When I first moved to New York City in 1968, after graduating from the University of Michigan, I was alone. Unless I could find a teaching job I was going to be drafted into the Vietnam War. It didn’t take me long to realize I was becoming depressed and anxious.
Having been a psychology major, I knew psychotherapy could help, but I could not afford it. In college I had admired the work of Psychologist Albert Ellis, and his development of Rational Emotive Therapy. I checked out his Institute For Rational Living, and found out that every Friday night Ellis demonstrated his therapy on volunteers in front of a live audience. I was so impressed by Ellis’ work that I joined one of his Saturday therapy groups.
I have to say I was transformed by the experience. I learned that it was not any specific situation that made a person anxious, but how the person interpreted that situation. I realized that rather than focusing on the sunny side of life, I had been taught to be very cautious and pessimistic about life. The experience of therapy was a key element in my decision to go to graduate school in psychology at Harvard.
Today, almost 50 years later, I still practice Rational Emotive Therapy (today this is known as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy). It’s a method to teach people to recognize faulty, irrational thinking and to replace it with a more rational, cognitively based approach to life. It is been the cornerstone of my personal approach to life, and it has become my professional core methodology. I utilize it with all of my coaching and clinical clients.
So what are some of the core concepts of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that you can use in your daily life?
- Recognize when you are making yourself upset my clinging to irrational and faulty thinking.
- Strive to understand HOW others are thinking about situations before you judge them.
- When you are troubled, get past any stigma that you have that therapy is a sign of weakness. Rather, reinterpret your thinking to see therapy as a sign of strength and courage.
- Recognize that there are three musts that hold us back
- I must do well
- You must treat me well
- The world must be easy and fair
- Stop ‘shoulding’ on yourself (e.g. telling yourself you should be loved and approved of by everyone for everything you do).
Today there are online approaches to help people manage their anxiety and depression. Here is an excellent article from The Atlantic describing these services:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/05/the-startup-that-wants-to-end-social-anxiety/392900/
Dr. Rob