A Guide to Rational Living 3rd (third) Edition by Albert Ellis, Robert A. Harper published by Wilshire Book Co (1975) Paperback

excellent book, very interesting for once money well spent

I've been pretty sneering about self-help books, mainly because most of them peddle utter nonsense about how 'thinking positively' and 'faking it till you make it' will sort your issues out overnight. My back history is pretty messy, frankly I could write an entire misery memoir and retire off the back of it and this led to me receiving psychoanalysis for 2 years- which led to nothing but 1) a feeling that I couldn't handle life on my own without the therapist holding my hand 2)constantly going over the trauma and re-living it to achieve 'closure' which lead to me being a victim years sfter the eventI was attracted to this book when I stumbled across Albert Ellis's obituary in The Times where they recounted the story of how he overcame his terror of approaching women by sitting on a park bench and asking out every woman who sat down. He was roundly told where to get off by 99.9% of them (one said yes) but this led to him saying to himself basically " So I tried, I failed. So what? I'm still alive, the World hasn't ended'. I liked the sheer good sense of his approach and when my abusive marriage ended and I was stuck constantly beating myself up about what I 'should' have done, how everything was a disaster ('Awfulising')and unable to move on with my life I bought this.It's a very blunt approach, a kick in the ass in some ways and sometimes very funny, but I'll tell you- it works.You take responsibility for your reactions, you work to sort yourself out, you gain confidence, you lose fear. It IS NOT a quick fix, but it's completely worth the effort

I originally came to this book through a link from Chris Flannery's blog [...] and following this up through a number of Ellis's typically straight-talking interviews uploaded to youtube.According to Ellis much of the troubles people encounter in their lives revolve around the innate irrationality of humans and and suffering caused by our own misunderstandings and misinterpretations of ourselves, the world, and social relations.By taking a rational stance against these; acknowledging the innate worth of the individual, and challenging our perceptions of feeling desperate of of being helpless in the face of challenges, but seeing them as merely inconveniences, that can be worked through by a process of logic and enlightened rationalism.Melding the humanism of Rogers, with the rationalism of Skinner, this is certainly an interesting and thought provoking book: Ellis's approach firstly championing the idea of gentle self regard, before working from the inside out in creating a sensible relationship with ourselves, with others and the world.

Life changing content. Becoming more accepting of the world, others and yourself makes life a lot easier!

This book changed my life! I was definitely upsetting myself over and over and over but after I read this book, I started to learn how to work through my emotions and my issues step by step. Now when I disagree with a friend or loved one, instead of 'awfulising' (great term) the situation, I now work quicker and smarter to resolve the issues. Even my sister commented on the change in me. If you're always upset about something or worried about difficult outcomes or unpleasant emotional scenarios, this book is for you!

A classic book that has been hugely influential since its first release. As the author states you may not be able to use the ideas on your own to make large changes and I believe most would do well to work with a qualified professional as well. That is not to say you should not get it! I would certainly suggest getting it to learn about the ideas. It gives a very clear direction out of destructive thinking.

In good condition - took a little while to arrive from the States. Very homey almost slangy 70s style can be a bit difficult to digest but its the daddy of all our modern self help tomes with the difference that this one is based on actual research by qualified and experienced doctors.

While this book is set out in subject based chapters, which is helpful, all the key information is found within case studies which are written up within them, I feel that this does limit the scope of this book, as each chapter is tied to that specific case study. I found that the key 'advice' or 'explanation' was only brief and therefore it was more like reading a text book and hunting for theories, with a highlighter pen! Nevertheless the book is accessible and helpful, it's just that a great deal of superfluous 'case study' information is also included.

Seriously, this book has changed my life. It's the equivalent of many shrink sessions. Amazingly powerful tools and insights head and shoulders beyond the cookie cutter CBT and many other talk therapies.Everyone should read this.

I had never heard of REBT but I came across its concepts in a psych article and thought it was enlightening: The idea that the key to improvement isn't to be more positive, but rather to be more RATIONAL, and more broadly that by controlling our beliefs we can alter our moods. This basic premise is brilliant and at the time of the original publishing date, it was revolutionary and controversial.In fact, the first 5 chapters (which you can arguably skip) go into the science behind this theory and takes a lot of time to refute or respond to rebuttals from other doctors and researchers who questioned Ellis and Harper's theories. While I see the value in these chapters that aim to explain and set up the theory behind their methods, I found them a bit redundant and dry.The really helpful part is in the description of the most common irrational beliefs and how to alter your thinking so they don't depress or enrage you. I saw this list online and it is what inspired me to buy this book, so I will put it here for you: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).I thought going into this that #1 was going to be the chapter that best applied to my life, but as I read I realized how much of my stress actually stems from #3. I didn't realize how much judgment I was spewing based on this irrational belief, and it also explained fights I've had with others when I've been on the receiving end of that irrationality.This book gives advice based on both sides of the fence, and has some nice sections on fostering more rational self-talk as a way to alleviate crippling feelings.The other thing that was helpful for me was realizing that I was already practicing a lot of this, and it made me thankful for my father who always challenged my perspectives whenever I got worked up about "nothing." I also recently had a friend who was telling me that I am too calm and I should be more upset about things (my dysfunctional childhood, the loss of a loved one) and I got kind of worked up and wondered if I was "in denial" or "too cold." Reading this made me realize that I was actually responding in a really healthy way--letting myself feel deep emotions but snapping out of it, and approaching my life from the "big picture," and thinking rationally as a way to stave off long-term depression, resentment, and anxiety.I didn't give this 5 stars because of the writing style and awkward client conversations that are used as the primary examples for each irrational belief.This was first published in 1961, and it shows. It is rather dated and the diction and conversations reveal its age. I found it amusing, but I could see how a modern reader might be alienated by it, and I wonder if an updated version might be helpful.Additionally, the writers come of as glib, arrogant, and insensitive. They're almost mocking the clients, at times, and think of their approach to psychoanalysis as "tough love." They were speaking very nonchalantly about topics like death and suicide. They kind of encourage people to "just get over a death" by realizing that "it isn't a DISASTER" and "YOU're not the one who is dead." It was pretty awkward, and I felt myself cringing. I do understand that they talk about "healthy grieving" and encourage people to have deep feelings; rather they are aiming to discuss neuroses, and use an example of a man who was still grieving 7 years later over his mother's death as intensely as the day after (to exemplify irrational belief #5).Also in their defense, I appreciated (at times) their levity, which highlights the absurdity in some of the clients' beliefs (it is also helpful to laugh at yourself when you are thinking so crazily), but it was often strange and even uncomfortable to read their fairly impersonal recount of their clients' issues and to make light of grave topics. Saying things like, "if you're children die it isn't the end of the world," or "if this is so upsetting, then you can commit suicide" really detracts from their credibility.I also recognize, in defense of the authors, that the conversations are excerpted and probably taken out of context, being used to highlight the irrationality of the beliefs (which is what this book is about, after all) rather than to highlight their bedside manner, But I can see this turning off readers. Personally, I think that some combination of empathy and reasoning may be the ideal, and I would NOT recommend speaking to friends like this.As a whole, I would recommend this book and think it has the potential to change the way you think, and in turn the way you feel. I know a few people with depression and anxiety issues, and this has also helped me understand them (what they're thinking and why it is so detrimental to their mental health). I am aiming to change the way I communicate with both myself and with these friends.

En este libro, el cual tiene traduccion al castellano como "una nueva guia para una vida racional", se dan las bases para la autoayuda a traves de REBT. Esta tecnica se basa en suponer que la mayoria de nuestro sufrimiento es imaginario. Aplicandola uno evitaria sufrir mas de la cuenta a lo largo de la vida.

While I don't agree with everything Ellis has to say here (particularly about philosophy), this is among the best self-help books I've read (and I've read a fair number).In this book, Ellis argues that we've set up a lot of arbitrary rules for ourselves and that these cause a lot of our psychological distress. For example, we might take a preference like "I don't like it when it rains on weekends in summer because it messes up my golf game" and change that to something more along the lines of "it MUST NOT rain on weekends [inflexible rule]; it would be awful if it did [catastrophizing] and I couldn't stand it [low frustration tolerance]." ("Awful" being a code word for "much worse than it actually is," "total end of the world," "100% bad" or something along those lines). OK, maybe a bit of a contrived example, but you get the picture... If we held the preference that it didn't rain on weekends, we'd naturally be disappointed if it rained (perfectly normal reaction to something we dislike); if we held the rule that it MUST NOT happen (especially if we held it strongly), we'd be horrified and filled with anger at the injustice of the situation.This illustrates another thing I like about his mode of therapy - his basic realism. Stress happens, we just need to learn to respond to it without shooting ourselves in the foot. Similarly, it's not that we feel nothing in response to negative events (in the example above, we'd be genuinely disappointed that the weather prevented us from playing golf), it's just that we try to avoid overreacting.He makes the point (quite effectively, actually) that we actually make quite a lot of these rules without even realizing it; some of them may be pretty harmless but a lot of them can actually cause significant distress, psychological inflexibility, and behavioral issues, and may contribute in a significant way to various mental illnesses like depression, eating disorders, addiction, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (to name a few). For those who do struggle with compulsive behaviors, by the way, Jack Trimpey (of Rational Recovery) has several books applying the ideas in this book to addictive & compulsive behaviors and Tom Horvath (of SMART Recovery) has an excellent workbook on this - I'd encourage you to read this book as well as theirs and see if you'd be helped by them (both provide excellent alternatives to AA and other 12-step programs in my opinion).He does a great job of helping identify the thought patterns underlying distress in general as well as covering specific problems and problem behaviors (e.g. low frustration tolerance, indiscipline, etc.).People are often surprised by the lack of emphasis on "depth psychology" or examining the past. The authors' argument is that psychoanalysis failed because, regardless of how you got to your present situation, you still need to deal with your philosophy as it actually is today.My one criticism of this book is his implicit endorsement of existentialism. For example, I agree with the concept of Unconditional Self-Acceptance (see the book for details on this); however, I don't think he has a particularly good philosophical basis for this. His basic approach to self-worth is "well, you can always make it up and pretend it's true, even if you can't actually prove it." (I kid you not; in this case, this is evidently a guide to not-so-rational living). Because of his endorsement of existentialism, he's completely unable to provide an objective basis for people's intrinsic value as humans. He also seems to support moral relativism in places (which, in spite of its widespread cultural acceptance, is philosophically incoherent in my opinion). Overall, these don't detract too much from the book (except for his discussion of anger, which I think is flawed); there are definitely rational ways you can come up with an objective basis for intrinsic human worth. (In my case, I just substituted my Christian beliefs in my worth before God for his command to "make it up").Whether you're recovering from a psychological issue or not, this is a wonderful book to read. Everyone has some issues to work on whether they think so or not. We all have times where we disturb ourselves unnecessarily, as the authors would say, and this book can help you change. Maybe not be perfect but certainly much better. I for one wish I had read this when I was much younger; it could have saved me quite a bit of unnecessary pain.

Psicoterapia personal, sencilla , práctica y plena de sentido común.Excelente ,Representa un soplo de aire fresco ante explicaciones complicadas , abstractas y pretenciosasExpresa básicamente que somos dueños de nuestros pensamientos y ellos condicionan e incluso determinan nuestras emociones y acciones consiguientes.