Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life [Hardcover]

Michael R. Edelstein (Author), David Ramsay Steele (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1997

Three Minute Therapy can help to change your life for the better. You will find yourself looking at life in a different way. Your emotional troubles will seem less mysterious and less powerful. If you take the trouble to learn the techniques explained in Three Minute Therapy, think about them, and apply them to your problems, you will be able to tackle difficulties that may have seemed impossible. Some of your worst fears and anxieties can diminish or dissolve away, and you will become more effective at pursuing your chosen life goals. The techniques used in Three Minute Therapy show you, clearly and simply, how you needlessly upset yourself, and it gives you many thinking, feeling, and action methods of reducing your disturbances while still retaining your main goals, values, and preferences. Three Minute Therapy can add years of healthier and happier living to your life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Of all the books that explain [Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy] in simple, clear, and highly usable form, Three Minute Therapy is one of the very Best." -- Albert Ellis, Ph.D. President, Albert Ellis Institute for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Of all the books that explain [Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy] in simple, clear, and highly usable form, Three Minute Therapy is one of the very best. -- Albert Ellis, Ph.D. President, Albert Ellis Institute for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

With a series of incisive insights Michael Edelstein cuts through the psychological jargon and makes clear how all of us can effect powerful changes in our psyches, in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones. -- Martin Blinder, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Past Adjunct Professor of Law, University of California, San Francisco

About the Author

Dr. Michael R. Edelstein is a clinical psychologist in private practice in San Francisco and a Fellow and Supervisory Faculty member of the Albert Ellis Institute. He has lectured nationally and internationally, has appeared on numerous radio and TV shows, and has written extensively for professional journals.

Dr. David Ramsay Steele is the Editorial Director of Open Court Publishing Company. His articles have appeared in a wide range of publications.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 228 pages
• Publisher: Glenbridge Pub Ltd; Later Printing edition (March 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0944435424
• ISBN-13: 978-0944435427
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Changed my life for the better from the first chapter., May 10, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life (Hardcover)

For economic reasons, I practice self help whenever I can, so self-help books appeal to me. I have lots of them, but not often do I read a book like Three Minute Therapy which began to help me from the first chapter. Reasonable thinking lies at the heart of this therapy. The simplicity of the author's technique fit right into my busy life in that I did not have to wait weeks or till midway the book to comprehend Dr. Edelstein's technique or start getting obvious results. I have compulsive shopping and anxiety, family disputes and job tensions. I started using Dr. Edelstein's simple, down to earth, rational therapy and already become aware of positive improvements in my life. I talk to my mother more affectionately now thanks to this book because I learned to accept her and not require she become my ideal. I find my work more enjoyable because of changed expectations and reduced anxiety about having to be perfect. I find play more fun, and started again on creating an office manual, now that I understand it need not be the ultimate, most perfect one. I like the new feelings I am still obtaining from this book. Socially, I feel less of a need to have absolute approval from friends, and this freedom has given me a great deal of comfort. I say feeling because my new reasonable thinking actually has benefited my emotions. These improvements I am sure came from contact with this Three Minute Therapy book. I would like to recommend it to everyone I know. Cliff Cin, San Francisco

71 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strongly Recommended, January 17, 2006

By 

John Pugsley (Carlsbad, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life (Hardcover)

As an author in the field of economics (a behavioral science), a lifelong student of human behavior, and after observing many friends and relatives go through months and years of psychotherapy without alleviating their psychological problems, I long ago concluded that traditional psychotherapy was an ineffective pseudoscience.

Traditional psychotherapy, popularized by Freud, is rooted in the hypothesis that psychological problems stem from early experiences. Yet months or often years of lying on a couch and dredging up the traumas and anxieties of childhood does little more than satisfy our need be heard...to have someone listen. Nor have the majority of other branches of psychotherapy been more successful. From behaviorists like Watson and Skinner to psychoanalysts like Freud, Jung, Adler and Horney, millions of hours have been invested by patients with scant evidence (at least evidence that satisfies me) that the relief of any emotional symptoms is not just a placebo effect.

Several years ago a psychologist friend introduced me to the work of Albert Ellis, the originator of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). As a cognitive-behavioral approach, REBT focuses on the here-and-now cause of your problems: your irrational thinking. Numerous studies support the efficacy of this approach for a wide range of problems: anxiety, depression, procrastination, relationship problems, and addictions.

Thanks to its clear effectiveness, cognitive-behavioral therapy is rapidly gaining favor in the field of psychology. Dr. Helen Mayberg, a senior scientist at The Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest and the Sandra A. Rotman Chair in Neuropsychiatry at the University of Toronto noted: "Anti-depressant drugs change the chemical balance in the brain through effects at very specific target sites. Cognitive behavioral therapy also changes brain activity, it's just tapping into a different component of the same depression circuit board." With CBT, patients learn to evaluate emotional provocation in their environment in a new way. They are taught cognitive strategies for reducing automatic reactivity to negative thoughts.

The Milton H. Erickson Foundation every five years since 1980 has sponsored a major conference to explore modern psychological treatments. The last one in December brought together some 9,000 psychologists along with many of the world's most celebrated living therapists. Among them, the two men who developed cognitive behavioral therapy, Dr. Albert Ellis, a psychologist in New York, and Dr. Aaron Beck, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania. Both speakers brought crowds to their feet.

Dr. Ellis has written a number of books on REBT, most of which I've read, but the most readable and actionable of all books on the subject is Dr. Michael Edelstein's Three-Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.

A student of Dr. Ellis, and a licensed clinical psychologist with over 25 years experience, Dr. Edelstein's book is a step-by-step guide offering the reader the practical and effective techniques of REBT for overcoming the major psychological problems of our age: addiction, depression, anxiety, anger, procrastination, and panic attacks.

As Dr. Edelstein points out on his website (www.threeminutetherapy.com), it takes significantly longer than three minutes to dislodge the many dysfunctional aspects of a troubled personality. But these clear and simple exercises will gradually eliminate psychological distress from your life.

As Dr. Ellis himself says, "Of all the books that explain REBT in simple, clear, and highly usable form, Three Minute Therapy is one of the very best." I think it is the best. If you or someone you care about is struggling with psychological distress, I strongly recommend you read one book, Three-Minute Therapy. Read it, and practice the simple, three-minute exercises. It will change your life.

John Pugsley
Founder, The Bio-Rational Institute; Chairman, The Sovereign Society.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars Are Not Enough, December 26, 2005

By 

A. J. - See all my reviews

This review is from: Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life (Hardcover)

Five stars are not enough. A book everyone should read!

I have always been suspicious of self-help books, so it was with a certain reluctance that I obtained a copy of Three Minute Therapy. I began to read it, not sure I would finish it, so strong was that initial prejudice. But I must say that I was very surprised, and my attitude gradually began to change to a staunch believer! I took the title literally, but in that too I was mistaken. Cures are not accomplished in just three minutes; only Dr. Edelstein's carefully worked out exercises take three minutes. "Practice makes perfect" is the old cliché, but using the principles of Rational, Emotive Behavioral Therapy that he presents, the exercises really do work. I read Edelstein's well-written book from cover to cover and actually tried his exercises myself. His information is worth thousands of dollars. When you read it, you'll find out for yourself!
A. J., Colorado