Albert Ellis wrote "
How to Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything. YES ANYTHING!" in 1988. I've found it to be a better exposition of his theories--and more important, of his practices--than some of his later work. It's better organized, and better written.
I'm not miserable any more, but there certainly were times in my life when I was. And I've still got some scar tissue that needs healing, and a few raw spots that occasionally can be irritated. Books by him and his disciples have helped, as I have blogged, so I came back for more.
You'll have to buy the book to get full value. In fact, as he makes clear, you'll have to buy the book, read the book, and DO THE WORK to get full value. Insights can be useful, he points out, but in the end you've got to DO THE WORK. To make the point he devotes three chapters to this idea, and its variations.
He makes a good argument for his entire approach in the chapter titled "Can Scientific Thinking Remove your Emotional Misery." I'll retitle it: "Can Scientific Thinking Help You Do Lots of Stuff Better." Of course, his answer is yes, and so is mine. You can get some of the argument in
this paper.
He says:
"Science is not merely the use of logic and facts to verify or falsify a theory. More important, it consists of continually revising and changing theories and trying to replace them with more valid ideas and more useful guesses. It is flexible rather than rigid, open-minded instead of dogmatic. It strives for a greater truth and not for absolute and perfect truth (with a capital T!).
The principles of RET [note: the B came later] outlined in this book uniquely hold that anti-scientific, irrational thinking is a main cause of emotional disturbance and that if RET persuades you to be an efficient scientist, you will know how to stubbornly refuse to make yourself miserable about practically anything. Yes, anything!
To challenge your misery, try science. Give it a real chance. Work at thinking rationally, stiicking to reality, checking your hypotheses about yourself, about other people, and about the world. Check them against the best observations and facts that you can find. Stop being a Pollyana. GIve up pie-in-the-sky. Uproot your easy-to-come-by wishful thinking. Ruthlessly rip up your childish prayers.
Later he makes what I am taking as the signature insight in my life: the importance of work and practice in any change.
No matter how clearly you see...you will rarely improve except through work and practice--yes, considerable work and practice--to actively change your disturbance-creating Beliefs and vigorously (and often uncomfortably) act against them.
...to change your ideas [and behavior], you had better persistently work at doing so--since you are born and reared to think crookedly and to unconsciously slip...
I like his emphasis on practice. And I really like his "shame challenging exercise." Ellis definition of "shame" is broad--it goes beyond the feeling we have when we do or think something that we would like to keep hidden and includes the feeling we would have if we did something silly, or unconventional, or even uncomfortable: like dancing in public, wearing odd clothing, talking to strangers, being laughed at by others.
Ellis says: when you've got such a concern, it's because you fear the consequences, which are generally imagined, and usually highly exaggerated. If you talk to a stranger they might turn away; they might say something nasty; they probably would not call the police; and they almost certainly would not beat you up--assuming that what you have said is unconventional and not insulting or provocative. So, he says: go out and do it.
He's used this himself, he tells us. As a young man he was uncomfortable speaking in public and afraid to talk to women to whom he had not been introduced. So he challenged the felling and gave speeches until he was not only comfortable, and he attempted to start conversations with over a hundred women in a one month period until he was entirely comfortable.
Watch out! I'm going to try that one. If you're ashamed of being seen in the company of a fool you probably don't want to be around when I do it.
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