Feeling Better, Getting Better, Staying Better : Profound Self-Help Therapy For Your Emotions

I quickly developed a love-hate relationship with this book while reading it. Overall, though, I love it more than I hate it, hence my rating of four stars. I'll give an easy pros/cons layout, beginning with the cons.What I don't like:*The writing style. While Albert Ellis may have been a brilliant therapist, he obviously never took freshman English (or if he did, he failed). The book is repetitious ad nauseam. The edition I have is 245 pages, excluding the index. I'm not exaggerating when I say that a skilled writer could revise the text in under 100 pages without sacrificing one iota of substance. By the time I had finished the fifth or sixth chapter, I was tempted to put the book on the shelf, as the author kept repeating the same handful of points over and over. To make matters worse, Ellis had an addiction to italics and capital letters. I'm not joking when I say that practically every paragraph in the book has at least one italicized word. He also had a penchant for coining the most atrocious neologisms. At one point he uses the term "devil-ify." (Never mind that English has a perfectly good equivalent in "demonize"!).*The logic in some places. Ellis prided himself on his rational thinking, which, after all, is the basis of his rational emotive therapy and the notion that mood disorders are caused by distorted thinking. However, his reasoning at times is anything but rational. One example is in the advice he gave a client of his whose boss was acting like a jerk. The man was upset because of his boss's constant criticisms and temper tantrums. Ellis advised the man to just accept his boss during those times without judging him. Ellis told the man that his boss had to act like a jerk at those times, that he could not not act like a jerk since something cannot have two contrary qualities at the same time. (I'm paraphrasing here—it's been over a month since I read that part of the book.) It was therefore silly and pointless for the man to be upset at his boss for doing something he could not help doing! One need not have studied formal logic or rhetoric to see the fallacy in Ellis's reasoning. True, it is impossible for something to possess contrary qualities simultaneously. But things often change. The sky can be clear one moment and cloudy the next. A person might be sad one moment but happy the next. Besides, human beings have free will. We don't *have* to act any certain way. If we are acting like a jerk, we can choose to change the way we are behaving. This simple logic seemed to have eluded Ellis at times.Ellis's extreme pragmatism also caused problems with his logic. In one chapter he talks about the psychological benefits of believing in a higher power. Although Ellis himself was an atheist, he appreciated the benefits that belief in a higher power could have on a person with a depressed mood. He therefore proposes belief in a sovereign, benevolent deity as something his depressed and anxious readers would do well to consider. Again, I'm paraphrasing, but in essence he says, "You may not believe there is a God, but if pretending there is a God helps you to feel better, then by all means, pretend." Now, don’t get me wrong. I myself do believe in God. But it seems to me nothing less than intellectual dishonesty for someone who doesn't believe to decide to believe merely because it helps him or her to feel better. That's disingenuous as far as I'm concerned.What I like:*What I like about this book is that Ellis gets to the core assumptions affecting people with depressed and anxious moods, the deepest and most insidious being the thought, "I'm no good." As Ellis elaborates--again, often excessively--people with depressed and anxious moods always feel uncomfortable in their own skin. Lurking below the threshold of conscious awareness are a number of thoughts these individuals constantly tell themselves--e.g., "I'm a loser," "I'm not attractive," "I'm dumb," "I have no talent," "I'm worthless." For people constantly hearing this internal monologue, it's no wonder they feel depressed and anxious; it's no wonder they lack self-confidence. Ellis's remedy to such dysfunctional thinking is to have patients dispute it--vigorously and relentlessly.*USA. No, Ellis is not being patriotic. It's an acronym that represents Unconditional Self-Acceptance. That's a core value which, according to Ellis, everyone on the face of the earth should possess. The idea is that your worth is predicated on the fact that you are a human being and that you are alive and kicking. Your worth is not contingent on your income, your looks, your IQ, your achievements, or your popularity. This is not wishful thinking, Ellis reasons--it's the result of rational thinking. While I agree completely with Ellis that USA is the product of rational thought, I don't think he does a very good job making his case to a hard-core skeptic who might think it sounds too Pollyannaish. (A person who does a better job in this respect is Dr. David Burns in his book *Feeling Good*. Burns doesn't use the same nomenclature as Ellis, but he does cover many of the same topics, including self-worth, and he provides better arguments as to why people shouldn't base their worth on their accomplishments.)*Shame attacking exercises. Ellis points out that people who experience chronic anxiety or depression tend to become embarrassed easily. That makes sense. If you have low self-esteem, then you go out of your way to conceal your imperfections and become embarrassed when you fall short, because the cat's been let out of the bag--people now know the dirty little secret that you're not perfect. You're flawed. To help his clients become desensitized to embarrassment and rejection, Ellis would have them intentionally do embarrassing things in public. He called them shame attacking exercises. He experimented on himself as a young man by randomly striking up conversations with pretty women on park benches and then asking them out. He claims he had to ask out something like 100 women before one actually said yes--and she apparently stood him up. He learned that there's no shame in being rejected. He also tells the story of one of his clients, a physician, who became embarrassed very easily. As a shame attacking exercise, Ellis had the man yell out loud the time as he was walking through a department store. People probably thought he was crazy, but that's the point: you don't need to freak out because people laugh at you or look down on you. If you have USA, you don't care what people think about you. The man began doing more and more potentially embarrassing things intentionally until he became comfortable with his imperfections as a human being.All in all and despite its shortcomings, I think this is a very worthwhile book for those seeking self-help for mood disorders. I think anyone who grasps the concepts in it and who applies those concepts diligently will experience significant relief, regardless of how refractory their condition is. Intransigent mood disorders are not going to evaporate, however, merely because someone reads a book. You have to apply the concepts, do the homework, and relentlessly dispute the irrational critical thoughts that have been wearing you down all your life. In addition to this book, I also recommend *Feeling Good* by David Burns, *Mind Over Mood* by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky, and *The Mindful Way Workbook* by John Teasdale et al.

2 stars for its content of this book. However, the condition of this book which was described “used but very good” is sooooo terrible and disgusting.

Albert Ellis theory is called REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy). The main highlights of this theory are:- that "people disturb themselves by the things that happen to them and by their views, feelings and actions"- that "people have a choice of how they feel"- that there are 3 main irrational beliefs that disturb people: a) Ï absolutely must perform well b) I absolutely must be treated fairly by others c) I must not find life's conditions very hardIn order to dispute these Irrational Beliefs that are the source of your suffering, he proposes a number of thinking, feeling and behaving methods of actively disputing and counter attacking these beliefs.REBT's effectiveness was scientifically proven according to Ellis, unlike other psychological theories such as psicotherapy. This is supposedly a great advantage about it. You read it and he really knows how to "sell" it. But I wonder, if REBT is so succesfull why is it that it hasn't become the standard practice of every psychologist? I don't know. However, I recommend this book to everyone interested in psychology and getting better.

The world renowned psychotherapist albert ellis writes a book on how to stay better and not just feel better using techniques he approves of in this book by correcting your thinking about what happens to you in life.

His books have been better, I give this an OK. If you are not familiar with REBT you may get lost in some of Dr. Ellis's verbiage. Otherwise, if you can work throw some of his "funky town talk" it's a decent book.

Albert Ellis is still amazingly relevant when it comes to teaching people how to change their thinking. I wasn't very impressed with the title at first, but as I read, I realized that he has a very good point. Much of the therapy out there in the world is focused only on FEELING better, but we also need to GET better, and then we need to STAY better. I highly recommend this book.

Hard to beat Dr. Ellis when you're trying to get your head straight.

I gave this to my brother and i must say that he does feel better and is staying better. recommended.

Albert Ellis the best

This book is for any one to learn how to feel better, get better and stay better because we are all responsiblefor our own feelings. I recommend this book for any one who like to live freely and is positive minded, or an optimist.

great book about how to create your feelings

Boring, shallow and repetitive. To be avoided.