In 1956 Albert Ellis gave an important address at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. In this seminal address, he outlined twelve ideas that cause emotional disturbance and human misery. Until this time, Freud’s approach, and variants of orthodox Freudian theory, dominated psychotherapy. Ellis introduced a new paradigm that was to usher in what we now know as cognitive behavior therapy (CBT). This was a game changing address.
This email is the eighth of twelve successive Intermittent Reinforcement posts. In each of these posts, I will quote the twelve ideas identified by Ellis in his 1956 address, one at a time, and show how they are still relevant today and further discuss them. If these ideas are corrected, you are likely to experience a healthier emotional life.
Idea #8 – The idea that one should be thoroughly competent, adequate, intelligent, and achieving in all possible respects – instead of the idea that one should do rather than always try to do well and that one should accept oneself as a quite imperfect creature, who has general human limitations and specific fallibilities.
One key takeaway from this idea is that we hold ourselves back from achievement and undermine our well-being by demanding that we be thoroughly competent, adequate, intelligent, and achieving in all possible respects. Ellis here advocates we focus on what we are doing rather than focusing on how well we are doing it and what that means for our human worth.
REBT today encourages us to accept ourselves and others as fallible humans. This acceptance is based on no conditions. Ellis was a realist who pointed out the obvious. As imperfect creatures we have general human limitations and specific fallibilities. Humans learn a great deal from examining their performance and evaluating the execution of their behavior in the context of their goals. It is useful to note if our behavior achieved the intended goal. If we did not reach our goal, then it is prudent to focus on how we could have done things differently to increase future success. However, we tend to defeat ourselves by going beyond rating our doing and rating ourselves, the doer of the deed. The result of this rating of the doer is to experience anxiety before we perform the task and post-performance depression and shame after we have failed. After failing, humans tend to overgeneralize and think of themselves as failures. REBT teaches that it is never valid to rate a person as a failure because a person is composed of many, many parts in a state of change throughout one’s life span. Rating a person concentrates on a partial set of a person’s characteristics or their failed performance up to the present time. This rating illogically leads to the premature conclusion that the person is wholly inadequate or a failure as a person. This rating excludes all future doings the person will exhibit. It also excludes all future characteristics and traits which humans tend to develop as they self-actualize over their lifespan. All ratings of a person are incomplete and, therefore, all ratings of humans as people are invalid. Humans grow and change. Premature ratings of our personhood or essence is a denial of this aspect of our nature and inevitably leads to anxiety, shame, depression, and guilt. These feelings in REBT are considered unhealthy negative emotions, and along with self-defeating behavior, they define emotional disturbance.
Ellis taught that the human mind is inclined to think validly and invalidly. The human mind is inclined to think in a self-helping way and self-defeating way. That is our nature as imperfect creatures. REBT’s theory sees each of us as of “two minds,” if you will, by our very nature. One mind that helps us solve problems and a counterpart that undermines our goal to solve problems. Each of us is an imperfect creature. The sooner we come to terms with these two biological predispositions of our humanity, the healthier our emotional experience will be. Then we can focus on disciplining ourselves to strengthen the rational side and weaken the self-defeating side of our minds.
REBT is unique among cognitive therapies because of its emphasis on unconditional self-acceptance and human fallibility. Other psychotherapies try to enhance our rating of ourselves, also known as building a healthy sense of self-esteem. You have heard people who advocate that we had better teach children how to develop healthy self-esteem. REBT theory views self-esteem as an unhealthy idea. When we teach self-esteem, we are selecting subjective ways of defining human worth. According to REBT theory, the self-esteem therapeutic solution is a problem in and of itself. When we esteem ourselves for our intelligence, competence, good looks, athletic prowess, or any other desirable characteristic we are merely setting the stage to fall from our self-esteem pedestal into the pit of shame and depression. Kaboom!
Bottom line: REBT encourages you to strive to do well by not rating your essence or personhood. Doing so will enable you to take calculated risks and go outside your comfort zone. If you fail in your calculated risks, you will do so shamelessly. Evaluate what you do so you learn to do better in the future. Whether you do well or poorly, learn to accept yourself and others as imperfect creatures. Throw that self-esteem baby out with the bathwater!
Saturday Rational Emotive Behavioral Zoom Conversation hour 9 AM Eastern, 2 PM GMT, 2 PM UTC:
If you enjoyed and profited from this piece, you may also wish to attend my Saturday Zoom Conversation hour. This Zoom meeting is an opportunity to observe me discuss implementing these philosophical ideas with a volunteer who elects to share a real problem. These Saturday Zoom Conversation hours are free of charge to attend. You can select to volunteer to discuss a problem with me, or you may choose to merely witness the conversation I have with someone else and then submit any questions you have about Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Go here to learn how to receive the Zoom Invitation:
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