Post: #51

Anyone happen to have the kindle version?

Post: #52

Chapter 12 – How to Stop Blaming and Start Living

This chapter starts out provocatively. The authors say the cause of emotional troubles comes down to damning – damning yourself, damning others, or damning the universe. And if you can give up damning, you will give up emotional turmoil.

Being human, you will often do things that are immoral, unethical, hurtful, and wrong. When you do something “bad” and then call yourself a bad or worthless person, not only are you overgeneralizing, but you become preoccupied with your “badness” instead of focusing your energy on correcting your bad behavior. Even though Ellis was nonreligious (Jewish by birth, but a self professed agnostic or atheist) he advocates the Christian notion of loving the sinner but hating the sin. Blaming your “self” rather than blaming your foolish or immoral acts often leads to further immorality, hypocrisy, and evasion of responsibility.

Damning yourself or others usually leads to anger and rage – a very unpleasant emotional feeling, and an emotion that undermines you (most people aren’t impressed with hot heads). You usually don’t get good results in situations when you act enraged (with one caveat, you might get immediate results in the short term as people will do what you want to stop your tantrum. But in the long run, it severely damages your relationships with others). Usually the cause of anger with others is the idea that they “shouldn’t have” acted a certain way. We talked about this before. “Shoulds” and “musts” are grandiose and Jehovahian. In other words, crazy. You assume you can throw down commandments like Moses and people are going to “chop chop” do as you say. Then you act surprised and butt-hurt when people and the universe don’t listen to your commands. Often times your Jehovahian commands require that the laws of physics be broken. “Suzy shouldn’t have flaked on me!” Ok, so you need to time travel back to before she flaked and then try to control her actions? Remember what we said in post one, your emotions flow from your thinking (that is, from the words and sentences you use in your head to process what is going on in your life). If your thinking is filled with musts (“musterbating”) or shoulds (“shoulding all over your self”) you will feel enraged. Replace the shoulds and musts with preferences and realistic assessments and your emotions will be much less red hot (e.g., “I wish Suzy didn’t flake on me. I don’t like that one bit, but I guess it’s her right. But I learned a valuable lesson here. A good strategy is to work on my gaming skills so I have a more robust pipeline of girls so one flake has less impact on me.”).

When you damn others for bad behavior, you tend to turn the tables on yourself and damn yourself for your own bad behavior. You become self-loathing.

Whenever you feel depressed, you are probably damning yourself. Your beliefs might be:

•I behaved badly.
•I am therefore an inadequate or bad person.

You want to change the above to this:

•I behaved badly.
•Humans frequently do.
•Now let me try to analyze what went wrong and what I can do differently to make sure I don’t repeat the same mistake, all while not damning myself.

Post: #53

Does he do as much charts and assignments as David Burns Feeling Good?

Post: #54

(11-02-2013 10:51 AM)kbell Wrote:  Does he do as much charts and assignments as David Burns Feeling Good?

I'm finding that this book I'm reviewing is very theory and not very applied.

But REBT relies on an ABC worksheet to help you identify your irrational thoughts, and replace them with rational thoughts. Simply filling out a form is not enough, you need to reinforce your rational thoughts with your behavior.

I'm writing a book on conquering approach anxiety using REBT. In my program, you need to fill out the ABC form over 100 times (at least one per approach). Then you have to go out there and approach using your new rational thoughts and proving that your irrational thoughts are hooey.

You've been practicing and rehearsing your irrational thoughts your whole life. They seem pretty real, and they are deeply embedded in you by habit. They don't just disappear over night. You have to prove to yourself that they are bullshit.

Say you have never approached a girl because you have an irrational belief that she will make a scene, drawing a lot of negative attention to what you are doing, and making you highly embarrassed. So step 1 is to identify this thought as being irrational, and replace it with a more rational thought (using an ABC form). That irrational thought will want to come back again and again. But if you do 100 approaches, and not one girl made a scene and made you feel overly embarrassed, you will probably give up that irrational thought for good. Thats the B in REBT, behavior or action.

Post: #55

Chapter 13 – How to Feel Frustrated but not Depressed or Enraged

Almost everyone in society believes in the crazy dogma that they must feel miserable or depressed when they are frustrated.

Ellis defines this irrational belief as thus:

Irrational Belief: The idea that you have to see things as being awful, terrible, horrible, and catastrophic when you are seriously frustrated or treated unfairly.

This is irrational for several reasons.

Set backs are catastrophic/horrible/awful only if you define them that way! The horrors are created by you, in your head. You have a choice to act like a whiney bitch when things go wrong, and describe set backs as “horrible/a catastrophe/awful,” but you also have a choice to handle set backs maturely and calmly by describing them something like this: “I don’t like this situation. Now let me figure out how I can make it better. If I can’t change it, then that’s too bad but not the end of the world. I’ll just deal with it.”

When you describe things as “awful” or “horrible” or “I can’t stand it” and so on, you will make yourself miserable, self-pitying, depressed and enraged. When you describe the same set back as “not good, but I’ll deal with it” you will feel frustrated and regretful, but not dejected or furious. Nothing in chasing girls will ever come near being “horrible” or “awful” or “a catastrophe.” If a girl flaking on you is “awful,” how do you describe a terrorist attack? “Really, really, awful?”

At most the set backs you will face in chasing tail will be “too bad”, “frustrating”, “disappointing.” Thinking about them in these terms will allow you to be more resilient. Resiliency is a great trait to have in getting good at anything, including sports, work, or chasing tail. When you overreact, and your emotions get too “hot” it takes a long time to recover. You stew in your own juices and meanwhile you are not doing anything productive. You feel gun shy about proceeding and continuing to takes risks. Conversely, when you better manage your emotions by not overreacting and “awfulizing”, you won’t be on an emotional roller coaster, you shake off defeats faster, and you get back on the horse quicker. You feel better too.

Adults can use their cognitive skills to see that their present frustrations can change or philosophically accept their current problems that they can’t change and just lump it without needlessly making yourself emotionally frenzied.

When you make yourself miserable, you waste time and energy in stewing in your juices and feeling sorry for yourself, and gnashing your teeth over whoever committed the injustice against you. If you make yourself less upset, you can focus your time and energy on problem solving and making your situation better.

REBT teaches a secular version of the serenity prayer: Grant me the serenity 
to accept the things I cannot change; 
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Convince yourself that frustration is something all humans have to endure, your problems are rarely catastrophic, and you can live well and be happy despite your frustrations.

Dusty’s interpretation of this chapter would be: Stop acting like a whiney bitch when things go wrong. Toughen up and be a man! Do not blow up setbacks and defeats into something bigger than they are. Learn to shake off defeats quickly and tolerate hassles. Learn from what you may have done wrong, make corrections if necessary, and get back to living a full life.

I said a few times that REBT is largely about not exaggerating problems. Related to that, REBT is a lot about tolerating hassles. Life is full of hassles for everyone, and REBT teaches you to not choose to feel emotional turmoil over hassles, but instead choose to tolerate them in a mature fashion.

Here's a funny clip of Casey Kasem not dealing with hassles in a mature way. In fact, he seems to be "awfulizing" and "musterbating" and thus spirals into an emotional meltdown.

Post: #56

Chapter 15 – Conquering Anxiety and Panic

Fear can be rational or irrational. It’s rational and healthy that you fear walking into traffic. This fear is natural and helps you preserve your life. In fact, you’d be crazy not to have this type of fear. I see homeless guys walk into traffic sometimes with no fear, cars almost wiping them out. I bet those guys don’t live very long when they get to that sorry state.

Ellis defines anxiety as over concern of exaggerated or needless fear. Often times anxiety is not an over concern with our physical harm, but instead over concern about mental “harm.” Anxiety is often over concern about what people think of you.

Anxiety is an uncomfortable feeling that makes you aware that unpleasant things are happening and you need to do something about it. Flight of fight. Unhealthy anxiety arises when you fear things when there is little or no danger. Unhealthy anxiety restricts your life. It impedes you from living fully.

Unhealthy anxiety is caused by exaggerations of perceived dangers. Rather than being merely concerned and vigilant, you become over concerned and panicked. Your fears become self-fulfilling. Unhealthy anxiety is intense and disruptive. You become preoccupied with your irrational fears, which can stun and paralyze you. You created your unhealthy anxiety so it is in your power to remove or decrease it. You have a wide choice of beliefs and can subscribe to some and not others.

Worry has no magical power to reduce danger. In fact, constantly worry might lead to real danger because of what it does to your nerves and also you don’t perform well when you are over worried or anxious. Think about a person overly anxious while driving a car. They fear danger so much that they get overly nervous and jerky, which then increases the danger! Anxiety interferes with coping well with danger. Worry and anxiety also causes ulcers, high blood pressure, GI troubles, etc.

When we get anxious we often times exaggerate the awfulness of events. The worst thing about most “disasters” stems from your exaggerated beliefs about them. Personally, I rarely get too worried about things any more like I used to. A few years ago, I realized that all the things that upset me in the past and worried me never turned out as bad as I thought. Nothing ruined me so far, and I doubt nothing will ruin me in the future (except when I die, which happens to all of us, and I’ll be gone anyway and won’t have to deal with it). I’m not saying all my “troubles” turned out great, but they all resolved themselves in a way I could handle and deal with, and I was able to move on and be happy again. The worst part about my “troubles” were the emotions I created myself which turned out to not be necessary!

True catastrophes rarely happen to people.

Ellis says there is no reason to fear rejection or people disliking you or disapproving you. Even if people reject you harshly and say bad things about you, what is the actual harm? You do not experience any physical harm from criticism or rejection. You might not like their criticisms of you, but no real harm is done. You can just shake it off and move on (you might even learn something from it and benefit from the rejection!).

So according to REBT theory, your emotions stems from your beliefs which you articulate in your head with words. So your anxiety has origins in what you tell yourself. When you are anxious you probably have thoughts such as “Wouldn’t it be awful if this girl ignores me if I walk up to her and talk to her?” Or, “Isn’t it terrible that this girl rejected me?” Forcefully challenge these beliefs. Why would it be awful if a girl ignored you? Why is it terrible that a girl rejected you? Where are these rules coming from? Your ass? Are you exaggerating? Do you have to believe those things? Work on replacing those thoughts with healthy ones such as:

“There’s a hot one. I’m going to give this one a shot and approach her. If she reacts well, great. If she doesn’t, there’s going to be five more hot ones walking by in the next hour.”

“This one rejected me, of course that’s going to happen a lot when you cold approach. I’m proud of myself for being so bold though. I just proved to myself that I am tough enough to handle rejection. I can take a punch without even getting fazed. I’m ready for the next one!”

When you feel anxiety about something like approaching, realize you mainly created the anxiety by your irrational beliefs, then challenge and dispute them. Then, push yourself to do the thing you senselessly fear and keep repeatedly acting against this fear.

This is pretty much the model I use in my book on conquering approach anxiety. I teach you how to identify your irrational beliefs about approaching, dispute them, and replace them with rational thoughts about approaching, then go out there and approach and prove your rational thoughts true and your irrational thoughts hooey. Also, going out there and approaching gives you a lot of data – that is, the collection of your irrational thoughts – to analyze and change. You need to learn through experience that no approach will be a catastrophe and no horrors occur from approaching. Also in my book, I have the reader reinforce the REBT idea of unconditional self-acceptance (USA) over and over. So much of the anxiety surrounding approaching is that you fear your ego being bruised. I have you think about that a lot. Do you want to grant random broads the power to make you do this to yourself?:

Post: #57

I really like this chapter and your idea for a book. Let me know when its done I will buy it. I do worry too much and its usually for no good reason, its habit. I read the book Worry Cure which had an interesting idea where you focus on your worries like mediation once a day. It didn't work for me since I have trouble just sitting still and doing nothing. The cbt style journal seems like its a similar idea and that does seem to work in terms of sticking with it.

This book is sadly not in bookstores or the library. Will have to order at some point from amazon.

Post: #58

(11-07-2013 09:18 PM)kbell Wrote:  I really like this chapter and your idea for a book. Let me know when its done I will buy it. I do worry too much and its usually for no good reason, its habit. I read the book Worry Cure which had an interesting idea where you focus on your worries like mediation once a day. It didn't work for me since I have trouble just sitting still and doing nothing. The cbt style journal seems like its a similar idea and that does seem to work in terms of sticking with it.

This book is sadly not in bookstores or the library. Will have to order at some point from amazon.

Thanks. My book stalled when I started doing this thread. I haven't made much progress. But my understanding of REBT has increased from writing this study which will help my book. When you have to explain it to other people, you get a deeper understanding.

When I reviewed this chapter, frankly I thought it was a little weak. REBT has a lot of good stuff to say about anxiety, and old Al could have done more in this chapter.

He wrote a whole book on anxiety here:

http://www.amazon.com/Control-Your-Anxie...0806521368

I bought it as reference material for my book. I only got about 40 pages into it, but it seems decent.

Ellis explains that a lot of people feel like they have to worry, because if they don't bad things will happen. My mother is that way. Worry is like a rabbit's foot or something, and staves off danger. Worry has some type of magical power. This is right up REBT's alley though. Taking something anti-science, like the magic of worrying, and demolishing it with facts and logic.

Post: #59

Is there a reason why you skipped chapter 14?

Post: #60

(11-07-2013 10:31 PM)JoyStick Wrote:  Is there a reason why you skipped chapter 14?

Ah, following closely at home. I like it!

Chapter 14 seemed a little redundant. I couldn't come up with anything new that wasn't said already in the other chapters.

Are you reading the book?

Post: #61

(11-07-2013 10:40 PM)Dusty Wrote:  

(11-07-2013 10:31 PM)JoyStick Wrote:  Is there a reason why you skipped chapter 14?

Ah, following closely at home. I like it!

Chapter 14 seemed a little redundant. I couldn't come up with anything new that wasn't said already in the other chapters.

Are you reading the book?

Yes, but I'm still towards the beginning. I'm not a big reader because I have a short attention span, but I'm working on turning reading into a habit.

Post: #62

Dusty, you can't just skip a chapter like that!! You MUST review it. It would be AWFUL if you didn't. It would be a CATASTROPHE.

Seriously, if you ever feel like circling back, maybe you should include a Chapter 14 synopsis for the sake of completeness. It would be nice if this thread was to be a self-contained chapter by chapter review of the whole book. There is something good, in the end, in covering all the ground, even the seemingly (and even actually) fallow stretches.

And after all, Ellis was a smart guy so if you felt that that chapter was particularly useless, maybe it's because you're missing something? Actually doing the review would force you to find out.

Either way, thanks for the great work you're doing on this thread. I think it can be a reference thread that will help guys for a long time to come. It's sometimes surprising just how far these things can go and just how much good they can do. Thank you.

Post: #63

Thanks Lizard for your support and enthusiasm!

I might review chapter 14 at the end. My encore.

Post: #64

Chapter 16 – Acquiring Self-Discipline

This chapter starts with a little game story actually. The authors tell of a male client who wanted to make a move on a girl during a date (put his arm around her, hold her hand), but chickened out due to the thought of rejection. Instead of making a move on her despite his fears, he took the easy way out at the moment, and thus missed out on an opportunity on life. He kicked himself later for passing up an opportunity to get in her pants, all because he decided to avoid causing any discomfort to himself.

The authors say if this guy took a chance instead he might have gotten what he wanted (sexual escalation). Even if she rejected him, he could have learned from that rejection and applied his learnings to the next girl and do better. If he never makes a move, then not only does he not get in this girls pants, he never gets experience and learns to do better with other girls. His only reward is avoiding momentary discomfort. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

The point of this chapter is that taking the easy way out in life will prevent you from living life to the fullest. We achieve few outstanding gratifications without risk-taking and doing things that are hard. Applied to approaching, if you are not getting rejected a lot, that means you are playing things too safe. It’s a ratio – the more rejections you get also means you are getting more digits and lays.

He gives another example of an overweight woman who Ellis says lacks the self-discipline to diet and eat better. I saw some women give this book bad reviews online saying Ellis was sexist and behind the times; this is probably one of the anecdotes they didn’t like. Direct quote from the book about one of Ellis’ clients lack of eating discipline: “But while she still enjoys her eating, will she also enjoy lugging around thirty extra pounds, losing suitable males to slimmer women, feeling tired and blah much of the time, and risking several ailments that often go with an overweight condition?” Careful Dr. Ellis, you’re fat shaming.

When you take the easier way out of life’s responsibilities, you actually end up with harder things to deal with in the long run, or live a considerably less rewarding life. I’ll translate this: if you pussy out all the time or are overly lazy, your life will have less fulfilling experiences and you end up with bigger problems.

Taking the path of least resistance all the time will probably result in you not getting what you really want in life: achievement, confidence, and rewarding relationships. So, face the realities and difficulties of life, rather than avoiding them, and act courageously and decisively about them.

Inertia is a normal human problem which prevents you from getting started on or completing tasks of achievement. You need to push yourself and find extra energy to break through the inertia and find self-discipline.

Some suggestions in the book on how to break through inertia and gain self-discipline (for things that take effort, for example: exercising regularly, finishing a long-term project like a PhD dissertation, losing weight, approaching regularly):

Unrebelliously and promptly perform tasks that are hard but benefit you in the long run.

Make sure your thinking is conducive to getting things done. Replace thoughts like “I don’t feel like doing this task, it’s too hard” with thoughts like “Whether I like it or not, I can not get the results I want other than by performing these unpleasant responsibilities.”

Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. Push yourself to get started. Once you get started (say exercising) the task becomes less daunting.

Put yourself on a regular schedule. Give yourself sub-goals. If you’re writing a book and feel stuck, give yourself a goal to write x pages per day. Reward yourself only after you met a goal. For example, a student might reward himself with watching a movie only after he studied for three hours.

Post: #65

(11-10-2013 03:05 PM)Dusty Wrote:  
Unrebelliously and promptly perform tasks that are hard but benefit you in the long run.

It's hard to overstate how profound of a suggestion that is, as simple as it sounds.

A lot of what trips people up and sours their lives over time is not the actual difficulty of the routine tasks they need to perform, but the resentment they feel at having to perform them.

Dump that resentment -- that's the meaning of Ellis' "unrebelliously" -- and you have a huge leg up in life. Not just in terms of increased efficiency in achieving your goals, but also and maybe more importantly, in terms of having a heart and mind that are open to the possibilities of life.

Because there is nothing like resentment and self-pity to, over time, sour a man's soul and make him lose the world around him.

In the end of the day, the whole purpose of REBT and CBT is to get rid of bad or useless habits of thought and feeling so that you can enjoy your life. That's really the point of this entire thread. And I think the kind of resentment that Ellis enjoins against here is a big one to watch out for and to get rid of, in all sorts of contexts.

Post: #66

Throughout this book, Ellis has been defining 10 common irrational beliefs. I found someone on the internet typed them up (he even put the page numbers where they can be found). These are irrational thoughts that interfere with people's happiness, or in living a fulfilling life. Here they are:

Quote:1. The idea that you must have love or approval from all the significant people in your life (101).

2. The idea that you absolutely must be thoroughly competent, adequate, and achieving or The idea that you must be competent or talented in some important area (115).

3. The idea that other people absolutely must not act obnoxiously and unfairly, and, that when they do, you should blame and damn them, and see them as bad, wicked, or rotten individuals (127).

4. The idea that you have to see things as being awful, terrible, and catastrophic when you are seriously frustrated or treated unfairly (139).

5. The idea that you must be miserable when you have pressures and difficult experiences; and that you have little ability to control, and cannot change, your disturbed feelings (155).

6. The idea that if something is dangerous or fearsome, you must obsess about it and frantically try to escape from it (163).

7. The idea that you can easily avoid facing many difficulties and self-responsibilities and still lead a highly fulfilling existence (177).

8. The idea that your past remains all-important and because something once strongly influenced your life, it has to keep determining your feelings and behavior today (187).

9. The idea that people and things absolutely must be better than they are and that it is awful and horrible if you cannot change life’s grim facts to suit you (197).

10. The idea that you can achieve maximum happiness by inertia and inaction or by passively and uncommittedly enjoying yourself (207).

Post: #67

Chapter 17 – Rewriting Your Personal History

The author talk about how a lot of their clients in therapy want to talk about their childhood. They probably got that idea from tv and movies. Therapy used to be all about that, when Freud was the big thing. REBT (and CBT) are more concerned with the here and now. REBT practitioners are more concerned with the thoughts that upset you now rather than how you controlled your sphincter when you were being potty trained.

Ellis describes Irrational Belief # 8 as such: The idea that your past remains all-important and because something once strongly influenced your life, it has to keep determining your feelings and behavior today.

A lot of people feel trapped by their past. They think they have to behave a certain way because that’s the way it’s always been. Some people think because they are introverted by nature, they can’t learn the social skills to get good with women. These are just self-limiting belief. There are countless examples of people who threw off the shackles of the past and did great things that they “weren’t suppose to do.”

They give an example of a handsome young man they had in therapy who didn’t think he could get hot women because “I’ve been conditioned from childhood to see that I am too worthless to go out and get someone I really want.”

Ellis says you need not be shackled to your past. Your parents may have taught you some stupid self-limiting shit, but you’re an adult now and you can choose to believe their bullshit, or you can start thinking for yourself and get rid of those bad beliefs that weigh you down. You may have been “conditioned” by your parents (or siblings, or society, etc) but you can de-condition yourself.

You can change your nature in spite of your old ingrained habits. You don’t need “deep” analysis for many years to change your ways. They say REBT can have a profound impact on some people in a few months’ time (but not everyone).

Change is not easy because we keep repeating and reinforcing our old irrational thoughts (“I’m worthless”, “If this girl rejects me it will be horrible.” Etc). But with determined and disciplined thinking, you can create new and healthier thinking habits. Fundamental change happens when you see that your irrational thoughts are bullshit and your rational thoughts are true because they are backed by evidence and logic. I think experiencing things that reinforce your rational thoughts, and acting against your irrational thoughts is the key to fundamental change. That’s the B in REBT. If you’re afraid of approaching, but force yourself to do 100 approaches, you are going to be much less afraid, because nothing too bad will happen.

By honestly acknowledging your past errors (while not damning yourself for them) you can learn to use the past for your own future benefit. You can start observing and questioning your customs and habits and decide if you want to change them or not. A lot of people overcome their past or their “natural tendencies” in order to achieve their goals. I would say that the last presidential elections featured two people (Romney and Obama) who were naturally introverted, but who overcame those tendencies to rise to the top of the most gregarious of professions - politics.

Deliberately work against the influences of your past and force yourself to act in new bolder ways to achieve your goals. Ellis gave examples of approaching a girl on the bus, or making a move on a girl on the first date. Force yourself to keep trying these “fearful” acts. Don’t just think, act! You can overcome years of past anguish and inertia by days or weeks of forced practice today.

You can also use rational emotive imagery. For a few minutes every day vividly imagine yourself doing something “fearful” such as approaching strangers and being rejected. Then use that imagined scenario to get your thinking straight. (I actually tried this over the weekend. I wrote a little blurb in my book on using Rational Emotive Imagery (REI) to gain courage before approaching and decided I would try it out myself. I imagined I approached a girl and got the worst rejection ever. She makes a big scene and called me a loser and ugly and laughed at me for having the audacity to talk to her and then she yelled “rape!” I then thought about it in a rational Spock-like way and figured this imaginary girl is pretty crazy and her rantings reflect poorly on her and really say nothing about me. I then went out feeling like I got an approach anxiety inoculation and had a really successful weekend of approaching).

Post: #68

That was Roosh suggested with the megatron screen of a failure in Daybang. The book No more Mister Nice Guy seems to go into your past and sees why your passive and door mat like. I will be reading in the future but not until I have a strong grasp of CBT and eventually REBT. I think that will help rationally looking at some underdesierable aspect of my past, and coming to accept them. And hopefully not allowing them to influence the present or future. I got depressed reading the Robert Glovers Mister Nice Guy book before since it was close to home, and I was viewing my parents in a new way.

Post: #69

You're right kbell, I just looked that up in Daybag, and Roosh does talk about using your imagination as a tool to inoculate yourself from rejection.

Where I take it a step further, is I have you brainstorm then write down rational thoughts to lower your (imagined) anxiety. Then you have rational thoughts at the front of your brain instead of your usual irrational thoughts when you go out to approach.

Post: #70

(11-14-2013 09:12 PM)kbell Wrote:  The book No more Mister Nice Guy seems to go into your past and sees why your passive and door mat like. I will be reading in the future but not until I have a strong grasp of CBT and eventually REBT. I think that will help rationally looking at some underdesierable aspect of my past, and coming to accept them. And hopefully not allowing them to influence the present or future. I got depressed reading the Robert Glovers Mister Nice Guy book before since it was close to home, and I was viewing my parents in a new way.

Are you working with a CBT or REBT therapist?

I think you can get into a passive rut of reading books searching for the answer, when what you need to do is roll up your sleeves and get to work making changes.

I mentioned Dr. Edelstein to you who is a REBT therapist and does therapy over the phone. His approach is to teach you to be your own REBT therapist, push you out of the nest, and get you to "treat" yourself the rest of your life.

I know of him through his book (which is so-so, but I got a few good ideas out of it).

I adapted his REBT dispute form he explains in the video for my book. It's pretty similar, but I tailored it a bit. In my program, you fill out one of these forms after each approach, or when you chicken out of an approach, or when you are about to go out and approach. It's a tool to get you to immerse yourself in rational thought as it pertains to approaching.

If you are diligent enough, you start to internalize your rational thoughts. Especially if they are consistent with what you see in the field. It's like when you take Chemistry or Physics classes, and you have a lab to do experiments so you can see first hand what you are learning.

Post: #71

As I wrote earlier in the thread, I think that the ideas discussed in Chapter 17 represent the most radical and counterintuitive insight of REBT/CBT. You don't need to engage in an in-depth analysis of the past to conquer its baneful influences; you just need to understand the irrational beliefs and ways of thinking that you have right now, and then dispute and change them.

What I want to add here is that it's important not to misunderstand what is being said. It is not that one can simply decide from one moment to the next to undo all the complex ways in which the past has shaped one's mind and personality. In fact, that is precisely the wrong way to go about making the kinds of changes that REBT/CBT can help with.

You can't just say, for example, I've always been an introvert, but as of now I'm going to become an extravert. Or, I've always been the anxious type, but as of now I'm going to stop worrying about anything. Such goals are both excessively ambitious and excessively vague. It is very unlikely for an adult to deliberately undergo a wholesale change of personality. If one misunderstood REBT to be saying that this is what it does, one would likely soon be disappointed and abandon all attempts at improvement altogether.

But this is not what REBT does at all, nor is this necessary. It is usually not your whole personality that is setting you back or even very large and complex character traits. It is rather a set of fairly specific and identifiable irrational beliefs and habits of thinking and behavior. The attack should be directed at such specific structures rather than the more abstract and general features of character and temperament.

So, instead of saying: I've always been an introvert, I'm going to become an extravert, its more like:

-- I'm in introvert, that's a fact about my personality and it's not necessarily good or bad, it's just how it is. It's unlikely to change wholesale.
-- But it has led me to believe that I can have no social or sexual success at all. That is an exaggerated irrational belief, and it's false.
-- Here are some particular and realistic things I can do to improve my odds of social and sexual success. Visualize doing them and then start practicing them, without setting your expectations excessively high or excessively low.
-- Accept that occasional or even frequent failure is no catastrophe and does not make you a failure.

And so on.

The bottom line is that people of various backgrounds, characters and personalities can lead good and more or less enjoyable lives (with different emphases and concentrations); to do so, they do not need to remake themselves from scratch, but to identify and remove a limited number of specific irrational beliefs that prevent them from living as well as nature and circumstances allow.

Post: #72

(11-10-2013 03:05 PM)Dusty Wrote:  He gives another example of an overweight woman who Ellis says lacks the self-discipline to diet and eat better. I saw some women give this book bad reviews online saying Ellis was sexist and behind the times; this is probably one of the anecdotes they didn’t like.

All feminism and fat-acceptance brainwashing aside, it really blows my mind when people criticize and give books bad reviews for being "behind the times."

Behind what times exactly? Uh...it's an old book, dipshit - did you really expect it to be written with today's paradigms in mind?

Some people...

Beyond All Seas

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.
To be your own man is a hard business. If you try it, you'll be lonely often, and sometimes
frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself." - Kipling

Post: #73

^^^

This book gets unusually good reviews, but of course there are some who don't like it. Ellis in the book encourages fat women to lose weight to be more appealing to men and also advises women to be sweeter and give their husbands more sex. Here are two examples of people who don't like it:

Meg's review Jan 31, 12
3 of 5 stars
bookshelves: 2012, health, nonfiction, psychology, owned
Read from January 09 to 31, 2012

Positive psychology and REBT are excellent ideas but this book is unbearable to read. Poorly written, sexist, and overall obnoxious. But useful!

1.0 out of 5 stars Author with BIG ego, February 2, 2010
By Ms. Jyoti Thomas (Austria) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: A Guide to Rational Living (Paperback)
As a practising therapist and a reader of many psychology/self growth orientated books I found this one to be a little astounding in some instances. I found the very patriachal approach quite off putting.....especially in one part where the authors answer to a very unhappy wife with an abusive and neglectful husband was to advise her to have more sex with him! I didn't like this book at all, out dated, insensitive and patronising to women in its style and well behind the times in the present day.

Post: #74

Because of this thread I re-read the entire book.

Luckily I'm about 90% there with internalizing all of it.

Until you go through real ups and downs the book is less impactful though.

I would read it thoroughly, remember it in the back of your mind, then revisit it when real problems arise.

Post: #75

Chapter 18 – Accepting and Coping With the Grim Facts of Life

You don’t need REBT when things are going well for you. When things go wrong however, REBT helps you to not needlessly suffer from adversities, and to shake off defeats quickly and get back to being happy and productive.

Let’s face it: our lives are rife with setbacks and adversities. Other people don’t behave how we would like, we are often disappointed with girls, friends, work, family. Despite all the pain in the asses we need to endure in life, we don’t have to feel unhappy.

There is no reason why adversities must not happen just because you desire them to be different. Your grandiose “musterbation” about life conditions or other people will make you feel miserable. Give them up and accept bad situations, and you will feel a whole lot less miserable.

People may treat you badly, or some other conditions in life can suck (you go to Hawaii and it rains the whole time) but how you think about it can make it a lot worse. When there is nothing to do to change these situations, your ruminating on how bad it sucks elevates the shittiness of it. Learn to lump bad things, without spinning them into horrors.

You have very little power to control people. You can give advice and try to change how people behave and how they treat you, but in the end they are free agents and will do what they want and will often ignore your desires. At some point, it’s sensible to not let other people bother you too much because you won’t be able to change their behavior and it just makes you feel worse. Wigging out when a girl flakes on you won’t cause her to not flake, and you will feel inflamed and miserable. It’s better to use your will power to shake it off and move on as quickly as you can.

If you unduly upset yourself by how other people behave, you get sidetracked from pursuing your own positive goals. In other words, your overwrought emotions debilitate you and distract you from working on your goals that bring you happiness.

If you over obsess about making the “right” choices, you will make yourself anxious and overreact when you make “mistakes.” Often in life, there are no perfect choices. All of our important choices in life have both pros and cons.

Perfectionism is self-defeating. You will not find an ideal girl, and ideal job, etc. You’d better accept the human condition as highly imperfect and fallible.

The chapter ends with some guidelines for combating perfectionism and grandiosity and learning how to accept unpleasant situations when you are powerless to change them:

1. When people act badly towards you, consider if it’s worth it for you to get too upset. Do you really care that much what they think? Do they really affect your life that much?
2. If you do try to work on changing others, do so in an unfrantic way. Try to be constructive and not overly critical of them.
3. If people treat you poorly, try not to condemn them. If you say they shouldn’t act the way they do, you are being unrealistic.
4. Fight your own perfectionism. Life is uncertain and people are fallible. Don’t consider uncertainty or imperfections “horrors.” Don’t try to be perfect in order to gain “self-esteem.” Accept yourself because you exist, not because you are better than anyone else.
5. No perfect solution to any problem exists. Be willing to compromise ideals in the pursuit of reasonable (yet imperfect) solutions.