A New Guide to Rational Living by Albert Ellis, Robert A. Harper
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Book Reviews of A New Guide to Rational Living
Book Review: The Classic: Practical and Powerful
Summary: 5 Stars
Albert Ellis is the grand-daddy of modern psychology, and this book is the classic. While many psychologists and authors focus on one or several "pet techniques," Ellis and this book show you how to adapt an integrated set of rational (cognitive), emotive, and behavioral tools to your personal situations. And Ellis writes this and many of his other books for us non-psychologists...not just for "professionals." The book starts by briefly summarizing the results of Ellis' ground-breaking work on what we do that causes us to feel and behave differently than we want. The author then teaches his general cognitive system...which includes very specific instructions...on how to change these feelings, behaviors, and thoughts. Ellis terms this system the "A, B, C, D" method of "disputing" irrational thoughts that are "irrational" because they (i) are not true and (ii) produce results that we don't want. The book then moves beyond this general system and shows you how to easily use cognitive, emotive, and behavioral tools to effectively stop your unwanted patterns. While the methods are extremely user-friendly, they do require work...beyond the reading.
Because this book shows how to effectively tackle a wide variety of patterns...the following is a partial list of chapters:
1. Overcoming the influences of your past
2. Refusing to be desperately unhappy
3. Tackling dire needs for approval
4. Eradicating dire fears of failure
5. How to feel undepressed though frustrated
6. Conquering anxiety
7. Acquiring self-discipline
...and others.
While many other psychologists/authors, such as David Burns in his "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy," use cognitive methods, Ellis shows how to use many of them far more effectively than most others. And he also includes emotive and behavioral tools, many of which he created years ago and that his non-for-profit institute has used successfully for decades. While Burns' book has some excellent additional tools, I strongly suggest that you start with "A Guide for Rational Living" and then move on to Burns' book if you want.
I've gone back to this and a few others of Ellis' books several times during the last 10 years or so. After working through a new situation, I keep realizing how much this one volume still does for me.
In my opinion, the book's only weakness is its stlye of writing. It's older style is less interesting than that in some of Ellis' newer books. I strongly recommend it not for its literary value, however, but for what it can do for you.
Book Review: Believe the hype! This book is filled with no-nonsense solutions!
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book in about three days, on the recommendation of a therapist. Unlike the majority of other "self help" literature I had seen up to that point, this book didn't paint a dreary picture of spending year after year, wallowing in my own navel, forever progressing towards "health" without actually attaining it; as is often the case, especially in the 12 Step programs.
The Guide is a no-bulls**t manual for approaching psychological and emotional disturbances and bad habits, hitting them "at the base of the flame" as it were, and providing the reader with a solid roadmap to navigating out of even extreme emotional and psychological problems.
Nothing replaces a solid therapist, but where many therapists try and sell you on the idea that you're going to have to spend a lifetime on the couch, the Guide emphasizes PROGRESS over all else, insisting that we are CREATORS of our own thought processes and our own paradigms, instead of PRISONERS of the damage done to use by past harms, childhood, et al.
Now, if you're perfectly comfortable being addicted to "self help" and enjoy shelling out thousands every year just to sit in a therapist's office, traveling endlessly down past roads without actually moving a single inch into your future, then you won't want this book.
But if you are SICK of yourself, or how you act, or how you think, or how you feel, and you want to know how to make some BIG changes and make them LAST, I think there has not been a better text written on the subject, both in terms of practical application and in terms of being time-tested and true. This is not a "fad" or a "cult" fix. This is bald, often brazen "slap you upside the head" wisdom which cuts through the touchy-feely jargon and endless murk, so that you can start feeling AND acting better, right now, and make REAL CHANGES in yourself, for now and for the future.
Want to know more? Read the damn book!!
Book Review: The SIngle Greatest Self-Help Book Ever
Summary: 5 Stars
I have in my short life have read maybe 200 or 300 self-help books. Thse books vary from "The Power of Positive Thinking" to "How to Win and Influence People." Throught all these books, I have never seen a real good method to be happy. TO be really happy.This book is the excpetion. This book can help almost any person to be happy.
The basic idea of the book is this: People have certain beliefs about things. For example you might have the belief that you must be liked by everybody. Beliefs like this cause you to become very upset when you realized that this belief is being broken and twisted by the world in which you are living. For example, if you believe that the world should be fair, then anytime the world treats you unfairly, you will very depressed. Or if you believe that you must be liked by people, then anytime somebody insluts you, you might become depressed.
So point A= Our beliefs cause our distresses and emotional problems. Eg. if I want everybody to like me, I will feel depressed when someone doesn't
To stop these "irrational beliefs" you have to put in place of them "rational beliefs" such as "I want people to like but if they don't it's ok and I should rather accept myself as I am." When you have rational beliefs than you will not feel depressed at all.
The book talks about ways to refute your irrational beliefs and uses examples from case histories on how this can be done.
The point of the author is to make you understand these irrational beliefs and dispute them using various methods. Once you do that, then you'll be happy.
The authors, want you to be rational in your living.
I also recommend that you read; Feeling Good, books by John Sarno, and books by Aaron T. Beck and other Cognitive Therapists.
Book Review: Extrememly helpful!
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is the most useful general psychological self-help book I have ever read. It is a comprehensive guide to overcoming self-defeating thoughts that lead to negative feelings and neurotic behaviors. It promotes the Rational-Emotive Therapy model, which posits that all negative feelings that limit human potential are based on irrational thoughts. Therefore, one must identify the these self-downing thoughts and systematically root them out and replace them with thoughts that will help achieve greater success and contentment. After a thorough introduction to the process in the first nine chapters, there is a chapter on each of the ten irrational ideas that plague people. Throughout the book there are examples of dialogs between the authors and patients struggling with various irrational ideas and neuroses. These examples serve to inform the self-talk of the reader, and show how to derail irrational thinking and replace it with more constructive thinking. The book may be bit too academic for some: the authors put their theory in the context of Freud, Skinner and primal scream psychologists and others, which makes more sense if the reader has some familiarity with those. The language is all 60s-ish, which does not detract from the essential usefulness of the message. I recommend the book for anyone, at any stage of life, who is struggling with anxiety, resentment, needs for approval, feeling out of control, depression, lack of discipline, fear of failure, or desperate unhappiness. While the book was not intended as a cure-all and the authors recommend using it in concert with counseling, I cannot see how it could do anything but help.Book Review: A *MUST* have for your library
Summary: 5 Stars
This is THE book on Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, and in April 2006 was voted as the best introductory book to REBT by the REBT-CBT Forum on Yahoo.
Now in it's third edition (1997), this is one of the first books that Ellis wrote about REBT. Written for the general public, but frequently used by practitioners, it describes all aspects of Ellis' theory and how to apply the theory to specific problems.
This book includes chapters on:
How Far Can You Go With Self-therapy? (chapter 1)
Thinking Your Way Out of Emotional Disturbance (chapter 5)
Overcoming the Influences of the Past (chapter 7)
Tackling Your Dire Need for Approval (chapter 10)
Reducing Your Dire Fears of Failure (chapter 11)
Conquering Anxiety and Panic (chapter 15)
Research Evidence to Support the Principles and Practice of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (chapter 22)
This book is a moderate read, and is written for the person who wants to learn more about REBT, and who is willing to invest some time and effort in learning. Therefore, this book would not be for the person who wants a quick, easy read. Also, when buying this book, make sure that you get the third edition. Ellis has continued to revise his theory since originally publishing this book in 1961, and has made subtle changes along the way.
Overall, I prefer Ellis' writing style to most other authors. He is clear, leaving few unanswered questions. He describes his theory in a way that makes sense. No REBTer, or practitioner's, library is complete without this book.