Sublime

Ellis believed that what others thought of as deep neurotic conflict was simply bad thinking—“stupid behavior on the part of nonstupid people,” he called it—and in a loud, propagandistic way (he called himself a counterpropagandist) he would demand that his patients stop thinking wrong and start thinking right.

The core of the theory was that maladaptive thoughts lead to maladaptive emotions, which in turn drive abnormal behavior.

Therapy is an invention devised to correct the substantial difficulties we face understanding ourselves, trusting others, communicating successfully, honouring our potential and feeling adequately serene, confident, authentic, direct and unashamed.

In the 1950s, an American psychoanalytic therapist severed his Freudian roots and turned to the Stoics to form a radically new form of therapy. Rather than plumbing the depths of the content of a problem and exploring how a stumbling block might relate to, say, one’s early psychosexual development, Albert Ellis argued that we should look at whateve

Therapy builds on the idea of a return to live feelings. It’s only when we’re properly in touch with our feelings that we can correct them with the help of our more mature faculties – and thereby address the real troubles of our adult lives.