How to Control Your Anxiety Before It Controls You

Albert Ellis

Citadel Press, 2000 - Psychology - 243 pages

Anxiety is in many ways a blessing, warding off dangers, preserving life, and making you aware of obnoxious things that you can change -- when it is healthy anxiety, that is, involving feelings of concern, caution, and vigilance. Unhealthy anxiety, however, leads to paralyzing panic, obsessive worry, and phobias that prevent you from doing things that you conceive of as dangerous but are not. Unhealthy anxiety inhibits everyday activities and relationships.

How to Control Your Anxiety Before It Controls You provides you with scores of thinking, feeling, and action methods for controlling anxiety. It describes many real cases of anxiety, including those that deal with performance anxiety, as well as social, job hunting, love, sex, and other forms of anxiety. The book includes over 200 rational maxims for decreasing anxiety and increasing prospects for success and happiness at home and in the workplace.

Contents

• Why I Am Convinced That You Can Control Your Anxiety Before It Controls You: 1
• What Anxiety Is and How It Often Controls You: 13
• Luckily Most of Your Anxiety Is SelfCreated and Can Be Uncreated: 23
• Irrational Beliefs That Make You Anxious: 32
• Disputing Your AnxietyCreating Irrational Beliefs: 46
• Using Rational Coping SelfStatements: 61
• Using Positive Visualization and Modeling: 66
• Using CostBenefit Analysis to Control Your Anxiety: 69
• Using Educational Methods to Control Your Anxiety: 72
• Using Relaxation and Cognitive Distraction Methods: 75
• Using Reframing Methods: 77
• Using ProblemSolving Methods to Control Your Anxiety: 80
• Using Unconditional SelfAcceptance USA: 83
• Using Unconditional Acceptance of Others to Control Your Anxiety: 94
• Using Rational Emotive Imagery: 107
• Using ShameAttacking Exercises to Control Your Anxiety: 112
• Some Forceful and Dramatic Methods of Controlling Your Anxiety: 122
• Firmly Convincing Yourself of Your Rational and SelfHelping Beliefs: 133
• Using a Sense of Humor to Control Your Anxiety: 139
• Using Exposure and Behavioral Desensitization: 149
• Tolerating and Staying in AnxietyProvoking Situations: 159
• Using Reinforcement Methods to Control Your Anxiety: 164
• Using Penalties to Control Your Anxiety: 170
• Using the Method of Fixed Roleplaying to Control Your Anxiety: 173
• What About Biology and the Use of Medications?: 177
• A Remarkably Efficient Way to Control Your Anxiety Before It Controls You: 181
• 104 Rational Maxims to Control My Anxious Thinking: 189
• 62 Rational Maxims to Control My Anxious Feelings and My Bodily Reactions to Anxiety: 206
• 65 Rational Maxims To Help Me Act Against My Discomfort Anxiety and My Irrational Fears: 217
• Selected References: 226
• Index: 237

Popular passages

Page 230 - Secaucus, NJ: Lyle Stuart. Ellis, A. (1990) Is rational-emotive therapy (RET) 'rationalist' or 'constructivist'? In A. Ellis and W. Dryden, The Essential Albert Ellis (pp. 1 14-41). New York: Springer. Ellis, A.‎

About the author

Albert Ellis was a clinical psychologist and a marriage counselor. He was born on September 27, 1913 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ellis originated the rational-emotive therapy movement, which ignores Freudian theories and advocates the belief that emotions come from conscious thought "as well as internalized ideas of which the individual may be unaware." At first, Ellis' books on marital romance and sexuality were criticized by some as being radical and sensational; however, few realized that Ellis was merely laying the groundwork for modern sex education. Ellis was educated at the City College of New York Downtown and at Columbia University, where he received a Ph.D. in psychology in 1943. He taught for a number of years at Rutgers University, New Jersey, and the Union Graduate School. He was executive director of the Institute for Rational Living, Inc., in New York City. Ellis was the author of Sex and the Liberated Man, Sex Without Guilt, and Sex Without Guilt in the Twenty-First Century. Despite his health issues, Ellis never stopped working with the assistance of his wife, Australian psychologist Debbie Joffe Ellis. In April 2006, Ellis was hospitalized with pneumonia, and had to stay in either the hospital or the rehabilitation facility. He eventually returned to his home --- the top floor of the Albert Ellis Institute. He died there on July 24, 2007 in his wife's arms. Ellis had authored and co-authored more than 80 books and 1200 articles during his lifetime. He was 93 when he died.

Bibliographic information

• Title: How to Control Your Anxiety Before It Controls You
• Author: Albert Ellis
• Publisher: Citadel Press, 2000
• ISBN: 0806521368, 9780806521367
• Length: 243 pages
• Subjects: Psychology / Emotions; Psychology / Interpersonal Relations; Psychology / Psychopathology / Anxieties & Phobias; Self-Help / Mood Disorders / General; Self-Help / Self-Management / Stress Management