[lbo-talk] manna for anti-Freudians

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Mon Aug 29 10:18:40 PDT 2005


On Mon, 29 Aug 2005, Carl Remick wrote:


>> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
>>
>> The Interpretation of Reams
>> Talking with Albert Ellis, world-renowned anti-Freud therapist
>>
>> by Rachel Aviv
>>
>> Albert Ellis, the founder of cognitive behavioral therapy, has spent the
>> past 50 years encouraging patients to "forget their goddamn past!" The best
>> way to cure people's unhappiness, he says, is to just tell them-firmly-to
>> stop acting irrationally.
>
> Amazing. That's almost verbatim from "The Psychiatrist" routine on the
> original Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner "2000 Year Old Man" album. It featured a
> psychiatrist (Brooks, of course) discussing his treatment of a young woman
> with a paper-tearing compulsion. The therapy consisted of telling her over
> and over: "Don't sit and tear paper!"
>
> Carl

Yep. And strangely, it's one of the most effective forms of therapy for depression and anxiety (often more effective than anti-depressants like Paxil or Prozac)!

Miles



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