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MEET
Michael R. Edelstein
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ered REBT and used it conscientiously on himself. "Having become pretty rational in my life leaves me largely to do the things that I prefer to do and seem to be my long term interests which often differs from what the average person chooses in life. Before I started therapy with Dr. Ellis, one of my main musts was that I must have approval so I wasn't nearly as individualistic then as I am now in terms of following my own goals and doing what makes sense to me, and living my own life.
"I have a long-term vital passion and that's to increase liberty in society, the country, the world, so I'm very much involved with the Libertarian Movement, to not only give people personal freedom as a therapist, but also to give them political freedom in my role as an activist. My commitment … is very strong in civic, social, recreational, and leisure: an involvement in a community of like-minded people in which you get to know them better and outside of that narrow perspective (Libertarianism)."
A wish? He'd like to live a long, long life and hopes that nanotechnology, of a kind which will support such a wish, breaks on the scene in the next 30 or 40 years while he's still around to benefit from it. Similarly, health and nutrition are a passion of his.
For many years he was a competitive long distance runner and had done fairly well and won a bunch of trophies and awards. Then about 12 or 15 years ago came down with runner's knee. He recently came across a book called Pain Free and the author's approach to muscle and joint injuries has been working for him. For the first time, a couple of days ago, he ran for a minute and that was very exciting to him because at one time he thought he was headed for crutches and a wheelchair.
Michael has published a book titled Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life. One of his objectives and dreams is to make the book very popular so it becomes a standard for learning about REBT among professionals. It is available from SMART Recovery Book Shop (national office).
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Unconditional
Self-Acceptance
Adapted from A Guide To Rational
Living (3rd Edition, 1997), by
Albert Ellis, Ph.D. & Robert Harper, Ph.D.
Chapter 20 of A Guide To Rational Living, titled "Additional Rational Approaches to a Good Life," discusses the evolution of the thinking of Ellis and Harper regarding Unconditional Self-Acceptance (USA). At pages 217-219, Ellis indicates that he now believes that the concept of human value is something which can never be proven or disproved, and that it should be dispensed with in psychology and philosophy. His reasoning is that when people attempt to rate, value, measure, or evaluate "themselves," their "essence," or their "totality," they over generalize, and that when they give up such evaluating, self-rating, or ego measurement, they reduce some of their most serious emotional problems. Ellis believes that we should continue to rate and measure our own behaviors, and that we should regard such ratings as important, but that our ratings of our "self" are best eliminated.
Earlier in the book at Chapter 10, "Tracking Your Dire Need For Approval," Ellis suggests that the very idea of "worth" has its dangers, since it implies the concept of "worthlessness" -- in the same manner that the concept of heaven implies the concept of hell. He indicates that a philosophy of "worth" and "worthlessness" leads to disturbed feelings of guilt, shame, and self-loathing, and therefore we are better off believing that we are neither "worthwhile" because of our effectiveness, or "worthless" because of our ineffectiveness. In short, Ellis suggests that if we can bring ourselves to believe that it is enough for us to simply exist, our feelings of worthlessness and self-hatred tend to be eliminated.
Ellis goes on to discuss the relationship between the concepts of self-esteem and USA. He indicates that USA means fully accepting yourself, your existence, and your right to live and to be as happy as you can -- no matter what traits you have or what acts you do. USA does not mean self-esteem, self-confidence or self-respect, because all these terms (Continued on page 3)
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On the northern fringe of Silicon Valley is a place called San Francisco (S.F.) in which there are now two weekly meetings of SMART. In 1991 psychologist Michael R. Edelstein started attending meetings of the only Rational Recovery (RR) group in S.F. He became involved out of his interest in, love of, and commitment to Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) which was part of RR. Leadership devolved to him. RR was reducing its use of REBT. When some psychologists split from RR and started SMART, he joined the movement some time in 1994 or '95. RR no longer uses REBT.
Michael lived in Brooklyn, N.Y. until a visit to S.F. and then moving to S.F. in December 1990. The climate change was like going to heaven, he says.
In the following, take any religious expressions as customary rather than devotion. Michael says "I'm an atheist, thank god. Not an orthodox or rigid atheist, just a scientific atheist in that I don't see any evidence for a god hypothesis but I try to remain open for the possibility that one day God will talk to me and prove to me that he exists."
While in college, Michael thought he might like to do counseling and tried out the idea by becoming a volunteer on a suicide hotline and then a sex hotline and enjoyed both experiences and so thought he was probably on the right track.
A key turning point in Michael's life was, at age 19, his meeting Dr. Albert Ellis, originator of REBT, and hiring him for 6 months of individual therapy, followed by 5 years of his group therapy. After training at the Albert Ellis Institute (AEI) he is now a Fellow and Supervisory Faculty Member of the AEI. He trains counselors, psychologists, social workers and psychiatrists.
After he finished at the AEI and got a Ph.D. from Yeshiva U., he was part owner of a counseling center in N.Y. and had a private practice in Brooklyn. San Francisco SMART is lucky he gave all that up for "heaven" where he got married in 1992. He considers his life very different from most people in that he discov
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