“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide . . . “
Albert Ellis: The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are you own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.
Tony Burton: Or, you can recognize, and learn how you have bio-psycho-socially arrived at the position you are now in; – it’s not your fault – as Paul Gilbert rightly states…but it is now your responsibility to understand and now manage it. REBT then being a fine model to do so? This can enhance less self-devaluation. If REBT could just shift towards a greater acceptance of how our brains – as having a socially contextualized history, and evolutionary motivational systems that have shaped who we have become, this enables a client to understand the principle of emotional responsibility so much more easily?
Rex Alexander: REBT is hardly as naive as you like to paint it. It does not ignore neuroscience nor the socially contextualized history, and evolutionary motivational systems you describe.However, it regards all these things as “activating events,” and as with all activating events, REBT insists that it is our beliefs about these “A’s,” how we interpret these events, what we tell ourselves about these things that is primary and determines how we experience, react to and compensate for them. Ultimately, it is a matter of “economics.” There are only 24 hours in a day, 50 minutes in a therapy session, X number of hour in a course of treatment. What shall we emphasize and how shall we spend our precious therapy time?
Rex Alexander: And, BTW, this “control your own destiny” business is a bit of hyperbole that Dr. Ellis sometimes indulges in. I am not comfortable with it, and recommend that it be taken with a grain of salt. I would prefer something closer to “We play the hand we have been dealt, do the best we can with what we have got, and appreciate that ‘context’ and ‘perspective’ are very important
How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable… by Albert Ellis
Rex is a blogger, REBT coach and founder of the REBTraining.com / REBTinfo.com website, admin and regular contributor to the REBTraining Facebook Group
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