Pretty much ever since I’ve started going back to school, I’ve been watching out for dragons. I know from past experience that I am most vulnerable to get into unhealthy relationships when I am getting back onto my path – and going back to school is a major, major readjustment of my life back onto my path. And still, they sneak up on me. Early last semester, I noticed their whisper and saw a counselor. It turned out that they snuck in via anxiety. Anxiety about breaking the rules (I shouldn’t give up a career with a great income) and … Continue reading »
In order to do more dragon taming, I am reading Windy Dryden’s book How to Accept Yourself, which is based on Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). He argues against self-esteem and suggests instead to work toward Unconditional Self-Acceptance (USA). Dryden presents eleven principles of USA and suggests to copy those. So, I thought I’d share them. He gives more details on each principle in the book. As a human being you cannot legitimately be given a single rating, but parts of you can be rated, as can what happens to you. As a human being your essence is that you … Continue reading »
Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting my pet dragons. It was a mixed pleasure, of course. Realizing what thoughts perpetuate my internalized singlism was somewhat frustrating (I thought I was over these!) but it was also good to see them clearly. After all, unidentified dragons are difficult to tame. “Dragons” are self-defeating thoughts that come up over and over again as repeating themes, sometimes with variations but usually easily identifiable on close inspection. Calling these thoughts dragons helps create enough distance to analyze them more carefully (although as Timothy Wilson points out that might be an uphill battle).
May 042008
In the United States, we almost seem obsessed with finding happiness, which is rather ironic because “it is not something to be sought or pursued, but a result of how we live” (Richard Eckersley. Well & Good. 104). From early on, we are taught that we will find happiness once we’ve found our soul mate. We’ll “live happily ever after.” What gets lost in this matrimania myth is teaching on how we can create a life that invites happiness without demanding that someone else be responsible for it. Eckersley gives us some hints based on his review of what the … Continue reading »
Jan 272008
Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) and its cousin, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) have been researched quite a bit. A REBT counselor and researcher in Britain, Jim Byrne, offers this research summary. Of particular interest are his “Summary Notes On REBT Research” in Section 6 (there are no links to the sections…). The most recent meta-analysis that Byrne cites, published in 2005, concludes: A balanced approach, analyzing both the strengths and weakness, suggest that REBT has hundreds of research articles and that high-quality studies tend to support REBT’s basic theory and efficacy.
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