If you read this intro before…skip to the blue below.
I had this idea in my head. Maybe put three pictures up in my office, each representing something important about what I do. Counseling reminder. A touchstone for the eye of sorts. Well, like I said, it was in my head and as I realized one of the three pictures I wasn’t going to be able to get, and the others were certainly copyrighted, the three sort of evolved as I looked for alternatives. So in looking for a different way to go, in my head, we went from three reminders to 96 reminders. It’s why my wife refers to what comes out of my noggin as ‘cumbersome’ on occasion.
So. I am mostly a counselor, but I have also studied and practiced a bunch of other things including cuisine and photography. I always wanted to have an idea why some folks in every field are wildly successful compared to many of their contemporaries, so I always checked a bunch of them out. So, here come 96 people and quotes attributed to them, if there are any – 24 chefs, 24 photographers, 20 people associated with psychology directly, and then 28 none of the above people whose lives or words remind me what to strive towards as a counselor, a counseling business owner, and a general human being. The only problem was stopping. There have been a lot of people who for one reason or another inspire me, lots more names on the potential list but it had to at least pause somewhere, so here we are.
I don’t rightly know if writing these out and posting them will be of any use to anyone else but I’m reasonably sure codifying the whole thing will drive it home for me and hopefully offer some encouragement and centering for our folks. Hope you get something out of one or two of them too.
Albert Ellis
Albert Ellis is one of the many defectors from the Freudian camp, who for me (like Erikson) moved on to something that made much more sense and has proven much more useful. While everyone else was off picking which part of humans to focus on, Albert may have been more thought (cognitive) directed but appeared to do so without discarding the others like emotions. I think we ignore significant parts of who we are and why we do at our own peril, especially in times of struggle. Albert also spoke a fair bit about managing a sense of balance in expectations and judgements, which I often find myself annoying people about. Albert is another reminder that we may not be able to change all of our circumstances but we can always change our understanding of, experience with, and response to them. It seems he also had a bit of a twisted sense of humor (Shoulding/Musterbator) which helps me rationalize my own bits of twist.
“I thought foolishly that Freudian psychoanalysis was deeper and more intensive than other, more directive forms of therapy, so I was trained in it and practiced it. Then I found that it intensively went into every irrelevancy under the sun – and that it didn’t work. People got insights into what was bothering them, but they hardly did a damn thing to change.”
Albert Ellis
“The trouble with most therapy is that it helps you feel better. But you don’t get better. You have to back it up with action, action, action.”
Albert Ellis
“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”
Albert Ellis
“Reality is not so much what happens to us; rather, it is how we think about those events that create the reality we experience. In a very real sense, this means that we each create the reality in which we live.”
Albert Ellis
“There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.”
Albert Ellis
“Stop shoulding on yourself.”
Albert Ellis
“By honestly acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit.”
Albert Ellis
“Convince yourself that worrying about many situations will make them worse rather than improve them.”
Albert Ellis
“People are terrified of other people or difficult projects because they tell themselves that they could fail or be rejected. Failure can lead to sorrow, regret, frustration and annoyance – all healthy, negative feelings without which people couldn’t exist. But then they add, “I absolutely must succeed and must be loved by significant persons, and if I don’t, it’s terrible and I’m no good.” Those are irrational beliefs. As long as people keep them, they’ll be terrified of life and will put themselves down when they get rejected.”
Albert Ellis
“Thinking rationally is often different from “positive thinking,” in that it is a realistic assessment of the situation, with a view towards rectifying the problem if possible.”
Albert Ellis
“Even injustice has it’s good points. It gives me the challenge of being as happy as I can in an unfair world.”
Albert Ellis
Al reminds me that just cause I tend to be a pretty cognitive guy…I can’t ignore or even discount the many facets of what makes us people and every bit of it can be leveraged for people to make desired changes in their lives. We all stink, in our own ways, and we wouldn’t be human were that not true. There’s a balance in accepting the fact and working to get better where we can or care, but so many of us struggle to accept and instead torture ourselves over our very nature. I say Booo! And lastly, I always need to be evaluating my core tenets as a counselor, and how helpful they are to folks. Nothing has ever turned out to be as good as promised. Just because it was useful once long ago doesn’t mean it’s going to work now. I want to wield the best for the folks who count on me.
Oh, I also steal his A-B-C model of constructive coping on the regular…somehow the letters help it make sense to folks.