasons of the Heart,
an educational reading for older adults reaching their “third age” states that
many aging adults use humor as a coping mechanism to deal with problems (Gross,
2001). Perhaps by his interviews, and
web pages dedicated to songs revolving around melancholy emotions to old folk
tunes one might be able to understand that Dr. Ellis is not your “normal”
Mental Health Professional. He takes
his topics with an intermingling of seriousness and wit.
When you read
through interviews with him and some of his songs that he finds humorous, you
will find that the book is written in very much of the same character. Perhaps when understanding the personality
behind the author his writings and concepts may seem more clear. An example of his train of thinking, in
regards to meditation in an Interview on the Web page PsychotherapistResources.com
Dr.Ellis responds to the question posed by interviewer Myrtle Heery, Ph.D.,
“So you do incorporate meditation in your work?”
Silence would be
the most boring thing I ever thought of. I spend time thinking, if you call
that in silence, but I don't meditate or anything like that. That's a waste of
time except that it's cognitive distraction and temporarily gets people not to
worry, but it doesn't show them the basic philosophy behind worrying. So a lot
of meditation is just useless. But temporarily in REBT we teach people how to
do it.
I first found his interview to be shocking because of his
use of profanity and his very blunt way of speaking, however it was
different. His overall analysis of
people and life seems to be quite accurate, as we all tend to disturb ourselves
and that it is our choice to choose how we will feel, think and act when
circumstances arise. As individuals of
the human race, we are all capable of change and to say that one person is bad
or good is saying that s/he can never be good or bad, therefore achieving the
good is impossible and forgiveness is not needed.
Part VI: Works Cited
Notting, E.
(n.d.). Practice information and handouts. Retrieved December 5, 2002, from http://drednottingham.com/handouts.html
Conqueranxiety.com (2002). Anxiety statistics: you
are not alone. Retrieved December 7,
2002 from http://www.conqueranxiety.com/anxiety_statistics.asp
Papalia, D. & Olds, S. (1998) Physical and
cognitive development in early childhood, Human Development 7th
Edition (197-200). McGraw Hill
Gross, Z. (2001). Troubles and triumphs, Seasons
of the heart (75-77) Novato, CA: New world library
©2002