Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for Me - It Can Work for You (Psychology)

Description

Albert Ellis, the renowned creator of one of the most successful forms of psychotherapy — Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) — offers this candid self-assessment, which reveals how he overcame his own mental and physical problems using the techniques of REBT. Part memoir and part self-help guide, this very personal story traces the private struggles that Ellis faced from early childhood to well into his adult life. Whether you are already familiar with Ellis's many best-selling psychology books or are discovering his work for the first time, you will gain many insights into how to deal with your problems by seeing how Ellis learned to cope with his own serious challenges.In his early life, Ellis was faced with a major physical disability, chronic nephritis, which plagued him from age five to nine and led to hospitalization. This experience then caused the emotional reaction of separation anxiety. At this time he also suffered from severe, migraine-like headaches, which persisted into his forties. Later in life, he realized that some of his emotional upset was the result of initially taking parental neglect too seriously. Active and energetic by nature, he gradually learned that the best way to cope with any problem, physical or emotional, was to stop "catastrophizing" and to do something to correct it.As Ellis points out in all of his work, when faced with adversity, we must realize that we have a real choice, either to think rationally about the problem or to react irrationally. The first choice leads to healthy consequences—normal emotions such as sorrow, regret, frustration, or annoyance, which are justifiable reactions to troubling situations. The second choice leads to the unhealthy consequences of anxiety, depression, rage, and low self-esteem. When we recognize irrational beliefs as such, we must then use our reason to dispute their validity. Ellis goes on to describe how these techniques helped him to cope with many other adult emotional problems, including failure in love affairs, shame, anger, distress over his parents' divorce, stress from others' reactions to his atheistic convictions, and upset due to his attitudes about academic and professional setbacks.Honest and unflinching yet always positive and forward-looking, Ellis demonstrates how to gain and grow from trying experiences through rational thinking. Review: A Great, Informative and Enjoyable Read - A great book to learn more about the thought leader who created Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). Albert Ellis candidly, and often humorously, shares the adversities in his life and his indefatigable efforts to deal with them rationally, leading him to create a powerful and enduring approach to psychotherapy. He touches on the ABCs of REBT and teaches that, more often than not, it is what we think or tell ourselves about the adversities in our lives that does us in. Bad things happen to good people, as the cliche goes, and it's not the end of the world. While we may not always be able to avoid the adversities, trials, tribulations and difficulties in our lives, we have a choice in terms of what to think about them which, in turn, affects our feelings, actions, and outcomes. Adversity-Beliefs-Consequences. We have the power to make things better for ourselves and others. We can choose Rational Beliefs over Irrational Beliefs, and have healthy instead of unhealthy feelings, by first becoming aware of irrational beliefs, challenging and actively Disputing them, and replacing them with more manageable rational thoughts. Thoughts are keys to our actions. Ellis encourages us, his readers, to try out REBT. He reminds us that we are all fallible human beings and that we, our being, is a work in progress. He walked his talk. His success is a testimony to impact of his life's work - REBT. It worked for him and it can work for us too. Review: Life story of Alber Ellis - This book contains an in depth review of Albert Ellis life from child hood and on up. The best part of the book for me so far has been the talks on the group therapy sessions and the assingments that he gives to his patients. Such as walking up to a total stranger and telling them that you have just been realeased from the loony bin and what month is this. I bought this book on the suggestion of someone who knows I have social anxiety and they told me that Albert Ellis is also aflicted with this condition and he tells how he overcame this. I did not really get a full idea on how he over came his social anxiety. But after reading this book I am probaly going to buy another one of his books and hopefully get more answers to my social anxiety. He does talk about his social anxiety but not to the degree I was hoping for. I also found some editing errors in the book. But over all I was pleased with the book and do recomend it to people who suffer with social anxiety.