Jim Byrne

This book was originally published, in 2017, with the title 'Unfit for Therapeutic Purposes'; and is reissued in 2019 with a new title, plus an extensive new Preface, which outlines the bottom line of Dr Byrne's critique of REBT.The text contains a summarized account of the author's journey through Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) - from beginning to end. He began, in 1992, as a fanatical supporter of REBT, which is the original form of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).Then, while trying to rescue REBT from two critics (Bond and Dryden, 1996), in the period 2001-2003, he accidentally uncovered several flaws in the foundations of this theory of therapy. Next, he wrote a series of papers, exploring some of the weaknesses of REBT - all the time hoping he would be able to salvage a defensible core of the therapy. But eventually, this led him to the development of a completely new theory of therapy, which rejects virtually all of the major theoretical and practical elements of REBT - apart from those moderate Stoical and moderate Buddhist influences that went into the origin of Dr Albert Ellis's theory. (See Byrne 2013 and 2016a).The intellectual journey described in this book took twenty-five years to complete. The whole of Part 1 was written in 2017. This is a critique of the fundamental flaws in REBT (and in all forms of CBT which are based on the ABC model; and in much of extreme Stoicism and extreme Buddhism).But most of Part 2 - which contains the historical documents - was written between 2009 and 2012, apart from the Introduction to Part 2 and the Reflections upon those historical documents, which were both written in 2017. And Chapter 7 which was written in 2003. Although this book is a critique of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (sometimes called Rational Emotive & Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), some of the key criticisms apply just as much to all forms of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which utilize the ABC model (which includes Beck 1976] and Burns 1990]); and which subscribe to a famous (or infamous) statement from Epictetus to the effect that "...humans are not disturbed by what happens to them". (Epictetus was a first century CE slave, of Greek origin, who grew up in slavery in Rome, and gained his freedom because of his learning of philosophy. Irvine, 2009; and Epictetus, 1991]).This book was originally published with the title, Unfit for Therapeutic Purposes, in 2017. It is reissued in 2019, with an extensive new Preface, which outlines the bottom line of Dr Byrne's critique.

The E-CENT theory of anger says that anger is one of our basic emotions. It's innate. It was selected by nature for its survival value. We would not survive for long without an innate sense of angering in response to abuse or neglect. We also would not survive for long if we did not quickly learn how to moderate our anger as young children. My anger is a two-edged sword. It can help to protect me, and it can attract hostile reactions from others. My basic emotion of anger is elaborated into a higher cognitive emotion through modelling by my mother and father and significant others in the first few years of my life. And also through my successful and my unsuccessful experiences of engaging in conflict with others. I may become an exploder, who erupts in the faces of others. I may become an imploder, who keeps his anger inside. Or I may hide my anger from myself (repress it) and then project it into my environment where it may frighten me.So anger is a socialized emotion, and if you grew up with angry people, you are likely to be prone to angering yourself when provoked; or you might feel fearful of your own anger, or the anger of others. Healthy anger is present-time defence of your legitimate rights in the face of inappropriate behaviour by another person. Healthy or reasonable anger is the fuel that drives our assertive behaviours. It pushes us to engage in constructive conflict, when that is necessary To ask for what you want, which is legitimately yours to request, requires a certain level of 'fire in your belly'. If you lack that fire (that reasonable level of anger), then you will tend to 'wimp-out'; to act passively and let other people control you, or intimidate you, or deny you your reasonable share of the social stage.Unhealthy or unreasonable anger is an over-reaction to a frustrating or insulting stimulus from another person or external force. Unhealthy or unreasonable anger leads to aggressive actions and destructive conflict.We teach the following eight insights to our anger management clients:1. You were born with an innate capacity to develop angry, anxious and depressed responses to your social environment - in response to frustrations, threats and losses.2. You then encountered your mother, who already had a 'style of relating', based on her attachment experience of her own mother and father. She would inevitably have shaped your emotional expression by: ...

This book has been specially designed to provide some quick relief up front. That means that, right at the start of the book, I share with you some of the most powerful insights into how to have a happy relationships. I then help you to complete a couple of exercises that take five minutes per day, and which will begin to change your relationship situation almost at once.In Part 1, you will find a self-study program which helps you, slowly, and in managed steps, to review a range of insights that will transform your ability to relate to your partner much more successfully.Every day, you will be asked to read just three of those insights. That means, three fairly brief descriptions of ways to be a happier couple. This should not take more than five or six minutes of your day. You are advised to then discuss those three insights with your partner. This might take a further ten minutes.Day by day, this DIY course - which you share with your partner - builds up, slowly but surely, into a seven week program which is designed to deliver a happy relationship for you and your partner, if you both work at it. Your time commitment to this program is likely to be less than half an hour each day. Is your relationship life worth an investment of less than thirty minutes per day?All you have to do to succeed is to follow the seven week program systematically Diligently At the end of seven weeks, you switch to Part 2. Part 2 teaches you how to change your relationship habits, which were probably mainly copied - and turned into habits - from watching your parents' marriage when you were too young to be emotionally intelligent enough to know what you were copying - (starting when you were below the age of five years, and up to about the age of ten years). This part of the program involves thinking back to your early childhood; how your parents treated you; how they related to each other; and how you felt about all of that. Out of this will come a quick and easy process for changing your 'relationship role model' and your 'relationship mate model'. The effect is that you will begin to behave in more constructive and loving ways with your partner, which will normally elicit new, more positive, more loving behaviours from your partner.Then, in Part 3, I present the conclusions of an extensive study that I published elsewhere; which is, essentially, a set of 17 guidelines for you to follow on how to be a more effective love-and-relationships partner. There is some (minimal) overlap between this part and Part 1.With this part, I ask you to review those 17 guidelines three times, to get them into long-term memory. (Anything that you read just once is likely to be forgotten within a day or two )Finally, in Part 4, I teach you the most important things to know about your own personality, and your partner's personality, so that you can relate to each other from more rational, reasonable, adult parts of yourselves. I do this by teaching you the most important elements of Transactional Analysis (TA), which is a way to understand and change your own and your partner's way of communicating in your relationship - from unhelpful habits to effective ways of avoiding communications breakdowns.Additionally, I have added Appendix A, at the back of this book, for those readers who are too emotionally upset about their relationship problems to be able to work on Part 1. Appendix A is a form of my Six Windows Model, especially written for couples. This is a simple process that helps you to review the problem that is upsetting you, in six different ways, so that you can feel better about having that problem in your life. (Then the main body of the book will help you to get the problem out of your life, by preserving and improving your relationship; or ending it )What you will get is a very happy relationship, with the person you love

This book was written with the interests and needs of counsellors and self-help enthusiasts in mind. By the generic label, 'counsellors', I mean to include: Counsellors, psychotherapists, certain types of coaches, psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, social workers, and so on. The content will also be helpful for students of any of those disciplines, and also for self-help enthusiasts who want to understand themselves better, and to change their mental organization for the better.My assumption is that a high proportion of counsellors cares deeply about helping their clients, for which purpose they hunt high and low for new, helpful models, techniques and strategies to help with the broad range of issues and problems that their clients bring to them.This book involves a review of four of the most influential models of mind - or theories of human mental functioning - in the history of psychology. Those models were developed by: - Plato (and we'll take a quick look at Aristotle's deviation); - Sigmund Freud (and we'll take a peek at Melanie Klein's deviation); - Eric Berne (who created Transactional Analysis, and the Parent-Adult-Child model); and: - Albert Ellis (who created the ABC model of human disturbance).In addition to comparing and contrasting those four models against each other, I will also present my own innovations (which were influenced by a range of theorists, including those above; plus neuroscience; moderate Buddhism; moderate Stoicism; and more recent innovators, like Allan Schore Affect regulation theory]; and Daniel Siegel Interpersonal Neurobiology ]).By reviewing the main models of mind created by Plato, Freud, Berne and Ellis, I hope to throw up new possibilities for counsellors; new ways of thinking (and feeling) about the human condition; new concepts and models for action and reflection in the counselling room, and in running our lives. My experience of counselling, psychotherapy and psychoanalysis goes back to 1968, when I completed a partial Freudian analysis, and I have studied thirteen different system of counselling and therapy since that time; and I am in my 21st year in private practice as an emotive-cognitive narrative therapist. I have a doctoral degree in counselling from the University of Manchester, and I have researched and written papers and books on the subject of Lifestyle Counselling and Holistic Counselling.

This book is an introductory guide to the subject of how to have a happy marriage, pair bond, civil partnership, or sex-love relationship - which means a happy and successful couple relationship - and it is designed to be helpful for committed, long-term couples, and for counsellors and therapists (who want to learn from the author's experience in this field).It deals with a broad range of knowledge and skills, spread across three volumes, and is based on the author's thirty-four years of study of couple relationships; and his twenty years' experience of helping couples to improve, revive, restore (or dissolve) their relationships with their long-term, committed, sex-love partners. This first volume is an essential foundation for what comes later.The fundamental need for this bookWhy is this book so important? What makes it different from other forms of marriage guidance and relationship advice which are available today?As far as I can tell, most modern resources for couples - including books, articles and blogs - are designed to inform the reader of certain facts about love and relationship, without teaching how to change habitual ways of being. Some may want to help couples to change their habits, but they do not go far enough in this direction. They do not provide tools for habit change.But this book, in addition to informing the reader, also sets out to help individuals to change themselves, at deep, non-conscious, emotional levels, so that they become better lovers, and more successful relationship partners.Loving-couple3There is research to support the idea that people choose their love partners non-consciously i], on the basis of habit. (Teachworth, 1999). And, also that we tend to have conscious goals for the type of mate we would like, but that we then choose our mate on the basis of a non-conscious goal about which we know nothing. (Gladwell, 2006; and Lewis, Amini and Lannon, 2001). Therefore, it is clearly pointless producing a list of 'rules of love' (Templar, 2016) and encouraging people to read them, if we do not at the same time show them how to get those rules into their non-conscious brain-mind, from where they can inform their non-conscious goals for partner selection. And that is why we have structured this book so that the reader can reprogram themselves; change their non-conscious goals; change their 'radar device' for finding a partner. This 'radar device' is their inner model of an ideal couple (called, by us, 'The Inner Couple'. Teachworth, 1999]).Anybody who studies this book, in the ways we recommend, will find that: - their relationship behaviours change for the better (because their non-conscious goals have changed );- their emotional intelligence will increase; and- they will find themselves either choosing a better partner, or working successfully with their current partner to produce an amazingly satisfying relationship together.And counsellors and psychotherapists who study this book, will be able to incorporate many new strategies, tools and techniques into their work with their own troubled couple-clients.

Regular, systematic writing exercises, like those in this book, can be used to improve your creative thinking, your problem solving skills, and your physical and mental health. If you want to boost your brain power, then this book is like acquiring a second brain. People who write on a regular basis, using the kinds of exercises described in this book, create better lives for themselves than they had before they used this writing approach.Writing can change lives If you are struggling with emotional problems, it is normally best to see a counsellor, psychologist or psychotherapist, to get some help with your problems. One of the reasons that this is important is that, having your emotional pain witnessed, and validated, by a healing person, is hugely therapeutic. However, it is obvious that many people cannot afford to resolve all of their psychological problems through the relatively expensive processes of counselling and psychotherapy. And many people are so sensitive about their problems that they would find it hard to trust a professional helper in a face-to-face situation. Therefore, it may often be necessary to turn to self-directed writing therapy.This book will help you to learn how to write out your concerns - your worries, problems, emotional difficulties, life plans, trials and tribulations - so that they can be clarified, digested, re-framed, and subjected to processes of problem solving, decision making, and - if successful - filing them away in non-active 'memory files' which no longer trouble you. This has been shown, in scientific research, to resolve problems of depression, stress, and other emotional difficulties, and to improve immune functioning, creativity and personal productivity. And this book will also help counsellors and therapists to introduce their clients to this most helpful process of self-management and self-therapy, by integrating elements of reflective and expressive writing into their face-to-face counselling processes.

Renata Taylor-Byrne and Jim Byrne have outlined key research findings on the relationship between diet and exercise, on the one hand, and the intensity of anger, anxiety and depression emotions on the other. The book contains a list of foods that must be excluded to ensure optimal brain functioning and mood control. There is also a detailed consideration of a range of modern diets, with guidelines for developing a personalised diet; and the skills needed to change difficult dietary and exercise habits. There are six parts to this book: The first part deals with diet and nutrition and how they influence anxiety, anger and depression. The second part of the book deals with physical exercise and how it can affect these common emotional problems.The third part is a description of a 'stress and anxiety reduction' diet and offers guidelines for understanding different types of diets and their effects.The fourth part shows some of the key findings from the science of nutritional deficiency, and the role of inflammation in the creation of depression.The fifth part is a summing up of the key findings of the book, so that you can spot the most useful material that you can use for yourself - or for your clients, if you are a health-care or psychotherapeutic practitioner, counsellor or psychologist.And the sixth part is our attempt to coach you through the process of habit change; and to give you a map to guide you through the process of accessing, learning and applying the transformative information in this book.

60 easy to understand, practical tips that can be put to good use when developing your next website. The book covers a wide range of topics, from how to add accessible multimedia to how to ensure the correct character encoding. It is full of examples and links to valuable resources -- and written in an accessible style ensuring that it will be of use to web developers at every level. Jim Byrne was a pioneer in the area of web accessibility. He created one of the worlds first web accessibility consultancies in 1996 and was the founder of the Worldwide Guild of Accessible Web Designers.