A Review of
Albert
Ellis, Ph.D
Feeling
Better, Getting Better, Staying Better,
This book
bests describes ways to improve yourself and suggests that by the time you
finish reading you should have gone through the steps of feeling better, getting
better and staying better. The book
describes in great lengths the difference between actually feeling better and
getting better. There are different ways to go about it. The book gives the basic concepts of
being better and the techniques that can be used. The book is then more focused on the
actual divisions of feeling better, getting better and staying better. Because the whole book discusses these
three concepts I will give a brief overview of each
chapter.
Chapter
1 discusses
the various methods that can be used such as meditation, relaxation techniques
and exercise or hobbies and also psychotherapy.
Chapter
2 speaks of
recognizing your self and accepting the good and bad in life. It also says that having irrational
beliefs and not accepting yourself can lead to emotional
disturbances.
Chapter
3 has a focus
of accepting yourself and others unconditionally and that everyone have well in
the them.
Chapter
4 suggests
that using cognitive distractive techniques will help take the mind off of
negative things and to use self- efficacy to help stay in the present and not
worry about the future.
Chapter
5 discusses
the emotive, evocative and experimental methods that deal with approval of
others and self as well as using support groups and spiritual or religious
beliefs.
Chapter 6 focuses mostly on exercises that would be beneficial to feeling better such as athletics, sports or yoga and even skill training methods.
Chapter 7ās main interest seems to have been on philosophizing and turning desires and wishes into goals.
Chapters 8 and 9 have a lot to do with overcoming the needs of perfection as well as disturbing yourself. Also a key factor is to minimize over-generalizing and absolutistic thinking.
Chapter 10 suggests using forceful methods of disputing and coping with rational emotive imagery. Itās really quite interesting that there are some songs that Dr. Ellis has written in order to help calm yourself in situations.
Chapter 11ās main topic is the behavior of getting better using desensitizing, and risk taking methods.
Chapter 12 wants to get the message across of stopping these habits and behaviors of demanding and over-generalizing and to achieve high frustration tolerance.
Chapter 13 is the beginning of the last section of the book that focuses on actually staying better. And that is to avoid the previous behaviors, and questioning the outcomes of scenarios
Chapters 14 and 15 tell of implementing the resolution of change that has been made and sticking with it.
And lastly chapter 16 gives the final wisdom about every individual being unique and has different ways of dealing with the influences of the world but itās a matter of making your own choice.
Iād also like to add the concept of REBT, which stands for Rational Emotive Behavior therapy, is discussed frequently throughout the book as a tool to help deal with emotional problems about your practical problems, which will help reduce self-disturbing.
For more information on REBT by Dr. Ellis click Example of using REBT
The book does not have any tests to take but does give some exercises. One of them was the breathing exercise that you concentrate on your breathing that is supposed to calm you. I tried this in a situation where I felt anxious and it didnāt seem to make me calm but made me more aware of the bodily sensations in my body. This may be the case only for me and may work differently for others.
On the back cover there are various literature reviews by different readers, most of which are doctors. There is also an index and a selected reference section.
Problems
The problems this book discusses are that people are having interpersonal conflict and having trouble making adequate decisions to feel better about them. Another problem is with people who feel the y must be a certain way and focus all of their energy to be perfect. The book gives solutions to think in the present and to set adequate goals that can be accomplished rather than list s of things that absolutely should be done. The book also says that people have problems with irrational beliefs and these beliefs should be made into rational beliefs.
Health or
Stress
The topics in the book related to health and stress are discussed as cognitive distraction methods to help your self feel better. These are doing sports and athletics, yoga and other exercising. The key is to get your body to feel good and likely your mind will too.
Public and Societal
Concerns
I think the bookās topics are relevant to the public because people seem to be taking on more then they can handle these days. Because times have changed and people have to work more, they bring about more stress to them selves. It seems as though this book will help people to have a rational mind set. People of the public can use the book to improve on their self-acceptance and self-worth to get to where they need in the world today.
I believe this message is needed in our society today because I think it can help people avoid depression. It is important to understand yourself and keep your self level headed. It can help people to stay on the right track and not to over exert themselves or have much too high expectations for themselves and others. The book mentions how it is important to accept others and find good in everyone, I think this very point will be very helpful in our society today.
Personal
Opinions
As a psychology major at the University of Hawaii, I think this book fits in with cognitive science because it has to do with understanding your self and others. I also think it could be used with clinical psychology because it ca be used as a self-help tool.
I enjoyed many aspects and passages of this book but one of my favorites was as follows:
ćDonāt believe the superstition that because things are going well for you, fate will surely put a halt to that and give you trouble. It is not statistically true that if things keep going well, something may turn sour and go badly. But it is not true that some unkind fate is watching you, spying on your good fortune, and arranging to disrupt it. Fate is often statistically but not intentionally grim.ä
I think this passage form page 98 is important because it shows how people can follow beliefs that tend to be misleading. This passage made me think that you are totally in control of your life, and it is important to recognize that in order to progress. If you dwell on that you are not in control then you will continue to let things go wrong for you.
This book helped me learn to accept my self for all things I do because I am a good person. It also helped me to realize that many people have well in them even though they sometimes make bad decisions and choices. Itās not always the best case to feel better for a moment or a short time but it is much more important to know how to maintain that feeling of goodness. I learned that avoiding negative behaviors and ćawfulizing,ä would help me to stay better.
I think a strength of the book was that it gave a lot of information and steps to follow to get to the point of self-acceptance, although I feel that a weakness contrasting that was that some of the information seemed repetitive and at sometimes contradicting. There was a point in the book where the author says not to dwell on negative thoughts and later on the book he says to flood your mind with these negative thoughts to overcome. I understand that what he meant was that doing this will help you overcome but if your not a psychologists or someone who has background in the psychology field I think some of the concepts could be confusing.
This leads me speak of whom I think this book is intended for. This book obviously is a self-help book and would be recommended to anyone who wants to make improvements on their life. I do think it is also important for psychology majors because it helps to give a better understanding about other people, which is a concern for a lot of psychology majors.
In case your still not sure if you want to read this book there are other reviews or relative topics that may help you, here are some links:
Guilty Pleasures·. Are they worth
it?
Books on Feelings for Men ( I thought this one would be great for those men who need a little help understanding emotions)
Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better from Impact
Publishers