Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Albert Ellis, PhD (1913-2007) practiced psychotherapy, marriage and family counseling, and sex therapy for over sixty years. He was the author of more than eighty books, including many popular best sellers. Other books by Albert Ellis available from Prometheus Books are: The Myth of Self-Esteem; The Road to Tolerance; Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for Me—It Can Work for You; Overcoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and Behaviors: New Directions for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy; and (with Raymond J. Yeager) Why Some Therapies Don’t Work: The Dangers of Transpersonal Psychology.

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Contents

Acknowledgments..............................................................................................................................................11Introduction. On Writing an Impossible Memoir................................................................................................................13Chapter 1A. Chronology: The Sidewalks of Pittsburgh and New York.............................................................................................23Chapter 1B. Coping with Emotional Problems: My Neglectful Father and My Low Frustration Tolerance............................................................40Chapter 1C. My Sex and Love Life: My First Great Love (Besides Myself).......................................................................................45Chapter 1D. Critique of Chapter 1............................................................................................................................60Chapter 2A. Chronology: My First Hospitalization.............................................................................................................63Chapter 2B. Coping with Emotional Problems: My Compulsive Rhyming............................................................................................79Chapter 2C. My Sex and Love Life: My Second Great Love.......................................................................................................84Chapter 2D. Critique of Chapter 2............................................................................................................................108Chapter 3A. Chronology: Other Childhood Ailments.............................................................................................................116Chapter 3B. Coping with Emotional Problems: Back to My Neglectful Parents and My Low Frustration Tolerance...................................................140Chapter 3C. My Sex and Love Life: My Propensity for La Grande Passion........................................................................................148Chapter 3D. Critique of Chapter 3............................................................................................................................152Chapter 4A. Chronology: More Early Frustrations..............................................................................................................163Chapter 4B. Coping with Emotional Problems: Still More of My Low Frustration Tolerance and My Anxiety........................................................198Chapter 4C. My Sex and Love Life: My Sex and Love Life Really Gets Going Full Blast..........................................................................218Chapter 4D. Critique of Chapter 4............................................................................................................................239Chapter 5A. Chronology: The Good Years from Eight to Fifteen, and Then ......................................................................................253Chapter 5B. Coping with Emotional Problems: Overcoming My Social Phobias and Coping with My Early Sexual Frustrations and Irregularities.....................276Chapter 5C. My Sex and Love Life: My Love Life with Robin, Rhoda, and Shirley................................................................................305Chapter 5D. Critique of Chapter 5............................................................................................................................323Chapter 6. 1934 to 1937 and My Relationship with Karyl Corper................................................................................................335Chapter 7. Was I an Irresponsible Parent?....................................................................................................................389Chapter 8. My Tremendous Affair with Gertrude Birnbaum.......................................................................................................396Chapter 9. Important Influences..............................................................................................................................435Chapter 10. My Relationships.................................................................................................................................505Chapter 11. The Second-Worst Year of My Life-And How I Coped with It.........................................................................................524Chapter 12. A Better Year....................................................................................................................................540Chapter 13. The Bogus Albert Ellis Institute.................................................................................................................545Chapter 14. The Final Chapter by Debbie Joffe Ellis..........................................................................................................560Epilogue. What Now?..........................................................................................................................................577Appendix I. Final Letter.....................................................................................................................................579Appendix II. Letter from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg..........................................................................................................581Bibliography.................................................................................................................................................583Index........................................................................................................................................................633About the Authors............................................................................................................................................667

Chapter One

The first sensible thing I can remember doing that helped me enjoy life and ward off potential misery happened when I started kindergarten at the age of four, in Pittsburgh. Did I really go to school that early in the city of my birth, when other cities like New York (as I discovered a little later) kept kids out of school until at least five, and sometimes six? To the best of my recollection, I did. Perhaps I was close to being five. Perhaps, since I was always big (at least tall) for my age, my mother simply lied about how old I was and pretended I was five. I really don't know. But I am pretty sure that I was still just a tot of four and not a very husky one at that. Who, me? Husky? Not even hardly ever. Simply, and no nonsense about it, never!

Anyway, one bright day my mother quietly told me that she was taking me to school, which, with no discussion, she promptly did. She walked me up a long hill to a large building about a block away from the small apartment house in which we lived, introduced me to the reasonably nice blond kindergarten teacher, and coolly left me in her tender clutches, saying that she would return at noon to take me home. The reasonably nice blond lady, in her turn, quickly introduced me to a motley group of youngsters, all of whom seemed to be (and probably were) a little older than I, irregularly sprawled around the large school room. They were acutely aloof, since they had already started their day's...