Customer Reviews

A Guide to Rational Living

5 star:		(61)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

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.

The revolution I refer to is the one that followed in the wake of the original publication of this book in 1961. Ellis formally introduced his REBT therapeutic model in 1955, but at the time, few knew and fewer cared. However, this book would change that forever. No longer would we have to settle for self-help pablum like "The Power of Positive Thinking", because now we had a piercing book for the masses that explained both clearly and thoroughly three things that no popular work had ever told us before. First, we don't just "get" upset, we "do" upset. Or, in other words, we make ourselves emotionally disturbed. Second, the authors plainly explain how we make ourselves upset. We create our own emotional disturbances mainly through our irrational (aka, unhealthy, self-defeating) thinking. And third, Ellis and Harper give us many effective techniques to combat these thinking patterns. The techniques suggested are divided into cognitive, emotive and behavioral categories, although in fact there is significant overlap for the simple reason, as the authors point out, that we don't just think or feel or behave in a vacuum. Rather, we are thinking/feeling/behaving beings, and this interplay, luckily enough, offers us many ways to a "profound philosophic change" in our outlook, which is the goal of this work. Easily, the most influential self-help book ever written and rightfully so!

This book was great. It is all about how our beliefs determine our attitude toward life. I got a lot from the book. I would also recommend the book An Encounter With A Prophet a book that changes our negative beliefs about God. It was also of great benefit to me.

Although this book directly competes with mine for sales, I'm honored to write this review.

Albert Ellis has been my personal and professional mentor for many years. A Guide to Rational Living was one of the first books of his I read and reread.

With interesting case studies and concise recommendations, it succinctly and engrossingly presents Ellis' comprehensive therapeutic approach, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT).

The concepts and strategies are arranged in a logical sequence. Read the introductory chapters, then skip to those which address your particular problems. Then read the entire book, rereading the key chapters.

Take notes, underline, review, and practice, practice, practice. It will change your life as it has mine!

Michael R. Edelstein, Ph.D.
Author, _Three Minute Therapy_
Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life

A psychologist recommended this book to me when I was having serious trouble handling the challenges in my life. I kept spiraling into deep depressions. Applying this book's principles helped me keep my head above water. But you have to keep practicing these principles, or they stop being effective. These principles become a way of life.

This is by far Ellis' most classical book about the orígins of emotional disturbances and how to overcome them. I agree with Philip, another reviewer, in that the REBT approach is the most profound and consistent way of cognitively, emotively, and behaviorally disputing your irrational beliefs. It not only urges the reader to ask: Where is the evidence for the validity of my beliefs? (like other Cognitive therapy approaches), but goes one step further by questioning the basic philosphies, e.g.: Even if I fail at very important tasks, does that make ME a failure? The answer: certainly not, because I am not my behavior and I am far too complex to be given any single global rating. In the essence it all comes to this: rate behaviors and deeds, but never the total person. Accept yourself and others unconditionally, even if you don't like certain behaviors, and, finally, achieve high frustration tolerance.
This book is the best starting point to get introduced to the fascinating philospohy of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. If you want, you then can proceed to the book by D. Burns: The new mood therapy. This is also an excellent book and can be a valuable supplement.
So get "a guide to rational living", read it and begin reducing your psychological problems. It certainly helps!

I read the reviews posted here before I decided to order this book. I found most reviewers gave it a four or five star rating. Our public wisdom is right. So I come back here after gaining great benefit from reading the reviews as well as this book itself to share my opinions with potential buyers and hope my review would get you to know this book more.

Dr. Albert Ellis is an acclaimed psychotherapist. He is the founder of REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy) and originator of the cognitive behavior therapy. What I admire Dr. Ellis is that he coped with those Freudian psychotherapists back in 1960s, in which neuroscience has not developed so well as today. Today more and more neuroscience studies have shown that Freudian subconscious therapy that urges clients to go back to their childhood to discover their deep-rooted hurt heart would do little to help a person to get over his/her destructive emotions. Recent studies have supported Dr. Ellis's theory largely. Such as (1) Our neurons keep developing. (2) Laziness or over-comfort would not bring about happiness. (3)TAN, found by Ann Graybiel and her colleagues in 90s, is an influential factor of habitualization in cognitive behavior therapy, and proves that our will would change the accustomed way of thinking in our brain to be feasible.

The reasoning that REBT explains about our disturbed feelings can be abbreviated into a string of letters: ABC. A stands for "Activating event" or "Adversities", IB is "Irrational Beliefs", and C is "Consequences". The authors argue that while we encounter unpleasant happenings we will naturally feel frustrated, sorrowful, and sorry. And they are healthy feelings, which are part of our human instinct. So we could avoid badness that we don't desire with these feelings. However, despair, depression, rage these sort of self-downing feelings are another story. They do not stem from activating events, but are the creations of our irrational beliefs. A cannot directly lead to C. They are the irrational beliefs that work right behind our thinking process to create prolonged, self-defeating disturbed feelings.

The authors spent a fairly large amount of time expounding on why and how REPT works in the early chapters. They even quoted the doubts the readers might want to ask and answer them with sound argument. The way we think is well explicated. They are very honest: No single self-help book or therapy works for "everyone" since personal valuation and commitment differ. But according to their counseling records and research their therapy would help most. They recommended you to try out their therapy, read on to see if their words make sense. Along with millions of other readers, my answer is a hundred percent positive.

They stated ten irrational beliefs that are the underlying power that holds us back, letting us feel anxious, depressed, incompetent, and etc., with each belief described through a total chapter. In the first part of a chapter, they listed several reasons to convince readers that those beliefs are really irrational, and then at least one case was unveiled to show a clear picture what and how these beliefs are held within. Cases are sometimes generic but mostly iconic. At the closing comments in each chapter there are several ways to cope with the irrational beliefs.

Not until I read A Guide did I realize that I have so several sabotaging irrational beliefs that disrupt my psyches. For example, irrational belief #2 "The idea that you absolutely must be thoroughly competent, adequate, and achieving" fits my profile. I used to be a sort of perfectionism thinker. I would just refuse, say, to write this review because of a bunch of silly reasons- I'm tired, my brain not functioning well right now, maybe tomorrow I'll get sober and so on. And my deep-rooted IB was actually the dire fear of failure. I now know I could value myself not in an achievement-oriented fashion. That IB was even blocking me from clear thinking and performing. In P122 it suggests,

"...stress your doing rather than perfectly well. Not that you won't find it desirable to perform well. Often you will, because by doing so you gain more goods, services and favors. Fine! But not necessary."

I now have found this IB inside me and know how to tackle it. I'd accept myself first before finishing an outstanding work. That's called USA- Unconditional Self Acceptance, and is also the main concept of REBT.

Rational thinking is different from positive thinking. Positive thinking is way better than negative thinking, of course. For example, "If I work hard enough I'll succeed at exam" is definitely better than" even if I work this hard I will still likely to fail". But positive thinking has its downside: (1) you can't totally control the environment (2) It may automatically lead to irrational thinking without debunking irrational beliefs beforehand: "I work hard I'll succeed. So I work hard I mustn't fail. If I fail..." That's another "MUSTurbatory" thinking. Instead, rational thinking is like this: I prefer success so I work hard. But even if I don't succeed I still accept myself as a valuable person." In rational thinking you don't down yourself because of your poor performance. And usually, like the authors argue and to my own experiment, the more you take off your "must", "should" IBs the better you perform because you don't let your destructive feelings created by IBs distract you and eat you up.

Well, I highly recommend this great self-helper to anyone who wants to lead a better life and get rid of those disturbed emotions. It teaches you to cope with your anxiety, panic, depression, anger, discovering your underlying irrational beliefs that cause them and to gain self-discipline. This is indeed one of the best self-thelper ever written. In short, it's easy to read (with numerous cases shown), easy to understand, and simple to follow.

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.

This book was "prescribed" to me by a therapist when I was struggling with a rebellious teenage stepson. The approach of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy is to interrupt the cycle of destructive thinking that keeps us locked in unhealthy attitudes and behaviors. In this approach, it is not necessary to define deep-seated reasons for the behavior, but to recognize it as it is and to take corrective action. With time, our new healthy thinking becomes habitual as well.

After a few introductory chapters, several chapters follow that deal with specific situations, such as anxiety and panic, fear of failure, and self blame. All are very helpful.

I noticed, however, and the therapist agreed with me, that after a few chapters it gets repetative. You can read a few chapters dealing the most specifically with your situation, and have a firm grasp of the overall approach. Then it comes time to start living it! No book can change your life just by reading it, but this book gave me a framework that helped saved my relationship with my stepson.