Mark Plus on Albert Ellis

[+] Since Mark isn't alphabetizing his blog posts, I'll demonstrate to him, as I have Maxim, how his blog can easily accomodate alphabetical order. Harris dismisses alphabetical order and expressed a preference for numerical order. To find Marks' post about Albert Ellis, merely scroll down to the alpha list here where you find Mark Plus-- Albert Ellis support.

London vs. Lyndon (1)
Marce Johnson 07-25-07-- no update. (1)
Mark Plus-- Albert Ellis (1)
Mark Plus-- How did you find Dvorsky's peiece on Jones? (1)
Mark Plus-- Peak Oil-- $77 pbarrel (1)
Maxim alpha-attack blog (1)
Maxim etc. (1)
Maxim-- comments section ope

As far as Albert Ellis and RET goes, I tried it and it didn't work for me. It's based on "behaviorism" which doesn't work for me. Behaviorism dismisses the idea of the mind and focuses on the outward behavior. Mark writes

"Psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck had developed a similar system, apparently independently, around the same time, so something in the 1950's American Zeitgeist made must have contributed to the success of these ideas, perhaps because American culture emphasizes action and practical results over introspection and suffering. The combination of disputing of irrational beliefs with the principles discovered in the early 20th Century about behavior modification gave psychotherapists a slightly less blunt instrument for alleviating human emotional disturbances".

No amount of self-talk-- in this case "disputing irrational beliefs" within one's self-- can alleviate human emotional disturbance because the self-talk is imposed from the top side-- whereas the irrational beliefs seem to well up from the subconcious. Certainly one can talk to one's self-- and talk one's self down out of things that make little sense, however the continual internal dialogue has to take into account more than what RET deals with. What RET does do well is provide a way for fascist dictatorships to impose their order on society by having people behave in a way consistent with that order so that it lowers the costs of societal control. It's a great potential tool for that. The life of the mind is more complicated than what "disputing irrational beliefs" can deal with.

As an alternative to RET, i suggest cryonicists look at brainwave therapy using isochronic tones. Especially Harris, since he made the rude remark inferring that I'm mentally ill... just because I push alphabetically ordered blogs. I would say the LACK of an alphabetically ordered blog is a sign of mental disturbance. That would be my starting point. How's that for "irrantional beliefs"? I think Ellis lacked a sense of humor. Sometimes it TAKES irrational brainstorming to work through paradoxes. My old Ellis books are stored in a box labelled 1985 and I haven't touched them since then.