I have selected nine of Albert Ellis' fallacies to kick-start
you on a re-evaluation of your personal attitudes and
beliefs. I am very fond of Indian Numerology so I tend to
round everything off in groups of nine.
I can suggest what others and myself have found helpful to
do with these concepts:
|
Exercise
One: Read over all nine of them every night
before going to bed and select one to think about as
you are falling asleep. This is not a good idea if
you are going to get upset over a particular fallacy
and induce insomnia.
|
|
Exercise
Two: Write one 'fallacy' in your personal dairy
every day and contemplate it throughout the day. See
if you can catch yourself indulging in that
particular false belief during the day.
|
|
Exercise
Three: Every time you realise you are reacting
emotionally based on one of the fallacies
rationalise it out of your head by reading the part
of this article dealing with it and actually state
to your self "I don't have to go on acting
as if this attitude or belief is important and
true."
|
|
Exercise
Four: Photocopy this article and cut out each
fallacy with my commentary and take a different one
with you each day to take out of your purse or
wallet to study at odd moments.
|
|
Exercise
Five: Cut out particular fallacies you need to
work on and sticky tape them on your bedroom or
bathroom mirror - or even the kitchen cupboard in a
prominent place. This will remind you to think about
and reject the fallacy.
|
|
Exercise
Six: This is a graduation technique to really
become familiar with the nine fallacies (for those
that like the Kabala, you can consider there are 10
- "a closely associated fallacy" could make the
10th). |
You can play a psychological version of pick-up sticks,
solitaire or in company, by carefully photo-copying the
article and cutting up the pages in such a way that Ellis'
Fallacies (the one's in quotes) are separated from my
commentaries.
You then shuffle the 18 or 20 pieces of paper up in a large
mixing bowel and pluck one piece of paper out.
If you pluck out a fallacy try and write a commentary to it
based upon your personal experience. Conversely if you pluck
out a commentary try to write about or discuss the fallacy
associated with it.
Taking these exercises seriously will improve the calibre of
your psychological life significantly and I must emphasise
that I have seen quite a few hundred patients benefit from
these concepts and I have personally found them very
helpful.
When these principles of Rational Thinking are applied we
can solve the conundrum :
Are we in the prison or is the prison in us?
Albert Ellis PhD, is the Executive Director of the Institute
for Rational-Emotive Therapy in New York. He has authored or
edited over 50 books including "Sex without Guilt", "Reason
and Emotion in Psychotherapy" and "How to stubbornly Refuse
to make yourself Miserable about anything, Yes anything!" |