I have no qualms about admitting that I don’t agree with everything expressed by the late psychologist Albert Ellis who developed rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) – the psychotherapeutic modality that I practice in both my personal and professional life.
For instance, along with his author of the book Creative Marriage, Ellis advocated self-love and self-respect. Prior to sharing views of the authors, allow me to first express my own perspective. Because these concepts are quite abstract, I’ll begin with defining terms. Per one source:
Self-love is a concept in positive psychology that promotes well-being. As an intangible experience, its definition varies across literature, but it’s generally defined as a multidimensional state of balancing focus on yourself with:
· kindness
· acceptance
· support
· nurturance
Self-love is love, just directed inward.
Because love is a subjectively defined term, loving oneself can mean different things to different people. Almost equally as nebulous a term to define is self-respect. Making the logical fallacy of appealing to authority, one source describes this concept thusly:
Psychological researchers, in particular, may often define self-respect as an act of honoring your needs and desires, understanding your worth, and making choices that enable you to keep your dignity.
Self-respect remains important because it helps us to work through challenges, build resilience in life, and maintain our emotional health. Many researchers also argue that self-respect is closely related to our understanding of self-esteem and our behaviors of self-love.
Notably, respect is defined as the quality of being esteemed—to set a high value on: regard highly and prize accordingly. Thus, self-respect is the experience of valuing oneself in high regard.
Both self-love and self-esteem are socially popular terms when discussing mental, emotional, and behavioral health. Nevertheless, I’m not one to readily embrace contemporary concepts which misrepresent wellness—the quality or state of being in good health, especially as an actively sought goal.
In a blogpost entitled Must You Tolerate Abuse? I stated, “Using my approach to REBT, I’m not interested in promoting self-love or even self-esteem.” Even Ellis once stated that “self-esteem, as against self-acceptance, is one of the worst sicknesses ever invented.”
In a blog entry entitled Disconfirmation, I stated, “I focus less on self-esteem and more on unconditional self-acceptance (USA). Maybe people really don’t like you. Can you tolerate and accept it if this were true?” To illustrate the logic and reason of this proposal, consider the following syllogism:
Form (modus tollens) –
If p, then q; not q; therefore, not p.
Example –
If I love and respect myself, then I will be happy.
I’m not happy.
Therefore, I don’t love and respect myself.
Although the syllogistic proposals and conclusion follow logical form, they’re unreasonable. This is because there are more factors which contribute to one’s happiness and well-being than merely self-love and self-respect.
Noteworthy, to be considered rational a syllogistic proposition needs to comport with both logic and reason. Thus, it’s irrational to conclude that love and respect for oneself are requisites to wellness. In contemplation of rationality, I offer what I further stated in Disconfirmation:
By facing discomfort and performing the difficult task of letting go of needless notions about oneself or self-love, you can learn to use USA in your favor. After all, have you ever considered that maybe people really don’t like you? If so, now consider that it doesn’t matter, because you accept yourself unconditionally.
USA is a method of addressing self-disturbance—the unhelpful process of upsetting oneself with irrational beliefs about undesirable events. One familiar circumstance in which people often disturb themselves using such assumptions relates to a perceived or actual lack of respect.
As an example, person X doesn’t esteem person Y by intentionally devaluing the individual. Using the irrational belief of a global evaluation, person X says to person Y, “You’re worthless!”
From the perspective of the ABC model used in REBT, it isn’t an Activating event (comment about being worthless) that causes an unpleasant Consequence such as sorrow or anger. Psychologically speaking, there’s no such Action-Consequence connection that wields power over people.
Rather, when hearing the unfavorable comment (Action) and unproductively Believing, “I couldn’t stand if it were true that I’m worthless, because that would be awful,” person Y self-disturbs into sorrow or anger (Consequence) through use of a Belief-Consequence connection.
Addressing the unaccommodating supposed need for self-respect, I stated in a blogpost entitled Unrealistic Philosophies:
[P]eople unhelpfully maintain that approval or love from others is the single most significant factor of one’s life.
Using this assumption, what others think about an individual becomes more important than one’s own self-respect. Using this flawed logic and reason, dependence upon others rates higher than self-dependence.
While I imagine that most people in the world live within societies, as interdependence is necessary to a degree, REBT serves as a humanistic approach to well-being that helps to disentangle some of the more unhelpful aspects of self-disturbance associated with societal living.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with self-love or self-respect. In fact, it may be quite pleasing to experience both of these qualities. Nevertheless, even when living within a society whereby love and respect may be highly sought after, I advocate USA rather than self- love or self-respect.
Suspecting that I’ve adequately defined terms and addressed my perspective regarding the current topic, I now turn to the authors of Creative Marriage. Initially, I found myself agreeing with what they proposed (pages 30 and 31):
To some extent, young children need to be loved—that is, they require a certain amount of love and esteem, help and support, from the persons around them if they are to survive well physically and develop sufficient self-love, self-esteem, and self-confidence to become healthy and effective personalities.
But, however necessary being loved may be for children (and there is some experimental evidence to indicate that even this may be exaggerated as a need after the child has passed the stage of early infancy), there is no evidence whatever that being loved or approved is absolutely necessary for adults. It is pleasant, nice, desirable for adults to be loved; but it is most questionable that it is really essential.
When one believes, however, that it is essential for one’s happiness to be greatly loved, this very belief makes being loved a requisite for stability and happiness. Or, stated differently, when one defines one’s well-being in terms of being accepted and approved by others, one makes it necessary, by that very definition, to be so accepted and approved. And when, in reality, one is not suitably loved, one will definitely, under these definitional circumstances, be miserable.
The rational case proposed by the authors of Creative Marriage aligns with my perspective, as carefully outlined herein. Syllogistically, their proposition may be illustrated as follows:
Form (hypothetical) –
If p, then q; if q then r; therefore, if p, then r.
Example –
If I’m not loved and respected by either myself or others, I’ll still be okay.
If I’ll still be okay, then I can unconditionally accept myself despite my perceived worth.
Therefore, if I’m not loved and respected by either myself or others, then I can unconditionally accept myself despite my perceived worth.
The premises and conclusion comport with both logic and reason. Therefore, this is a rational claim. If that were all the authors had to say about the matter of self-love and self-respect, I wouldn’t be drafting the current blog entry.
Surprisingly, they go on to suggest that “a married person also needs a high degree of self-love and self-respect” for a successful intimate partner relationship (page 79). How the authors of Creative Marriage made this logical leap is unexplained within the text.
However, they questionably propose, “Self-love and self-respect are particularly important in marriage; since few, if any of us, can truly care for and help others when we loathe ourselves” (page 79). This contemporary proposal doesn’t clarify a deviation from the previous stand of the authors.
Not only do I disagree with Ellis and his coauthor, I reject the inference that in order to care for and help others we must maintain a high degree of self-love and self-respect. Supporting my rejection of this framework, I stated in a blogpost entitled That’s What My Therapist on TikTok Tells Me:
Although I advocate unconditional acceptance (UA) – a core tenet of REBT that encourages unconditional self-, other-, and life-acceptance as a means of reducing self-disturbance – I don’t promote the concept of self-love.
For instance, suppose you don’t like or love yourself. Perhaps you don’t unhelpfully demand that you should be some other way. Rather, you just don’t love yourself like people on TikTok declare that you should.
Also, you don’t use awfulizing by considering your life a terrible, horrible, or awful existence. As well, you aren’t unproductively convincing yourself that you can’t stand life, using the self-disturbing belief category of low frustration tolerance.
Instead, you simply don’t love yourself. With this outlook, you aren’t necessarily issuing a global evaluation regarding the essence of your being. You don’t say to yourself, “I’m a piece of shit!” Instead, you merely conclude that you don’t love yourself even if you’re a lovable person.
I argue that you can love, care for, and help other people even if you lack self-love, self-respect, self-worth, or self-esteem—as each of these concepts are heavily intertwined. Not only regarding personal anecdotes, have I observed this process unfold in the lives of other people.
This I maintain even though Ellis and his coauthor expressly state that “to the psychologist it is clear that a person who does not distinctly love and respect himself cannot truly love and respect, or fully see the point of view of, another human being” (page 80). Bullshit!
Alas, REBT isn’t a psychotherapeutic modality that requires practitioners to agree with one another. Ellis and his coauthor of Creative Marriage maintained their perspective and I favor my own outlook.
How about you? Do you rigidly believe that in order to love, care for, or help other people you should, must, or ought to first love and respect yourself? Keep in mind that I’m not asking if these qualities can assist or improve a relationship or enhance your actions in regard to others.
Instead, I’m inquiring about whether or not self-love and self-respect are requisites to the love, respect, or even rational compassion you can exhibit in relation to other people. I welcome disagreement, as this is how disputation functions in REBT.
In any case, if you’d like to know more about REBT, I’m here to help – regardless of whether or not I love or respect myself, or you maintain self-love or self-respect. I look forward to hearing from you even if you believe in bullshit.
If you’re looking for a provider who works to help you understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.
As a psychotherapist, I’m pleased to help people with an assortment of issues ranging from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.
At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply helping you to feel better, I want to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
References:
AEI. (n.d.). About Albert Ellis, Ph.D. Albert Ellis Institute. Retrieved from https://albertellis.org/about-albert-ellis-phd/
Ellis, A. and Harper, R. A. (1961). Creative Marriage. The Institute For Rational Living, Inc. Retrieved from https://www.pdfdrive.com/creative-marriage-e184052310.html
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Hollings, D. (2023, September 3). On feelings. Hollings Therapy, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.hollingstherapy.com/post/on-feelings
Hollings, D. (2023, April 24). On truth. Hollings Therapy, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.hollingstherapy.com/post/on-truth
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Hollings, D. (2024, May 8). Resilience. Hollings Therapy, LLC. Retrieved from https://www.hollingstherapy.com/post/resilience
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