Recently read Albert Ellis's work.
It is not only the irrationalities of the outside world that create the conditions for people’s emotional distress and unhappiness, but also that because people are human, everybody inherits a natural
biological tendency for irrationality which leads them to upset themselves about
the unavoidable and inevitable irrationalities in our world.
He theorized that all human beings have dual biological tendencies
that operate in opposition to one another and that explain much of the way the
mind operates including how people think, feel and act. There is the self-defeating
tendency he called irrationality as well as the self-enhancing tendency
he referred to as rationality (Ellis 1962, 1973, 1988, 1994, 1999, 2004). It is the
rational side of people’s psychological functioning that guides them in their
pursuit of happiness and self-fulfillment.
The irrational dimension of psychological functioning is characterized by high
negative emotionality (e.g., anxiety, depression, anger, self-pity, guilt) and selfdefeating
behavior (e.g., aggression, avoidance, procrastination, substance
abuse). The cognitive aspects of irrationality are dogmatic, rigid, unscientific
irrational beliefs and associated irrational thinking that Ellis referred to as
absolutizing or musterbation (e.g., Ellis 1962, 1994). Generally, when people
think irrationally about adverse situations and events and, as a consequence,
experience extreme anger, anxiety,anddepression, they express their preferences,
desires, and wishes as demands, commands, shoulds, needs, oughts, and musts
(e.g., “because I prefer success, approval and/or comfort, I must be successful,
loved and/or comfortable”; “I must have what I want”). Ellis said there is a
biological tendency of allhumans to greater or lesser extents to think illogically as
seen in their absolutizing. Thinking in absolutes is generally illogical as it does not
logically follow (non-sequitur) that because someone prefers or desires a set of
conditions to exist, they must (or must not) exist.
Even if you were lucky enough to be raised without
parents, you’d invent your disturbing beliefs: that you need love and
achievement; that others must treat you fairly and kindly; and that life has
to be easy. These nutty ideas stem from profound innate tendencies which
your parents help exacerbate, but which they don’t create – except
biologically, with the wrong genes.
Ellis, who spent over sixty years studying the characteristics of people’s
thinking, concluded that irrationality is largely an imperfection of our mental
apparatus, an intermediate stage, perhaps, in the evolution of our logical
reasoning capacities. He argued persuasively that although the environment
in which people are raised can influence the way they think, people bring with
them, even from day one, ways of interpreting what they experience in that
environment.
Ellis also raised the question of how the same home environment can
produce children who differ so greatly in characteristics. Some children who
are born into very loving families turn out the “wrong way” in spite of home
support. One child may take a parent’s constructive comments to heart whereas
his or her sibling experiences the same comments as water off a duck’s back.
Similarly, some children born into harsh and rejecting families develop into
very happy and fulfilled people because of some rational “instinct” which
enables them to maintain some personal distance from the unpleasant aspects
of their home environment. Ellis reasons that the only way these differences in
children can occur is if children are born with thinking tendencies
that predisposes them to interpret their environment in certain rational or
irrational ways.
Why are you crazy enough to believe your nutty, screwed-up father, who
tells you you’ve got to do well in everything that you do? You probably
have that tendency yourself and therefore you’re prone to agree with your
perfectionistic father.
Ellis proposed that the most general and far-reaching goal people have and
share in common is to live a long and happy life. According to Ellis, the
attainment of this goal is facilitated when three conditions (or sub-goals) exist:
(1) People are achieving to the best of their ability in their chosen field of work
endeavor that they find interesting and absorbing; (2) People are involved in
satisfying and loving relationships with significant others (partner, family,
friends, social group); and (3) People experience a minimum of needless
pain and emotional misery as well as a maximum of comfort and pleasure.
Strive for the long-range pleasure of tomorrow as well as the short-range
satisfactions of today.
Ellis’ guide to rational living encourages people to experiment with their lifestyle
and make choices based on personal knowledge and discovery that would
bring them higher levels of excitement, passion, pleasure, and zest in the shortterm
as well as pleasure, satisfaction and fulfillment in the long-term.
For Ellis, long-term happiness is a by-product
of people achieving their goals and purposes in life, namely: (1) using one’s
strengths of character and personality traits, including rationality to achieve and
excel at work (employment) and in other endeavors (hobbies); (2) relying on
one’s social competences and rationality to experience loving relationships that
endure with one or more significant others including partner/spouse, family
and close friends; and (3) through the use of personal coping resources,
including rational thought, experiencing minimum periods of heightened,
negative emotionality and stress as a consequence of environmental adversity
of one form or another (e.g., lack of achievement, loss of loved one, frustrating
circumstances including deprivation and over-stimulation).
Ellis says that biologically, all humans are born with a drive to develop their
innate potentialities.
One of the main ways to be self-actualizing (as will be discussed below) is to seek more spontaneous
ways of living to discover new enjoyments and then to make re-achieving them a
future goal. These enjoyments include becoming vitally absorbed in intrinsically
interesting pursuits and activities both at work and in other areas of life.
Normally, self-actualization involves the pursuit of excellence and enjoyment –
whichever people choose to desire and emphasize.
Your self-esteem is a fiction. Ego is a fiction. You’d better not have self-esteem.
It’s the greatest sickness known to humans because it really means
“I give myself a good rating because I perform well and am approved.” Self-denigration
is worse, but self-esteem is still a measure, a rating of an entire
person – and therefore false. It depends on your doing the right thing, and
when you do the wrong thing, back to shithood you go.
Contradictory as it may sound, Ellis argues that people’s self-esteem is a major
obstacle to the attainment of happiness.
The human condition impels you to foolishly rate yourself. Almost
everyone does that and I don’t think they do it from upbringing. I think
they do it because that’s what they naturally do.
Why do you think people rate themselves? The main reason you
rate yourself is to be grandiose – to get into heaven – to be holier than thou,
better than others, superhuman. You want to prove that you are the only
one to sit on the right side of God. Your sought-after pay-off is nobility.
Inferiority is just inferiority. Someone may be taller than you or a better
player than you and then you’d be inferior with regard to that trait or
ability. But feelings of inferiority mean you’re putting yourself down for
some inferiority characteristic. Feelings of inferiority or worthlessness
usually stem from the two main irrational beliefs: “I must do well or
perfectly well and I must win your approval! Else I am worthless!”
Shouldhood equals shithood. Instead of trying to prove yourself, you’d
better try to be yourself and enjoy yourself!
Ellis nominates unconditional self-acceptance to replace self-esteem. Here, he
counsels people to call on their rationality to accept themselves as fallible people
who will from time-to-time make mistakes and be disapproved of or rejected by
others. He also encourages people to work hard at self-improvement.
Healthy (and happy) people refuse to measure their intrinsic worth by their extrinsic
achievement or by what others think of them. They frankly choose to
accept themselves unconditionally; and they try to completely avoid
rating themselves – their totality or their being. They attempt to enjoy
rather than prove themselves.
Some say life’s satisfactions come naturally, spontaneously, if you stop
pushing the river and merely take things as they come, unplanfully,
effortlessly. How did the great sages who said this arrive at this marvelous
secret of human felicity? By substantial thought and effort!!
A final and very important point that Albert Ellis makes about happiness is
that, for many people, happy is not achieved through inertia and inactivity.
Happiness does not fall in your lap because you are deserving. Rather, it is
generally an outcome of work and practice in discovering those things you do
well and enjoy doing (and those that you do not).
It is not only the irrationalities of the outside world that create the conditions for people’s emotional distress and unhappiness, but also that because people are human, everybody inherits a natural
biological tendency for irrationality which leads them to upset themselves about
the unavoidable and inevitable irrationalities in our world.
He theorized that all human beings have dual biological tendencies
that operate in opposition to one another and that explain much of the way the
mind operates including how people think, feel and act. There is the self-defeating
tendency he called irrationality as well as the self-enhancing tendency
he referred to as rationality (Ellis 1962, 1973, 1988, 1994, 1999, 2004). It is the
rational side of people’s psychological functioning that guides them in their
pursuit of happiness and self-fulfillment.
The irrational dimension of psychological functioning is characterized by high
negative emotionality (e.g., anxiety, depression, anger, self-pity, guilt) and selfdefeating
behavior (e.g., aggression, avoidance, procrastination, substance
abuse). The cognitive aspects of irrationality are dogmatic, rigid, unscientific
irrational beliefs and associated irrational thinking that Ellis referred to as
absolutizing or musterbation (e.g., Ellis 1962, 1994). Generally, when people
think irrationally about adverse situations and events and, as a consequence,
experience extreme anger, anxiety,anddepression, they express their preferences,
desires, and wishes as demands, commands, shoulds, needs, oughts, and musts
(e.g., “because I prefer success, approval and/or comfort, I must be successful,
loved and/or comfortable”; “I must have what I want”). Ellis said there is a
biological tendency of allhumans to greater or lesser extents to think illogically as
seen in their absolutizing. Thinking in absolutes is generally illogical as it does not
logically follow (non-sequitur) that because someone prefers or desires a set of
conditions to exist, they must (or must not) exist.
Even if you were lucky enough to be raised without
parents, you’d invent your disturbing beliefs: that you need love and
achievement; that others must treat you fairly and kindly; and that life has
to be easy. These nutty ideas stem from profound innate tendencies which
your parents help exacerbate, but which they don’t create – except
biologically, with the wrong genes.
Ellis, who spent over sixty years studying the characteristics of people’s
thinking, concluded that irrationality is largely an imperfection of our mental
apparatus, an intermediate stage, perhaps, in the evolution of our logical
reasoning capacities. He argued persuasively that although the environment
in which people are raised can influence the way they think, people bring with
them, even from day one, ways of interpreting what they experience in that
environment.
Ellis also raised the question of how the same home environment can
produce children who differ so greatly in characteristics. Some children who
are born into very loving families turn out the “wrong way” in spite of home
support. One child may take a parent’s constructive comments to heart whereas
his or her sibling experiences the same comments as water off a duck’s back.
Similarly, some children born into harsh and rejecting families develop into
very happy and fulfilled people because of some rational “instinct” which
enables them to maintain some personal distance from the unpleasant aspects
of their home environment. Ellis reasons that the only way these differences in
children can occur is if children are born with thinking tendencies
that predisposes them to interpret their environment in certain rational or
irrational ways.
Why are you crazy enough to believe your nutty, screwed-up father, who
tells you you’ve got to do well in everything that you do? You probably
have that tendency yourself and therefore you’re prone to agree with your
perfectionistic father.
Ellis proposed that the most general and far-reaching goal people have and
share in common is to live a long and happy life. According to Ellis, the
attainment of this goal is facilitated when three conditions (or sub-goals) exist:
(1) People are achieving to the best of their ability in their chosen field of work
endeavor that they find interesting and absorbing; (2) People are involved in
satisfying and loving relationships with significant others (partner, family,
friends, social group); and (3) People experience a minimum of needless
pain and emotional misery as well as a maximum of comfort and pleasure.
Strive for the long-range pleasure of tomorrow as well as the short-range
satisfactions of today.
Ellis’ guide to rational living encourages people to experiment with their lifestyle
and make choices based on personal knowledge and discovery that would
bring them higher levels of excitement, passion, pleasure, and zest in the shortterm
as well as pleasure, satisfaction and fulfillment in the long-term.
For Ellis, long-term happiness is a by-product
of people achieving their goals and purposes in life, namely: (1) using one’s
strengths of character and personality traits, including rationality to achieve and
excel at work (employment) and in other endeavors (hobbies); (2) relying on
one’s social competences and rationality to experience loving relationships that
endure with one or more significant others including partner/spouse, family
and close friends; and (3) through the use of personal coping resources,
including rational thought, experiencing minimum periods of heightened,
negative emotionality and stress as a consequence of environmental adversity
of one form or another (e.g., lack of achievement, loss of loved one, frustrating
circumstances including deprivation and over-stimulation).
Ellis says that biologically, all humans are born with a drive to develop their
innate potentialities.
One of the main ways to be self-actualizing (as will be discussed below) is to seek more spontaneous
ways of living to discover new enjoyments and then to make re-achieving them a
future goal. These enjoyments include becoming vitally absorbed in intrinsically
interesting pursuits and activities both at work and in other areas of life.
Normally, self-actualization involves the pursuit of excellence and enjoyment –
whichever people choose to desire and emphasize.
Your self-esteem is a fiction. Ego is a fiction. You’d better not have self-esteem.
It’s the greatest sickness known to humans because it really means
“I give myself a good rating because I perform well and am approved.” Self-denigration
is worse, but self-esteem is still a measure, a rating of an entire
person – and therefore false. It depends on your doing the right thing, and
when you do the wrong thing, back to shithood you go.
Contradictory as it may sound, Ellis argues that people’s self-esteem is a major
obstacle to the attainment of happiness.
The human condition impels you to foolishly rate yourself. Almost
everyone does that and I don’t think they do it from upbringing. I think
they do it because that’s what they naturally do.
Why do you think people rate themselves? The main reason you
rate yourself is to be grandiose – to get into heaven – to be holier than thou,
better than others, superhuman. You want to prove that you are the only
one to sit on the right side of God. Your sought-after pay-off is nobility.
Inferiority is just inferiority. Someone may be taller than you or a better
player than you and then you’d be inferior with regard to that trait or
ability. But feelings of inferiority mean you’re putting yourself down for
some inferiority characteristic. Feelings of inferiority or worthlessness
usually stem from the two main irrational beliefs: “I must do well or
perfectly well and I must win your approval! Else I am worthless!”
Shouldhood equals shithood. Instead of trying to prove yourself, you’d
better try to be yourself and enjoy yourself!
Ellis nominates unconditional self-acceptance to replace self-esteem. Here, he
counsels people to call on their rationality to accept themselves as fallible people
who will from time-to-time make mistakes and be disapproved of or rejected by
others. He also encourages people to work hard at self-improvement.
Healthy (and happy) people refuse to measure their intrinsic worth by their extrinsic
achievement or by what others think of them. They frankly choose to
accept themselves unconditionally; and they try to completely avoid
rating themselves – their totality or their being. They attempt to enjoy
rather than prove themselves.
Some say life’s satisfactions come naturally, spontaneously, if you stop
pushing the river and merely take things as they come, unplanfully,
effortlessly. How did the great sages who said this arrive at this marvelous
secret of human felicity? By substantial thought and effort!!
A final and very important point that Albert Ellis makes about happiness is
that, for many people, happy is not achieved through inertia and inactivity.
Happiness does not fall in your lap because you are deserving. Rather, it is
generally an outcome of work and practice in discovering those things you do
well and enjoy doing (and those that you do not).
The Practice of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
"The essence of human emotional disturbance consists of the absolutistic
"must's" and "must not's" that people think about their failure, about
their rejections, about their poor treatment by others, and about life's
frustrations and losses. To avoid emotional disturbance, they can be
surrendered if they give up their absolutistic demands on themselves,
other people and the universe. And at the same time, have strong and
persistent desires, wishes, and preferences, and to avoid feelings of
detachment, withdrawal, and lack of involvement."
