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How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything - Yes, Anything!

By: Albert Ellis Ph.D., Kristene A. Doyle - foreword
Narrated by: Tom Parks
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Publisher's summary

Repackaged with a stunning new cover and an insightful new foreword, this book is one of six Dr. Albert Ellis "How To" titles to be reissued by Citadel in 2016-2017. Widely recognized as a pioneer of 20th century psychotherapy, Albert Ellis's works have stood the test of time, and continue to serve as the cornerstone of the Albert Ellis Institute, which has centers in 6 American cities and 20 countries abroad. This acclaimed self-help classic has already helped thousands of readers/listeners to better their lives with the techniques and practices Dr. Ellis developed.

CLASSIC SELF-HELP FROM A RESPECTED PIONEER OF PSYCHOTHERAPY

All of us worry about something, big or small, every day. But much of the emotional misery we feel is an overreaction, and it can be significantly reduced, using the techniques you'll find in this landmark book.

World renowned therapist Dr. Albert Ellis, who created Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), believed that anger, anxiety, and depression are not only unnecessary, they're unethical, because when we allow ourselves to become emotionally upset, we're being unfair and unjust to ourselves. Thinking negative thoughts is a choice we can refuse to make. Applying the proven, time-tested principles of REBT is a simple, logical way to find true mental health and happiness.

REBT acknowledges the power of emotions, but it also helps us understand which feelings are healthy and which are not. This classic book teaches you how to:

  • Retrain your brain to focus on the positive aspects of your life and face each obstacle without unnecessary despair
  • Control your emotional destiny
  • Refuse to upset yourself about upsetting yourself
  • Solve practical problems as well as emotional problems
  • Conquer the tyranny of "shoulds"
  • ...and much more, providing all the tools you need to take back your life - and your happiness.

If you can refuse to make yourself miserable, you're that much closer to making yourself happy - every day.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©1988, 2006 Albert Ellis Institute (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. Foreword © 2016 Albert Ellis Institute. Lyrics by Albert Ellis, © by Albert Ellis Institute.
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What listeners say about How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything - Yes, Anything!

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Secondary thoughts and feelings about primary thoughts and feelings

People upset themselves by their secondary thoughts and feelings about their primary thoughts and feelings. For example, irrational generalizations and judgmental requirements for life events create anxiety and stress. Rational views of these events eliminate unnecessary stress and anxiety. The concepts about judgements and feelings about life events are powerful and useful.
However, the book reads like one long footnote or symptom list. It should be edited.
A worthwhile read because the concepts are so psychologically useful in life.

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8 people found this helpful

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One of the best books I've ever read (or heard)

Ellis's approach is clear, concise and direct. He'll help you unravel the software (thoughts and beliefs) in your mind that you might not even be aware of, that can turn every day events into virtual catastrophes in your mind. Afraid of public speaking? Easily hurt by your spouse? Hate job interviews? These are just a few of the examples he gives from real-life while teaching us how to unconditionally love, care for and mend our brains.

Having read other reviews, I want to address a couple negative comments I've seen.

* Ellis is not arrogant, but having been a founding expert in this field for > 50 years by the time this book was released, he certainly has a confidence. He talks about our thoughts (yours, mine, his) almost as 3rd party things, because they really are, but it seems some hear this as condescending. It's not; it's the opposite, as it is acknowledging that our thoughts are something we "do" or "own," but are distinctly NOT "what we are."

* In one appendix, Ellis lists many of the most common human irrationalities from several perspectives: individually, culturally, organizationally, etc. A few of these deal with belief in gods, belief there are NO gods, etc, and while he's right about the irrationality of it all, don't let it turn you off if you happen to be a person of faith or anti-faith; he's just being clear, but at no point does he denigrate such people, and instead admits that none of us--not one--will ever be completely rational, and personally, I think that's a good thing.

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Insightful and useful

I loved listening (and re-listening) to Albert Ellis's advice and meaningful arguments for a more balanced, rational living. The book is helpful only to the extent one actually puts in practice what Ellis is saying.

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Treat yourself and others with forgiveness and kindness

Solid principles for life. unconditional self acceptance, unconditional life acceptance, unconditional other acceptance, we are all fallible, and needlessly upset ourselves throughout should ought or must thoughts. if we can have high preferences and word towards what we want while having patience with ourselves and others we can be much happier.

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The best of the best!

This is one of the best books you can get if you are interested in REBT. You will find here all the key principles, methods and techniques that make Albert Ellis' work so important.

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Dig deep into REBT

It was good and the book gave lots of examples to use REBT. There is a part closer to the end of the book in which the narrator is just reading a long list which was difficult to use and process in audible format. I went and bought the book to help me navigate places I wanted to really focus on. Also as I read this before learning CBT it helped me understand CBT a lot more.

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life changer

Best book for (self)-psychoanalysis. And one of the best books of positive psychology even before the name even existed

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Another Remarkable Book by Albert Ellis

Wow, wow, wow... I usually need three books to work with when I am learning a new computer skill. I think it has to do with picking up pieces of the same information expressed in slightly different ways helping me to understand the new skill.

Ellis’s books are like that only for learning how to overcome our “nutty” thinking that diminish the quality of our lives.

This is not a book to make you better by understanding something. Instead, to get better the reader must work hard, probably for life, using the ideas and methods presented. But, even though getting better will probably require a lifetime of maintenance. This is still a way to improve the quality of life and actually get better.

I don’t know, I remember from reading these books that they are good. They do have a lot of the same content. But right now I like this one the best.

Odd thing about this audio version is it has over an hour-and-a-half of appendices that are not in my print copy. I looked because one contains a lot of lists and I wanted to see where it was going.

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Great Book on self help

This is very useful book in psychology which could be used to overcome our emotional distress and make life happier as much as possibl.

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Refreshing

Be very careful. Dr. Ellis wrote so clearly and freshly that one may be tempted to skim parts of this book. Read this book several times because it is so crammed with common sense answers to some of the most baffling frustrations of life it could be easy to think "I already know this stuff it's common sense". That's where Dr. Ellis excels making very sophisticated understanding of the human predicament and to just plain common sense.

This book addresses maladies of people with only moderate issues but shouldn't be used for highly disordered people because they wouldn't have the ability in most cases or the motivation to be as disciplined as required by Dr. Ellis.

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