Anti-Freud Albert Ellis

http://www.villagevoice.com/people/0534,interview,67068,24.html

When did you decide that Freudian analysis was a waste of time?

Freud was full of horseshit. He invented people's problems and what to do about them. Tell me one thing about the past. I'll prove it's not what upset you. It's how you philosophized about it that made you disturbed.

If Freud is horseshit, why are so many people still spending hours on the couch, talking about their dreams?

Because people are crazy and stupid! And especially psychologists and therapists are stupid! That's the main reason.


Albert Ellis, in his Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) identified eleven dysfunctional beliefs that people often hold.

Irrational beliefs

1. It is a dire necessity for adult humans to be loved or approved by virtually every significant other person in their community.
2. One absolutely must be competent, adequate and achieving in all important respects or else one is an inadequate, worthless person.
3. People absolutely must act considerately and fairly and they are damnable villains if they do not. They are their bad acts.
4. It is awful and terrible when things are not the way one would very much like them to be.
5. Emotional disturbance is mainly externally caused and people have little or no ability to increase or decrease their dysfunctional feelings and behaviors.
6. If something is or may be dangerous or fearsome, then one should be constantly and excessively concerned about it and should keep dwelling on the possibility of it occurring.
7. One cannot and must not face life's responsibilities and difficulties and it is easier to avoid them.
8. One must be quite dependent on others and need them and you cannot mainly run one's own life.
9. One's past history is an all-important determiner of one's present behavior and because something once strongly affected one's life, it should indefinitely have a similar effect.
10. Other people's disturbances are horrible and one must feel upset about them.
11. There is invariably a right, precise and perfect solution to human problems and it is awful if this perfect solution is not found.