[Dusty]

I saw this Albert Ellis Q&A while looking up some REBT stuff today. For those following the thread, this probably sounds familiar:

Quote:

Ask Dr. Ellis

May, 2006

Question: What about obsessive shyness in 2006? Does what you said in 1952 about overcoming severe shyness by approaching possible female partners, as you did when you were 19 years-old, still hold true? Is in vivo desensitization risk-taking still the way to go?

Dr. Ellis answers: Yes, using in vivo desensitization risk-taking interrupts irrational self-talk like, “I must not be rejected! I’m a no-goodnik for failing to get accepted! My whole worth as a person rests on my being approved!”

With your irrational self-talk you invent the necessity — instead of the preference — of being approved by partners and you make their rejection “terrible” instead of “unfortunate.” You obsessively-compulsively demand that acceptance by desired partners equals your worth as a person.

By using in vivo desensitization, you see that this equation is false and that it’s highly desirable to have selected partners favor you, but it is not necessary that they do.

If they now don’t do so, that only shows that they presently reject your presence — and not for all time or not by all possible partners. There can always be a tomorrow — so you keep risking failure until you sometimes succeed.

Being rejected does not mean your rejectors will, with their own obsessive-compulsiveness, eternally disfavor you. Even when they usually do so, that still doesn’t mean they forever will. Also, they may dislike something about you, but rarely will they dislike you totally, in every respect.

You may hate yourself totally for one or a few rejections — but, if so, you arrantly over-generalize, as Alfred Korzybski said in Science and Sanity in the 1950’s.

You may do rejectable things, but you are never totally rejectable or worthless. Someday you may act acceptably — especially if you keep persistently trying with in vivo risk-taking.

So be heartened. Yes, you may have done badly this time but you are not what you did. You are many possible acts — some of which you will discover if you keep trying.

Moral: Try it and see! If you unconditionally accept you with others’ rejections of your behaviors, you won’t always win. But you also won’t always lose. Experiment! Try it!

~Dr. Albert Ellis~
May 24, 2006

[Dusty]

Chapter 19 – Overcoming Inertia & Getting Creatively Absorbed

This chapter starts out with Irrational Belief # 10 The idea that you can achieve maximum happiness by inertia and inaction or by passively and uncommittedly enjoying yourself.

This notion is irrational for several reasons:

1.You need downtime and rest, but if your life is completely about doing nothing and resting, you will probably not experience much happiness. Passive activities like reading and watching movies are relaxing and nice to a degree, but a steady and exclusive diet of that type of passive living often leads to dullness and apathy.

2.Intelligent people tend to need some more absorbing activity to feel alive and happy. Meaning having complex, absorbing and challenging interests.

3.Happiness comes from absorption in outside people and events.

4. Three main forms of absorptions are (a) loving or feeling absorbed in other people (b) creating something © Being absorbed in ideas (philosophizing). Prolonged vegetating minimizes you fully living because you are not absorbed in one of these things.

5.Many people do not get absorbed with an activity because it’s easier to sit on your ass than get started. If you push yourself to get started, you will probably enjoy the absorbing activity more than the passivity you initially seem to prefer.

6.People who live passive and lazy lives often say “nothing interest me.” Often times that’s just a way for them to avoid failure. Or they may try something and give up on it too early before they give themselves enough time to get good at it and thus enjoy it.

7.Inertia and inaction, especially when motivated by the fear of failure, blocks the development of achievement-confidence.

8.You require action to break the pattern of your self-defeating behavior. If you have habits that block your happiness, you have to work very hard against those habits. It’s hard work. For example, if you want to get good at approaching girls, you need to break your discomfort avoiding habits and do things that are not comfortable and “normal” to how you are used to doing things. You can read about game all you want, but at some point you have to actually get off the couch and talk to real girls – including ones who might not like you.

9.Inertia feeds on itself. The more you avoid something – especially due to anxiety – the more you get used to not doing it, and the harder it gets to break out of the rut.

What does Ellis mean by being absorbed? He recommends getting vitally absorbed in some persons or things outside yourself. Girls for example. You can also get absorbed in certain activities that are challenging. He gives an example of being attached to art or your profession. I would say getting good with girls is an absorbing activity. It’s complex, and you can use your analytical mind to break it down and figure out how to do better – like a puzzle. You can spend years learning about it and getting better. I’m absorbed trying to put a new angle on game – by adapting REBT to it. I don’t think anyone has ever done what I am trying to do – which is a great a challenge and absorbing.

In devoting yourself to an absorbing interest, choose something challenging and long-range, and not simple and short-ranged. Something that will be fascinating for many years.

Don’t expect developing an absorbing interest to be easy. Because of the complexity of the challenge, and fear of failure and inertia, it’s going to be hard to stick with it long enough before you can be good at it and enjoy it.

Ideally, have several absorbing interest. Maybe a main one (like writing a novel) and some smaller ones on the side. The variety will give you vitality and a zest for living. Also, if you complete or exhaust your main interest, you can take a deeper dive into the side stuff.

[FunctionalPsycho]

Great review!

[Dusty]

Chapter 20 – Additional Rational Approaches to a Good Life (Part I)

The chapter starts with some history. Ellis invented REBT in 1955. Originally, it was called Rational Therapy (RT), then in 1961 he changed it to Rational Emotive Therapy (RET). Then in 1993, he changed it to Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). His therapy did not change all that much over those years, but he changed the name a couple times to be more descriptive. In other words the behavioral part was there since 1955, but by 1993 he decided to add that to the name to acknowledge how important behavior techniques are to this mode of therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) came out about a decade after REBT. Aaron Beck is the main CBT guy. CBT became popular from David Burns’ book, Feeling Good. Burns worked for Beck at the University of Pennsylvania Medical school where CBT was created and tested. Beck acknowledges that he was heavily influenced by Ellis. Today CBT is the most widely used form of therapy.

REBT teaches that many people hold irrational, illogical, superstitious, unrealistic, and impractical beliefs and use them to undermine themselves. Absolutist and rigid thinking are big causes of emotional turmoil.

Ellis says virtually all neurotic feelings come from musterbation. The three main MUSTS are:

1.I must do well, and am a horrible person if I don’t.
2. You must treat me kindly, fairly, and considerably; and you are a rotten person if you don’t.
3.Conditions must be easy for me, give me what I want with little trouble, and I can’t stand it when things are bad.

All three of these beliefs are dogmatic and absolutistic and unverifiable. Ellis calls neurosis “whining” about your own, others’, or the world’s failings.

Remember your emotions come from your thoughts. If your thoughts are a derivative of one of the three above, you're going to be pissed, depressed, down on yourself, etc.

[Dusty]

Chapter 20 – Additional Rational Approaches to a Good Life (Part II)

In the early days of REBT, Ellis encouraged people to think of themselves as “good” merely because they are alive. He came up with this approach because many (most) people put all kinds of conditions on themselves before they consider themselves “good enough.” As humans, we often fail at these conditions so we rate ourselves “bad” much of the time. So Ellis’ initial idea is to have but one condition before you consider yourself “good”, and that is being alive. So as long as you are alive, you rate yourself good. Later Ellis realized that this solution is on flimsy logical ground. There is no physical law of the universe that says you are “good” because you are alive (just like there is no physical law of the universe that says you are “good” if you: have money, are good with girls, are smart, are good looking, etc). It’s all made up. Pulled from your ass. Dogma. Arbitrary.

So Ellis thought about it some more and consulted with philosophers and concluded that the whole concept of human worth can never be proven or disproven, and it’s better to dispense with the whole idea. You don’t have to rate your “self”, your “essence” or your “totality.” Doing so is a gross overgeneralization. By giving up self-rating and ego measuring, you give yourself a great gift, because you will reduce a lot of your most serious emotional problems. Ellis calls this the “elegant” solution for accepting yourself. Just live your life and stop worrying about rating your “self.”

Some people have a hard time getting their head wrapped around the idea of not rating your self. Ellis says something like: fine, if you want to rate yourself , just pick one condition, being alive. That way you always rate yourself good, and will do so until you are dead. In other words, if you insist on arbitrary conditions to be met before you grant yourself “worthy”, why not just pick one easy condition - being alive?

There’s an important phrase in the above paragraph: “grant yourself.” It’s YOU, not the world, not the universe, not mother nature, not society, not God, but YOU and YOU alone who grants yourself “worthiness” or “self-esteem” or whatever you want to call it. And often times we don’t grant ourselves worthiness. We choose not to, and instead needlessly torment ourselves . Humans are pretty irrational.

So, to summarize, Ellis offers two solutions to the idea of what most people would call low self-esteem. (1) The elegant and philosophical solution which says that human worth is a not a scientific and empirical concept, and doesn’t really exist, therefore, don’t ever rate your “self” or your whole “totality.” (2) If you insist on rating yourself with arbitrary conditions, pick an arbitrarily easy condition to meet, for example “I am good because I am alive.”

I find these concepts very helpful for game. If you can adopt either of the two Ellis solutions into your life, your game will improve immeasurably. It seems like the biggest fear of approaching girls is that she might not approve of you and thus your ego will take a big hit. If your ego doesn’t depend on anything (or just depends on being alive) then you do not fear what a girl can do to your ego. You will become close to fearless.

You can rate your behaviors or your attributes, but you can’t rate your whole self. Your whole self is too complex. I can rate attributes about myself because they are observable and measureable. For example, I can measure my height, conclude that I am 5’8”, and find tables on the Internet that show I am taller than xx percent of the adult male population in the US. I can observe and measure other attributes of me (however imperfectly) such as my weight, BMI, body fat, IQ, and so on. Even less perfectly, but still I believe somewhat observable and measurable, I can kind of see how I rate on more subjective attributes of mine such as: looks, level of generosity versus selfishness, and so on; based on things I do or see or based on what others observe of me.

How do I measure “me” though? My “essence?” My “totality” as a human? I can’t. I can’t observe nor measure my “essence” (or my “being,” my “humanity,” my “self.”).

You can judge and blame your acts or conduct as being bad, but its fallacious to judge and blame your “self” for being bad. If you got caught cheating on a test and thus failed the class for it, it is appropriate to judge your behavior as being wrong and harmful. But it would be foolish (and unhelpful) to damn yourself for that bad act.

Finally in this chapter, the authors talk about self-help forms. Ellis created a self-help form in 1968. Later the CBT guys like David Burns created their own forms. In earlier posts I talked about the ABC model in REBT. The form is an application of that ABC model, in which you actually write down your irrational thoughts, dispute them, and come up with new rational thoughts and philosophies. I use an ABC form in my book. You use the form to challenge your thoughts that cause you to feel anxious about approaching and which cause anxious behaviors like chickening out from an approach. You replace these irrational thoughts with rational thoughts and philosophies that help you see things more calmly and clearly, and which help you achieve your goals.

For example, you might identify one of your irrational beliefs that causes you to feel anxious about approaching to be this:

The uncertainty of how she might respond is unsettling for me. What if she acts bitchy and makes a scene?

You can then dispute this belief with questions such as:

Is certainty about the future something I can always expect? Do I always need to play it safe because of uncertainty? Does that help my goals?

Am I exaggerating how she might respond? How likely is it she would act that way? And if she did, wouldn’t it be over with pretty quickly? Would anyone care all that much?

After reflecting on it, you might come up with new more helpul and rational beliefs such as:

I know that some situations I face could be uncomfortable and I’m willing to accept that and be ok with it, especially if it helps me grow and move toward my goal.

Don’t overreact or blow situations out of proportion. Approaching a girl in the grand scheme of things is not a big deal. Same with any type of rejection that might ensue.

Not being accepted when we want to is all part of living life, and I choose a philosophy to not let my self-worth go up and down when I am accepted and rejected.

[The Lizard of Oz]

Paging Dusty -- chapter 14 for an encore, please!

[Dusty]

^^^

HA HA. There's stills a couple chapters left , then the encore.

My goal is to finish it all by next week.

I started out with a few chapter reviews saved on my laptop, but now I'm doing them in real time so they're coming out slower.

I was thinking also as a wrap up, people can post some of their real irrational thoughts related to game and we can dispute them here. Kind of like a real world demo of the books concepts.

[Dusty]

Chapter 21 – Additional Emotive and Behavioral Approaches to a Good Life

While many negative emotions are unhealthy, you can have negative feelings that are healthy. It is important to understand the distinction between the two. Ellis says that extreme sorrow and unhappiness (healthy negative emotions) do not equal depression, despair, shame, and self-downing (unhealthy negative emotions). Even 99% unhappiness does not equal 1% of depression. These two feelings are on different emotional planes.

REBT does not teach you to be happy when things go wrong. That would be crazy, and would end up hurting you (even killing you). If you were equally happy whether your goals where blocked or not, what incentive would you have to take care of yourself and improve yourself? What REBT does teach is to not let your negative emotions become overwrought when things go wrong. It encourages you to feel healthy negative emotions when you your goals are blocked (like frustration and disappointment) but to avoid feeling depressed and enraged and self-downing when your goals are blocked.

Feeling merely unhappy when an important goal is blocked (as opposed to depressed) is healthy because it results in you taking action to correct things. Depression, despair, self-downing however are never healthy, and it’s better to minimize those emotions in your life.

Healthy negative emotions like frustration arise when you strongly prefer, desire, or want something and your preferences are blocked. “I desire for this girl to want to sleep with me.” If you think this way, and she does not want to sleep with you, thus blocking your desire, you will feel healthy frustration. This healthy frustration will probably motivate you to figure out what you could have done differently, and what you will do differently in the future to better achieve your goals.

If instead of preferring or desiring that this girl would want to sleep with you, you instead thought about it in a demanding way such as “This girl absolutely must want to sleep with me!” you set yourself up for emotional trouble. Because if you think this way, and she doesn’t want to sleep with you, you will conclude “It is awful that she won’t sleep with me as she must! I can’t stand that she is not attracted to me! I will fail with all girls! I am in inadequate person because she doesn’t desire me!” With these highly irrational, absolutistic beliefs, you make yourself depressed, despairing, ashamed, and self-downing. These emotions sap your energy, and you usually perform very poorly when experiencing them.

REBT theory says that almost everyone has overarching goals of being alive, healthy, and happy. REBT defines irrationality as any thought, idea, attitude, belief, or philosophy that sabotages your goals. Rational ideas aid you in pursuing your goals that enhance your health and happiness.

Ellis says here that shame is the essence of much human disturbance. Shame is a judgment of your bad act (which is healthy) and a judgment of you (not healthy). It signifies that you, your whole personhood, is bad and worthless because your deed is bad. REBT is consistent with the Christian belief of hating the sin but loving the sinner.

Ellis created the “shame-attacking” exercise to confront shame and to learn to accept yourself unconditionally. With the shame-attacking exercise, you do something foolish in public to deliberately try to embarrass and shame yourself, but then you use your thinking skills to unshame yourself. So for example, you might wear some outlandish outfit in public. Or you might yell out the time in the supermarket. (In Neil Strauss’ “The Game”, a PUA walked around with a dildo attached to his head as a sort of shame-attacking exercise). The idea is to do something foolish publically, but work on your thoughts and emotions so that you don’t feel ashamed or overly embarrassed.

Here's an example of someone doing a shame-attacking exercise. She appears to be walking a on a leash through the mall:

Ellis moves on here to talk about Rational Emotive Imagery (REI). I talked about REI before and have done it myself a few times. With REI, you use your imagination to conjure up a situation that would normally cause emotional distress, then learn to change your emotions into something healthier. For example, you can imagine the worst rejection ever, the worst blow-out, and imagine it so vividly that you actually start feeling emotions like anxiety. Hold this feeling for a minute or two. Then you change your outlook about this imaginary scary thing, and change your emotions into something more manageable and less debilitating (in this case you might just feel mildly perturbed at the blow-out, rather than anxiety, rage, and dread).

As someone pointed out, Roosh suggested something similar in Day Bang.

Roosh asks you to imaging being in a coffee shop and trying to strike up a conversation with a cute girl there. She laughs condescendingly at you. Other people in the coffee shop see it and laugh hysterically too, and start contacting their friends so they can share in the laugher of you. Someone has a camera and sends a live feed to a Jumbotron.

Then Roosh points out that even in the most ridiculously bad rejection your imagination can muster, nothing truly bad happens to you. You don’t die. There’s no physical injury. Just a little red face for a few seconds. You then learn to put it behind you and move on with your life.

I would go even further than Roosh, and pull out a piece of paper and start disputing my “feeling like shit” that I initially feel. Where is the evidence I need to feel like shit? Aren’t the people in the coffee shop overacting? So this girl doesn’t like me; she is not the first and won’t be the last. I can handle that; I even expect it to happen a lot. These people don’t have any power over me unless I grant it to them. I get stronger each time I get rejected and learn to not let it bother me. She kind of did me a favor, because she provided good rejection practice for me to prove how mentally tough I can be. And so on..

Ellis says “REI, if repetitively done, thus becomes a useful REBT tool to train yourself more thoroughly to feel healthy instead of unhealthy negative emotions when bad Activating Events enter your life. By consistently using it, you can change both your thinking and feeling habits and make yourself not only less disturbed, but eventually less disturbable.”

Next up are forceful rational self-statements or coping statements. Sometimes after we identify our irrational beliefs that cause our overwrought emotions and replacement them with sensible and rational new ideas, we can still feel these overwrought emotions. This is because we still only believe our new rational ideas lightly, while we feel our old irrational ideas strongly. So use repetition to help reinforce your new rational ideas. I did this a lot when I was experiencing a lot of stress on my job a few years ago. I kept reminders on an index card in my pocket that I would look at during the day to remind me not to exaggerate or take things too seriously. Just little statements like “Relax man, nothings ruined you yet!” “This is all just a game you have to play to get your paycheck, don’t take it too serious!” Nowadays, you can put rational statements on the notepad of your smart phone. People will just think you are reading email or something. I recommend this in my book actually. Have on your phone a few reminders of things that help calm you before an approach, and look at while you’re out and about.

Next is forceful or vigorous disputes. Here you can swear and yell at your irrational thoughts. I put my own twist on this. I have you imagine your internal critic is an actual person separate from you, whose always trying to undermine you and wants you to fail, and he’s an asshole and you essentially tell him to get the fuck out of my life I don’t want you in here no more. (Don’t go full retard and go walking down the street yelling at the voice in your head though - unless you do it as a shame-attcking exercise )

Ellis recommends taping yourself articulating your irrational thoughts, and then confronting them in a convincing and forceful manner. Then listen back, do you sound convincing enough yet? He also suggest role playing with a friend. Have your friend speak your irrational thoughts, then like an attorney cross examine him and point out the bullshit. Switch roles.

Ellis says people rarely change themselves unless they not only rethink their self-defeating philosophies but also act against their irrational beliefs. This is the B in REBT, behavior. Thus Ellis recommends giving yourself activity based homework assignment. Of course, approaching is an excellent activity based homework assignment to change your irrational beliefs. Ellis says, while practicing your new rational thoughts, deliberately stay in anxiety-invoking situations at times, while showing yourself you can handle such situations. Rebel against your irrational thoughts. Show them whose boss. Your irrational thoughts will weaken and eventually mostly disappear when you repeatedly rebel against them with your behavior.

Ellis also recommends in vivo desensitization. This where you learn to overcome your phobia of something by gradually exposing yourself to it. If a small child was scared of rabbits, you wouldn’t lock him in a room and throw a rabbit on his head. No, what you would do is first walk in the room with a rabbit securely in your arms and stay a safe distance, and leave with it after a few seconds. Then the next day you stand a little closer and stay a little longer. Then you do that more and more. Then you get close enough and you ask the kid to touch the rabbit for a second with his index finer. And so on until he’s petting it, and eventually holding it in his lap with no fear.

I used in vivo desensitization to get over my phobia of approaching pretty women during the day (I’d say most men have this “phobia”). I started out just smiling at pretty girls on the street. Sometimes they’d smile back, sometimes they wouldn’t. Then after awhile I started saying "hello" to them. At first it was hard to do then it got ridiculously easy. (While doing all this by the way, when I got home I would fill out a REBT dispute form for each approach or near approach or abandon approach identifying my irrational thoughts that made me anxious, and replacing them with rational ones). Then after awhile I would add some elderly chat (“that’s a nice knapsack, is it a good one?”). As I was getting more and more comfortable, I’d try to challenge myself more by elongating the conversation. Very rapidly I got to the point where I could effortlessly approach striking beauties* during the day, at least a decade or more younger than me, have a pleasant conversation with them (many I had to cut off myself after 30 minutes) and ask for numbers and arranging dates. I created a philosophical transformation in myself. Some of the girls I approached have commented to me how confident and at ease I am, and how easy it is to talk to me. So I’m writing a book teaching exactly what I did for myself to conquer a lifetime of approach anxiety – with the main tools being: in vivo desensitization, many many dispute forms to restructure my core philosophies, and a little bit of REI.

Okay, that was chapter 21, we only have chapter 22-23 left (and the one I skipped 14).

* Note: Not all are striking beauties. But I approach 6s-9s routinely (mostly 6s-7s because they are more plentiful, with a few 5s by mistake).

[The Lizard of Oz]

(12-14-2013 05:22 PM)Dusty Wrote:  

I used in vivo desensitization to get over my phobia of approaching pretty women during the day (I’d say most men have this “phobia”). I started out just smiling at pretty girls on the street. Sometimes they’d smile back, sometimes they wouldn’t. Then after awhile I started saying "hello" to them. At first it was hard to do then it got ridiculously easy. (While doing all this by the way, when I got home I would fill out a REBT dispute form for each approach or near approach or abandon approach identifying my irrational thoughts that made me anxious, and replacing them with rational ones). Then after awhile I would add some elderly chat (“that’s a nice knapsack, is it a good one?”). As I was getting more and more comfortable, I’d try to challenge myself more by elongating the conversation. Very rapidly I got to the point where I could effortlessly approach striking beauties* during the day, at least a decade or more younger than me, have a pleasant conversation with them (many I had to cut off myself after 30 minutes) and ask for numbers and arranging dates. I created a philosophical transformation in myself. Some of the girls I approached have commented to me how confident and at ease I am, and how easy it is to talk to me. So I’m writing a book teaching exactly what I did for myself to conquer a lifetime of approach anxiety – with the main tools being: in vivo desensitization, many many dispute forms to restructure my core philosophies, and a little bit of REI..

A beautiful story. Ellis would be proud.

[Dusty]

^^^

Thanks Lizard!

I remember seeing a video about daytime approaches, gosh it must have been 10-12 years ago. I think they were showing how approaches could be done during the day. A guy doing essentially what I do now and looking very confident with no anxiety. Back then I thought "No way would I be able to do anything like that! That's for guys who are exceptionally extroverted or gifted talkers/charmers." I also thought at the time when I was 36 or so that I was too old to start to do something like that. Ha! See how I let my irrational thoughts undermine me?

Well, thats water under the bridge now. Twelve years later I'm 48, and here I am approaching hot young girls fairly effortlessly. I just had to get my thinking straight and learn a few ridiculously simple conversation opener techniques (e.g., today I started a conversation with a girl by saying "Excuse me, is that drink you have good?")!

I'm not perfect (and never will be). I still bumble and stumble sometimes. I even backslide on occasion and puss out. But never for very long, and less often now. I go back to basics when I do. For example, whenever I feel "stuck", I just say "hi" to the girl because that is always easy for me to do now. You can always just end it gracefully with a "hi" as if that was your intent. If I get a warm response however, then I'm inspired to talk more. Then it turns into a full blown approach, even though I didn't start out with that intent.

I see progress all the time. I'm approaching girls now who I wouldn't approach a month or two ago because they are so much younger than me or so intimidatingly hot. Now I just do it - and act just as confident and charming as I do with all the others. Month ago I was doing things I couldn't do a month prior to that. Two months ago I was doing things I couldn't do 3 months ago, and so on.

I'm excited about 2014.

[Dusty]

Chapter 22 – Research Evidence Supporting the Principles and Practice of REBT

This is a short chapter, but an important one for me. REBT is not bro science. REBT and its cousin (or child?) CBT have had tested my times by researchers at medical schools and universities.

These studies have used REBT with an experimental group while a control group was given no therapy or a different kind of therapy. The group given REBT made significantly more improvement than those not treated with REBT. These studies were conducted the same way drugs are tested for their efficacy.

There were 250 studies of REBT when this version of the book was written, in 1997.

There’s been a shitton more studies of CBT, which also show that those receiving the therapy experience statistically more significant improvement. I’m going by memory now, but I think David Burns said CBT had similar or better results than anti-depressants like Prozac in research studies.

This is me editorializing now. REBT and CBT probably have even more potential for efficacy than the studies suggest. That’s because, unlike popping a pill, REBT and CBT require work. The more you put into it, the more you get out of it. I’m sure there are plenty of people in the research study who shirked and thus didn’t receive the full potential of it. It is like working out. If you go to the gym and chit chat most of the time and stand around drinking water checking out the ladies and talking to your friends and put light weights on, well your not going to get the same results than if you go to the gym with a no bullshit attitude and hit the heavy weights and take minimal breaks and work your ass off.

As I said in the prior chapter, you really invoke change using REBT when you rebel against your irrational thoughts by deliberately putting yourself and keeping yourself in uncomfortable situations. A lot of people don’t like doing that and won’t.

But, bottom line. REBT is not “new age” or “Oprah” or “The Power of Positive Thinking.” It’s a serious mode of therapy, scientifically tested, and found to be effective in improving unwanted, self-sabatoging, and harmful emotions.

[The Lizard of Oz]

(12-15-2013 12:48 PM)Dusty Wrote:  

This is me editorializing now. REBT and CBT probably have even more potential for efficacy than the studies suggest. That’s because, unlike popping a pill, REBT and CBT require work. The more you put into it, the more you get out of it. I’m sure there are plenty of people in the research study who shirked and thus didn’t receive the full potential of it. It is like working out. If you go to the gym and chit chat most of the time and stand around drinking water checking out the ladies and talking to your friends and put light weights on, well your not going to get the same results than if you go to the gym with a no bullshit attitude and hit the heavy weights and take minimal breaks and work your ass off.

Great point.

Many people don't realize that compliance is very often missing as a control factor from all sorts of studies. There are plenty of "studies" that conclude that this or that approach is ineffective solely because a large percentage of the subjects never actually tried said approach in the way they're supposed to.

The fact that there is overwhelming evidence for the effectiveness of REBT/CBT despite the compliance rates being far short of 100%, as they are for anything that requires effort and even for some things that don't, should be stunning to people. Because what it means is that REBT/CBT works. Simple as that.

[Dusty]

Chapter 23 – Acquiring Profound Rational Philosophies to Make Yourself Remarkably Less Disturbed and Less Disturbable

This is the final chapter.

To make yourself less neurotic (depressed, anxious, self-downing, enraged) you need to first recognize that you largely create your overwrought emotions. Then, you need to actively and forcefully dispute your irrational thoughts that are driving your unwanted emotions. Also use a number of REBT emotive and behavioral exercises to persistently act against your irrational thoughts and feelings. Eventually you will arrive with Effective New Philosophies (The E in the ABCDEF model). In the context of game, your Effective New Philosophies will be things like understanding deep in your core that rejections don’t mean very much and that your value as a person does not depend on the approval of any woman.

But we are fallible humans, and we will backslide from time to time. We’ve been practicing our irrational thoughts our whole life, and after you shoo them away they will want to make surprise reappearances. Ellis says the more profound and firm you hold your Effective New Philosophies, the better chance you have of not backsliding. Profoundly held Effective New Philosophies also have a prophylactic quality to them (yeah, you’ll still have to wear condoms). By prophylactic, I mean not getting enraged, or depressed or anxious, or self-downing in the first place when things go wrong (versus getting upset, then trying to use REBT or CBT to get you out of the soup). This is what Ellis means by "less disturbable."

Ellis recommends that you acquire a profound rational philosophy of life – and keep working to maintain it and revise it. By steadily thinking and rethinking. There’s never going to be final “right” solution. Life is too complex and dynamic. Stay flexible, keep thinking and learning, and get better and smarter about your philosophies.

Ellis here talks about positive thinking. Trying to look at everything in a positive light, even in defiance of reality. Ellis says positive thinking often just covers up and doesn’t really remove your underlying negative thinking. He thinks you can go overboard and act Pollyannaish (“I can accomplish anything I want!”), and be disillusioned when reality smacks your happy ass. Say I try to use extreme positive thinking to help me approach girls along the lines of: “All I have to do is believe in myself, and every girl I talk to will want to sleep with me!” That type of thing will just set me up for a fall. He’s not totally against positive thinking though. The optimism that comes with it (“If I study hard for this test I can ace it!”) can lead to better results than negative pessimism (“I’m probably going to fail even if I study hard”). Ellis says you can harm yourself with negative thinking and choose to help yourself with more positive thoughts, just don’t go extreme with it.

When you come up with Effective New Philosophies, Ellis offers these tips:

• They are realistic and factual, not exaggerated and over generalized.
• They are logical, sound and reasonable.
• They will help you achieve your goals.
• They are flexible and open-minded. You can change them if you get better information.
  

Ellis (and his co-author Harper) end the book with some rational philosophies. Here’s a few excerpts/summaries:

I can change and control many (but not all) aspects of my life. I need will and willpower to make changes in my life. Willpower is (1) deciding to do something (2) making myself determined to do it (3) acquire the knowledge to do it (4) acting on my determination (5) continuing to act despite obstacles. My actions speak louder than words.

I can largely control my anxiety, depression, rage, worthlessness, and self-pity – by thinking in terms of preferences and desires, instead of absolute demands. I better take important things seriously, but not too seriously. My projects are important, not sacred. I can live comfortably without certainty or perfection.

I will always accept myself, despite being fallible and despite the fact I will make many mistakes. I will only rate my thoughts, feelings, and activities as “bad” when they sabotage my goals, and “good” when they aid my goals. But I shall not globally rate my self, my essence, my personhood, or my being. I shall try to perform well at things and with people – but not to prove my worth as a person but to enhance my efficiency and enjoyment.

I will accept other people unconditionally, even when I deplore their behaviors (Dusty's note: I have a hard time with this one!).

I will not define the bad things in my life as awful, terrible, or horrible. These are exaggerations and lead us to think adversities are totally ruinous, and thus making it much more difficult to cope with them effectively.

Let people and things plague me. Let me grow old and sick. Let me suffer real losses and sorrows. Yet, I am still largely the creator and ruler of my emotional destiny. I am delighted to be alive and determine to find things that make me happy, no matter what! I fully and enthusiastically accept this challenge!

And now I will end the final sentence of the book verbatim:

“We, the authors, extend to you our best personal wishes, our encouragement, and our hopes that you are successful in achieving the more rational, happier life you desire.”

So the book review is over…halleluiah!



In all seriousness, it was kind of a lot of work, but it was a labor of love. I learned a lot more about REBT in doing a careful review and teaching others. I hope many of you guys got something out of it as well.

I will come back and do my encore at some point, chapter 14 which I skipped.

I’m also working on a demo to put the books ideas into something actionable for game. More on that soon.

[FunctionalPsycho]

Chapter 14!

[Dusty]

Roosh's take on positive thinking. There's a familiar name in this post.

Quote:

It’s Better To Be A Pessimist Than An Optimist


By Roosh

In addition to the brilliant lecture above, the Wall Street Journal has a great article that reviews why pessimistic thinking is helpful…

One pioneer of the “negative path” was the New York psychotherapist Albert Ellis, who died in 2007. He rediscovered a key insight of the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome: that sometimes the best way to address an uncertain future is to focus not on the best-case scenario but on the worst.

Seneca the Stoic was a radical on this matter. If you feared losing your wealth, he once advised, “set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: ‘Is this the condition that I feared?’ “

[...]

Just thinking in sober detail about worst-case scenarios—a technique the Stoics called “the premeditation of evils”—can help to sap the future of its anxiety-producing power. The psychologist Julie Norem estimates that about one-third of Americans instinctively use this strategy, which she terms “defensive pessimism.” Positive thinking, by contrast, is the effort to convince yourself that things will turn out fine, which can reinforce the belief that it would be absolutely terrible if they didn’t.

[...]

Goals may even lead to underachievement. Many New York taxi drivers, one team of economists concluded, make less money in rainy weather than they could because they finish work as soon as they reach their mental target for what constitute a good day’s earnings.

More people are waking up to the fact that positive thinking doesn’t work. It has never worked. Instead, it diverts energy from putting in hard work and transfers it to daydreaming about an outcome that requires much more than just mental thought. Positive thinking is great if you want to set yourself up for one disappointment after another.

Many people tell me that I’m pessimistic, and I take it as a compliment, because it’s that pessimism which has allowed me to accept and endure tough spells in life to push through to the other side. If I didn’t get my mind ready to tackle a big problem, how would I keep my composure to face it? Instead I hope for the best but expect the worst. This old saying perfectly captures how a pessimistic person approaches life.

[Dusty]

How to Dispute and Change Your Irrational Thoughts and Acquire A Rational Philosophy about Approaching Women - By Dusty

Okay now is the fun part. I’d like to offer a demo of how one goes about disputing their irrational beliefs that undermine their goals. I’m looking for a volunteer or two to provide real world game related situations you have faced, where you didn’t function well due to your hot emotions like anxiety. Let’s keep it game related only please. But let me first do an example.

This post will be educational. The next post I will pull everything we learned in this post into a REBT Dispute form, which is a more succinct format. Then I will solicit a volunteer or two who are willing to offer up a real world example, which I will help to dispute.

I’ll provide a little vignette to provide background of an approach situation where someone chickened out due to approach anxiety:

I’m in the city square on a nice summer day. I’d like to approach some girls, for practice and to maybe make a connection that leads to a smash. I see a nice young lady sitting on some steps reading a book – it’s a tourist book about my city written in French. She is wearing shorts, has nice legs, and looks damn hot. I’m sitting near her now. I want to make a connection. I can ask her about the book. I can ask her if she is from France, how she likes my city, if she saw x, y or z, and all kinds of stuff. But I sit there and I feel anxious. I. Just. Can’t. Do. It. I sit there for 30 minutes trying to work up the courage. But I can’t. Eventually she gets up and walks away. My chance with her gone forever. When I get home, I examine why I “chickened out” from this approach.

So when I get home I dispute it using the REBT ABCDEF model (or Dusty’s version thereof). Here’s Dr. Edelstein demonstrating his version:

A (Activating event):

What happened in a sentence or two:

I was in the city Square and saw a girl I really wanted to approach, but I couldn’t work up the nerve to approach her.

Ok, that was pretty simple. Let’s move along to B (Beliefs) now. What Bs did you have that cause you to undermine you goals when A occurred? You have several Bs, so number them:

B (Beliefs):

B1: She might get really mad and say bad things to me.
B2: It will be so horrible if she rejects me.
B3: It’s better to not do anything and avoid discomfort than risk feeling bad if things go badly.
B4: I can’t approach her, I’m not worthy. She is too good for me.
B5: I might shock and jolt her.

Ok, I think we have enough of those. Next is C (the Consequences). What are the emotional and behavior consequences of your Bs?

C (Consequences):

Anxiety (emotion)
Avoid the approach (behavior)
Self-loathing (emotion)
Shame (emotion)

Next are your Ds (Disputes). This is where you start questioning your Bs. You might have more than one D per B. I will number the Ds to correspond to the Bs (e.g., I might have two Ds for B3, so I will number these Ds the same - D3 and D3). I’ll do a few here to get the ball rolling, but finish them up on the form on the next post.

D (Disputes):

D1: What is my evidence that she must not get mad and say bad things. Doesn’t she have the freedom to have emotions I don’t like and say whatever she wants? Isn’t there free speech?

D1: Is it possible I am exaggerating the probability and significance she might get mad and say bad things? Is it really horrible, like the holocaust, or is it something much less? Can I handle this little girl’s mean words?


Your disputes question if there is enough evidence for your beliefs, whether you are exaggerating, if you are looking at things pragmatically and if there are flaws in the logic of your beliefs. Disputes are usually phrased as a question.

Next is E (Effective new thinking). This is where you start brainstorming new and more rational and helpful ways of thinking about this situation. The next time you face a similar situation, you want to draw on these new helpful beliefs. At first you may not easily dial these up in the heat of the moment. But with persistence, practice, and repetition, these become embedded in you and become your default way of thinking. You will gradually acquire new philosophies at your core, based on these Es. I’ll do a few here to get the ball rolling, but finish them up on the form on the next post.

E (Effective new thinking):

I can’t predict how people will react to my approach, nor can I control their emotions. If they want to get mad at me they have that right, but it won’t stop me from taking chances and pursuing my goals.

My goals are way more important to me than avoiding the slimmest possibility that someone might get her feelings hurt for no apparent reason.


Finally we have F. My F is different than Ellis’ and Edelstein’s F. I think that unconditional self-acceptance (USA) is so important for getting good at game, it needs it’s own section of the form. I call my F, "Finding your USA." My F’s are E’s, but E’s that are specifically about unconditional-self acceptance.

F (Finding your USA):

I’m working on a personal philosophy that my worth as a human, if such a thing really exists, is internally based. No external person or condition can cause my value as a person to waiver.


Ok, let’s look at what we have now, put it on a form, then finish the D,E and Fs. But first, I want to clean up a few of the Bs. Often times we take shortcuts with our thinking, and leave out a few key words. Ellis calls these “hidden musts” and “hidden horrors.” You might have to do this a lot when you are new to REBT. So B1 has hidden musts and horrors:

B1: She might get really mad and say bad things to me.

This belief if taken literally would not invoke bad emotions. She might in fact say bad things. She might in fact get mad. It’s probably lower probability than you think, but it’s a possibility. Probably what you really mean is:

B1: She might get really mad and say bad things to me, as she must not, and if she did that would be horrible.

I would change B3 a bit too:

B3: It’s better to not do anything and avoid discomfort than risk feeling bad if things go badly, because things must always go how I want them and if they don’t it’s awful.

Finally, B5 can be changed to:

B5: I might shock and jolt her, and that would be awful. I must never shock anyone.

Ok, let’s put this in a form on the next post.

[Dusty]

Ok, this is what the complete form might look like. It's longer than a normal one, but for educational purposes, I'm throwing the kitchen sink in there:

A (Activating event):

I was in the city Square and saw a girl I really wanted to approach, but I couldn’t work up the nerve to approach her

B (Beliefs):

B1: She might get really mad and say bad things to me, as she must not, and if she did that would be horrible.
B2: It will be so horrible if she rejects me.
B3: It’s better to not do anything and avoid discomfort than risk feeling bad if things go badly, because things must always go how I want them and if they don’t it’s awful.
B4: I can’t approach her, I’m not worthy. She is too good for me.
B5: If she doesn’t like me, it will prove how worthless I am.

C (Consequences):

Anxiety (emotion)
Avoid the approach (behavior)
Self-loathing (emotion)
Shame (emotion)


D (Disputes):

D1: What is my evidence that she must not get mad and say bad things. Doesn’t she have the freedom to have emotions I don’t like and say whatever she wants? Isn’t there free speech?

D1: Is it possible I am exaggerating the probability and significance she might get mad and say bad things? Is it really horrible, like the holocaust, or something much less? Can I handle this little girl’s mean words?

D2: Why would it be horrible if she rejected me? Aren’t people rejected all the time? How can some of the best players out there do tons of approaches and brush off rejections if there was something intrinsically horrible about them? Is it possible the horror is all in my head?

D2: From a practical standpoint, does it help my goals to be over sensitive? Can I think about rejection in a less inflammatory way?

D3: Is it more important to avoid discomfort at all costs and thus give up on my goals by playing it safe, or to take risks and learn to tolerate discomfort?

D3: Is it really awful when things do not go my way, or merely an annoyance?

D3: What achievement and personal growth in life can be attainted while avoiding any and all discomfort?

D4: What is the evidentiary basis for believing that your worth is not sufficient to talk to this young lady, or any young lady?

D4: Is it possible to collect evidence by talking to girls to find out if the pretty ones sometimes will like to talk to me rather relying solely on non-evidentiary dogma?

D4: Again, is it not a free country? Where is it written that I am forbidden to talk to this girl? Is there a law of the universe that says I am only allowed to talk to homely women? Why put her on a pedestal when I don’t know anything about her?

D4: Say she doesn’t like me, would there be any great meaning attached to that?

D4: Just as she has a right to like me or not, don’t I have a right to try?

D5: What is the immutable law of the universe that says this girl’s, or any girl’s disapproval lowers my worth as a human? Is this a scientific concept, or am I pulling this out of my ass?

D5: Suppose I experiment and rebel against this belief and refuse to accept I am any less a human being because of any girl’s disapproval – do the laws of nature allow me to do this? Does everyone think they are worthless when they are disapproved?

E (Effective new thinking):

I can’t predict how people will react to my approach, nor can I control their emotions. If they want to get mad at me they have that right, but it won’t stop me from taking chances and pursuing my goals.

My goals are way more important to me than avoiding the slimmest possibility that someone might get her feelings hurt for no apparent reason.

Life doesn’t always have to be predictable and safe and free of all risks. I can handle any reaction she sends my way. Besides, maybe I am thinking too pessimistically. She might like my approach.

If the worst reaction I can imagine happens, not only am I able to handle it, but it will be over quick. How long does it take a girl to storm off in a huff, 10 seconds? I can handle 10 seconds of scrunched noses and huffing and puffing and some bad words.

A bad reaction will ultimately benefit me if I think about it the right way. Just like a boxer needs to learn to take a punch, a playa needs to learn to take them too. It will be a good test of my mental resiliency. Maybe I can practice a cocky smirk while keeping my emotions in check while she makes an ass of herself.

I would likely live a very restrictive, boring life if my chief concern is avoiding normal discomforts all the time. If I’m willing to put myself out there and tolerate discomfort that may come with taking risks and trying new behaviors, I can make a lot of progress in the realm of gaming girls.

Rejection just comes with the territory when cold approaching. It happens a lot. Accept it and don’t fear it. One cannot get very good with girls unless one learns to tolerate rejection.

Rejection is no big deal in the scheme of life. Don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill. If you get rejected this time, you probably won’t even remember it after a few weeks.

Rejection is not a horror, unless I erroneously think it is. Then it exists merely in my head as an exaggerated thought. Rejection cannot compare to true calamities like wars and disease. At most, rejection is unfortunate. Do not blow it up into a “horror.”

Thinking of rejection in a non-exaggerated and more accurate way (i.e., as “disappointing” and not as a “horror”) will help me to tolerate it better and brush it off more quickly. It will also help me to take more chances, if I think the worst outcome could be something merely “disappointing” rather than “horrible.”

Any girl I approach has the free will to like me or not like me. I might not be ecstatic when a girl doesn’t like me, but it is hardly the end of the world and she has that right and I accept that as being fair. It will be good for me to accept in a mature manner the simple fact of life that not everyone will like me.


F (Finding your USA):

Many guys who are skilled and fearless approachers do not believe that they become worthless when a girl disapproves of them. This is proof that my belief that I “must” feel worthless when I get rejected is not some universal immutable law of nature, and is more likely something I just made up in my head.

If I can declare myself worthless when I get disapproved based solely on declarations of my own making, why can’t I declare myself worthwhile instead? I’ll feel better and I will get better results if I choose to do this.

I’m working on a personal philosophy that my worth as a human, if such a thing really exists, is internally based. No external person or condition can cause my value as a person to waiver.

I can’t rebel against nature’s laws like gravity, but I can rebel against this belief that somehow a girl has the power to lower my worthiness as a human and thereby prove it’s not a law of nature, but merely something I constructed in my head.

[Dusty]

^^^^

So it's not like you do one of these, have an epiphany, and it's one and done. Like the first day or week of class, you still don't know a lot about the topic, but you have to start somewhere, and over the ensuing weeks you gain more and more knowledge. You have to do a lot of thinking, using the above as a tool to organize your thoughts, before you start giving up a lifetime of unhelpful, self-sabatoging irrational thoughts, and acquire rational and helpful new philosophies. How long? I guess everyone is different, but I would say a hard worker might expect profound results in weeks or maybe a few months. Some people might have deeper issues to deal with so no promises. This is not a substitution for therapy - some people probably need the help of a therapist.

Ultimately it has to be your words and your thinking process. I offer the above as an illustration only. These are words and thinking that work for Dusty - you will be different. You have to derive your own new philosophies.

If anyone wants to volunteer a real world example of how anxiety got the best of you when approaching girls, write a brief vignette of what happen, and your beliefs at the time. I'll take it from there with an example of how to straighten out your crooked thinking which caused your anxiety.

If I get no volunteers, I talked to a guy through PM who had some anxiety while approaching which he described in another thread. He said we can use his example here.

[Shamrock]

Just wanted to give a shout out to Dusty and his work and time in this thread. It led me back to Napoleon Hill, then to Ellis, then to Brent Smith. Don't really need anything else. I radically changed my life in 3 weeks. For anyone following along in this thread look up Brent Smith's "story creation" to put Ellis/Hill into practice rapidly and effectively

[breizh]

(12-22-2013 08:57 PM)Shamrock Wrote:  

Just wanted to give a shout out to Dusty and his work and time in this thread. It led me back to Napoleon Hill, then to Ellis, then to Brent Smith. Don't really need anything else. I radically changed my life in 3 weeks. For anyone following along in this thread look up Brent Smith's "story creation" to put Ellis/Hill into practice rapidly and effectively

What is the connection between Ellis and Napoleon Hill writings?

I don't see any as the thinking framework given by Ellis has nothing to do with autosuggestions.

[Shamrock]

Basically this...

REBT says that emotions do not arise as a result of repressed desires and needs, as Freud insisted, but directly from our thoughts, ideas, attitudes and beliefs. It is not the mysterious unconscious that matters most to our psychological health, but the most humdrum statements that we say to ourselves on a daily basis. Added up together, these represent our philosophy of life, one which can quite easily be altered if we are willing to change what we habitually say to ourselves.

[Dusty]

(12-20-2013 09:21 AM)FunctionalPsycho Wrote:  

Chapter 14!

Sorry this took so long. I heard all the shouts for the Chapter 14 encore when I was backstage, but I had a bunch of naked REBT groupies back there taking turns giving me blowies, so it took me a little while to put this together. I didn't want to disappoint any of the young lasses and deprive one from her turn.

Here is the encore:

Chapter 14 – Controlling Your Own Emotional Destiny


Ellis starts out this chapter defining another common irrational belief as thus:

Irrational Belief: The idea that you must be miserable when you have pressures and difficult experiences; and that you have little ability to control, and cannot change your disturbed feelings

Most of the pain you believe others “cause” you stems from you taking their criticisms and rejections too seriously. You believe you are unable to tolerate others disapproval and that hassles are awful.

In fact, you have unusual ability to control your emotional pain. It’s not easy, but it is mostly in your control. It’s far easier to make yourself miserable than to make yourself unmiserable, but the reward is worth the effort.

If you approach a girl and she calls you a “loser,” and you feel hurt, bear in mind this girl did not hurt you. You hurt yourself by saying to yourself “How terrible it is that she said that too me. She shouldn’t have said that! Maybe I am a loser?”

It wasn’t the girl’s words, but your belief about them that caused your hurt feelings. If you thought instead “This girl doesn’t even know me, how can her opinion be valid? Even if she did know me she is errantly over generalizing, because I do so some things well, so I don’t ‘lose’ at everything.“

When you say “I can’t stand it when things go wrong” you are defying reality. Because as you say that, you are in fact ‘standing it.’ Maybe not very well at the present time, but you are breathing and living and getting on with at least some of your life. You’re not ready for the straight jacket or the casket. You increase your misery and make coping more difficult by saying “I can’t stand it” but you are not dissolving due to your obnoxious conditions. It would better rather than whining and saying “I can’t stand this” to graciously acknowledge the poor conditions you are facing and work towards improving them.

The authors go on to talk about how some people are depressed and they don’t know why. They will say it is caused by something unconscious. Ellis and Harper say sure, occasionally we have deeply unconscious thoughts – thoughts we repress because we feel ashamed to look at them in the face. But they say, unlike what Freud says, these repressed thoughts can be brought to the conscious fairly easily and then dealt with using REBT techniques. You just have to dig for them. They gave an example of one of their patients who was depressed and couldn’t articulate why. Well with a little digging they found out he did not go out with his girlfriend (more like a FWB) that weekend like he normally did, and he suspected she might be out with another guy. Even though he was just using her for sex, with a little digging he realized he was depressed because she might have found someone “better” than him, making him “no good.” Then they used REBT to dispute his irrational thoughts.

Some tips the authors offer for controlling your emotions and moods:

1.When faced with a really tough situation that you can’t fix, accept it philosophically and try your best to distract or ignore the shitiness of it.
2.When faced with severe criticism, first question the motives of your critic to see how correct they are (e.g., I have a brother who has always been unfairly critical of me. It dawned on me recently that his motive is that he is envious of me. If I get too big for my britches, he has a need to cut me down to his level. Knowing that, I take his criticism with a grain of salt). Sometimes though, criticism, even though it stings, can help you if the person has a good point. I once had a boss tell me that when stressed or unsure, I show it on my face, and in business it is better to wear a poker face. I didn’t like hearing it at the time, but it was good advice and I adapted my behavior since then.
3.Always remember when you are feeling enraged or depressed or anxious, even in the midst of it, that it is your thinking that is causing your over heated emotions and you can cool them down with your thinking. Exaggerated thinking will get you exaggerated emotions. There are rarely true calamities or unmanageable and ever lasting crisis in life. Shit will work out somehow, even if the solution isn’t great, things will be ok again at some point.
4. You can better control compulsions like over drinking, smoking or over eating by considering both the pros and cons of it. People tend to think just about the pleasures of drinking and eating and smoking, and ignore the negatives. With REBT, they encourage people to consider both the cost and benefits of them. Similarly, when people think of quitting smoking or drinking or overeating, they think only about the pain and sacrifice. REBT encourages you not to ignore those tough things, but also give equal considerations to all the good things associated with quitting those things (no hangovers, lose weight, save money, smell better, etc).

Now if you'll excuse me, my groupies are calling me back stage.

[The Lizard of Oz]

Dusty,

You've done a fantastic job in this thread.

You've created a reference for anyone who wants to learn about the basic ideas and techniques of REBT.

As a result, there will be some guys who read this forum, both posters and lurkers, who will find it and realize they can use these simple but counter-intuitive ideas and techniques to live a better and more enjoyable life. You can't give someone a more precious gift than that.

+1 for you, and I hope others will do the same as they realize how valuable this thread is.

Good luck with your book as well -- I have no doubt that writing all this out was great practice for you that will come in handy.

[Dusty]

Thanks Lizard,

REBT can be truly transformative for game and your life in general. A lot people make that claim though a lot people make those types of claim about their favorite guru or system.

The difference with REBT is that's its been tested scientifically by leading medical schools and universities and found to be as or more effective than pharmaceuticals for alleviating depression and low self esteem and anxiety. But as we discussed, it probably had much greater potential for positive change than the studies suggest if you are motivated enough. Unlike pharmaceuticals where all you have to do is put a pill in your mouth and drink water, With rebt and cbt you can get better results with harder work.

My book title will be Inner Game: Conquering Aporoach Anxiety.

I'm setting up so it could be a series if I want to do another one. Eg, the next one could be called Inner Game: optimizing Your dating experience. Or something like that.

Maybe my 50th book will be Inner Game: tapping young nurses in the nursing home.

[FunctionalPsycho]

Excellent work man. You sure helped me a lot. Now there is a concrete foundation of reason and logic for self improvement and learning game. Very helpful for analytical people.