The most well-known and highly respected psychotherapist of our time responds to reader questions submitted to the Ask Dr. Ellis website. The answers present the most concise, reader-friendly description yet of the author's Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) method. Fifty years of psychotherapy experience and wisdom are distilled in this practical guide for the rest of us. Healthy thinking, healthy emotions, and healthy behavior are explained, with detailed examples and procedures for building lasting emotional well-being."

Learn to stop letting people and situations upset you and start enjoying life in this classic self-help book by a respected pioneer of psychotherapy. Life can get tough. From unemployment—or overwork—to divorce or remarriage, the challenges of newly blended families, not to mention everyday hassles, stress can feel non-stop. To top it off, technology confronts us with a barrage of seemingly urgent tasks 24/7. It’s no wonder things and people can make you lose your cool. In this landmark book you’ll find a very specific, powerful skill set designed to help you keep any scenario from pushing your buttons—and it works. Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), created by world-renowned therapist Dr. Albert Ellis, provides you with realistic, simple, proven techniques that will significantly reduce your stress levels and help you react effectively, whether the circumstances are professional or personal. Discover: • Ten beliefs we use to let people and situations needlessly push our buttons • A powerful alternative to the kind of thinking that upsets us • The Fatal Foursome—feelings that sabotage you • How to change your irrational thinking using four key steps Whether you’re dealing with colleagues, parents, kids, friends, or lovers, How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons will show you how to enjoy an active, vibrant, successful life. “No individual—not even Freud himself—has had a greater impact on modern psychotherapy.” —Psychology Today Praise for How to Keep People From Pushing Your Buttons “Don’t get mad or get even—get placid using these techniques for defusing difficult situations.” —Booklist

The most well-known and respected psychotherapist of our time offers a "three-pronged" system for maintaining--or regaining--emotional health, consisting of healthy thinking, healthy emotions, and healthy behavior.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1 How Far Can You Go with Self-Analysis? 2 You Feel As You Think. 3 Feeling Well by Thinking Straight. 4 What Your Feelings Really Are. 5 Thinking Yourself Out of Emotional Disturbances. 6 Recognizing and Attacking Neurotic Behavior. 7 Overcoming the Influences of the Past. 8 How Reasonable is Reason? 9 The Art of Never Being Desperately Unhappy. 10 Tackling Dire needs for Approval. 11 Eradicating Dire Fears of Failure. 12 How to Stop Blaming and Start Living. 13 How to Be Happy Though Frustrated. 14 Controlling Your Own Destiny. 15 Counquering Anxiety. 16 Acquiring Self-Discipline. 17 Rewriting Your Personal History. 18 Accepting Reality. 19 Overcoming Inertia and Becoming Creatively Absorbed. 20 Living Rationally in an Irrational World.

Learn to manage your anxiety with this classic self-help book from a respected pioneer of psychotherapy. From social anxiety to phobias to post-traumatic stress disorder, sources of anxiety in daily life are numerous, and can have a powerful impact on your future. By following the rules of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), created by world renowned therapist Dr. Albert Ellis, you can stop anxiety in its tracks if you will admit this important fact: Things and people do not make you anxious. You do. Your unrealistic expectations produce your needless anxiety. Yet not all anxiety is needless . . . Healthy anxiety can ward off dangers and make you aware of negative things that you can change. Unhealthy anxiety inhibits you from enjoying everyday activities and relationships, causes you to perform poorly, and blocks your creativity. Using the easy-to-master, proven precepts of REBT, this classic book not only helps you distinguish between healthy and unhealthy anxiety, but teaches you how to: • Understand and dispute the irrational beliefs that make you anxious • Use a variety of exercises, including rational coping self-statements, reframing, problem-solving methods, and Unconditional Self-Acceptance (USA), to control your anxiety • Apply over two hundred maxims to control your anxious thinking as well as your bodily reactions to anxiety . . . and much more, including examples from dozens of cases Dr. Ellis treated successfully. Now you can overcome the crippling effects of anxiety—and increase your prospects for success, pleasure, and happiness at home and in the workplace. “No individual—not even Freud himself—has had a greater impact on modern psychotherapy.” —Psychology Today

With a new foreword by Raymond DiGiuseppe, PhD, ScD, St. John's University "Albert Ellis has written many books on his favorite topic Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Although he writes on that topic very well, he often does not write about generic psychotherapy. REBT is an integrative form of psychotherapy. Following this model, psychotherapists can incorporate many diverse techniques and strategies to change clients' dysfunctional behaviors and emotions . Much of what Al identifies as good REBT in this book is just good psychotherapy. Because people so universally identify Al with REBT, people may generally overlook his wisdom as a clinician. Having worked with Al for more than thirty years, I have been fortunate enough to learn from him. Much of the knowledge I learned from Al and cherish the most is not necessarily about REBT theory. They concern wise ways of thinking about clinical problems. That is why, out of all Al's books, this is my favorite. This is Al Ellis, the clinician." -- From the Foreword by Raymond DiGiuseppe, PhD, ScD, Director of Professional Education, Albert Ellis Institute; Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, St. John's University Now available in an affordable paperback, this edition takes a look at the underlying causes of resisting cognitive-emotional-behavioral change and the methods used to overcome them. Written in present-action language, Ellis gives an overview of the basic principles of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Ellis charts the changes in the field that have taken place in the 20 years leading up to 2002, when this edition was originally published. The book also integrates recent therapies into REBT, including psychotherapy, solution-focused therapy, and recent findings of experimental psychology.

"... Dozens of real-life case examples, detailed descriptions of self-help action steps ... [to help] overcome anxiety, depression, rage, self-hate, or self pity ... "--Cover.