Albert Ellis – David Mills Overcoming Self-Esteem: Why Your Pursuit of Self-Esteem Does More Harm than Good

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Albert Ellis – David Mills Overcoming Self-Esteem: Why Your Pursuit of Self-Esteem Does More Harm than Good

Have you wasted time and money on popular self-esteem therapies that either didn’t work at all or quickly let you down after an initial short-term benefit? Why are the positive-self-image gurus — along with their DVD courses and books — so in-demand yet so universally unhelpful? Who or what is to blame for this undeniable failure of the psychology self-help market? More importantly, is there anything that will genuinely help you if you suffer self-image issues?
First published in 1991 by the world-renowned Albert Ellis Institute, the printed version of this audio book became an instant bestseller and is used throughout the English-speaking world by psychotherapists and their clients. For the first time, this identical material is now available here to the general public in digital audio, read by the author, David Mills. Before his death in 2007, Dr. Ellis himself wrote a special Afterword to Mills’ work, explaining how it may be used to treat even serious emotional disorders.
The message of this audio book is not merely “outside the box.” Mills asserts that the pursuit of self-esteem is itself “a box” which causes the very anxieties and inhibitions that it claims to remedy. Truly unique in thought, David Mills argues that self-esteem and self-condemnation are not opposites, but are in fact “twin incarnations of the same underlying philosophy: that one must appraise himself in relation to his achievements.” Mills calls, not for another futile attempt to tweak one’s self-image, but for the elimination of one’s self-image altogether, both positive and negative.
The result? Through entertaining illustrations, easy-to-understand language, and good-humored empathy, Mills provides a detailed roadmap for your journey to an emotionally richer life — with fewer anxieties and social inhibitions, greater personal productivity, and deeper, more satisfying relationships. If the traditional approaches to a “positive self-image” haven’t worked for you — and we know they haven’t — then why not try a radically different, more rational, science-based plan of action? You have nothing to lose but your self-defeating tendencies.
Quotations from this CD:
“The opposite of self-esteem is not self-hatred. In actuality, self-esteem and self-hatred are twin incarnations of the same underlying philosophy: that one must appraise himself in relation to his achievements. Self-esteem and self-hatred therefore are two sides of the same self-appraising coin. If you view yourself as exalted and lordly for your successes, then you will automatically view yourself as paltry and worthless when failing. It is a package deal: you cannot enjoy self-worship without very soon suffering self-damnation. The tacit logic upholding your self-esteem can just as easily document your abject worthlessness. The individual who lusts after self-esteem will forever ride an unstable emotional roller coaster, up and down, up and down. He may indeed soar quickly to great heights. But he will inevitably sink rapidly into the depths of despair and dejection, because it is a single philosophy, his philosophy of contingent self-rating, that produces both his positive and his negative self-image.”
“Likewise, our self-esteem inhibits us from participating in any activity in which failure is deemed disgraceful. And because failure in virtually any endeavor is deemed disgraceful by the self-esteeming individual, he becomes distinctly afraid to try anything unfamiliar. He passively goes through life doing what he’s always done, rarely involving himself in enterprises and human relationships whose success is not guaranteed in advance. Far from inspiring productive behavior and social interaction, the concept of self-esteem is the most inhibiting philosophy imaginable. That ‘most men lead lives of quiet desperation’ can perhaps be traced to our chilling fear of losing self-esteem and to our resulting tendency toward a mundane, routine existence.”
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