Albert Ellis was vacationing with his wife and several erstwhile paramours on the Amazon River in Ecuador. A few yards from the shore stood two Attalea colenda palms to which he had tied a riotously colorful hammock, its aesthetics befitting a happy man who had not had a seriously miserable day** since he created Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy in 1955. From the undulating hammock he watched contentedly as the women swam, sunned and frolicked, as followers of Cognitive Therapy should.
Suddenly one of the women shrieked in alarm: A school of piranha had caught notice of her movements and had attacked, gorging themselves on her flesh! Within seconds, another swimmer let out a blood-curdling scream. Too many piranhas for one inamorata, they had swarmed, biting her breasts, thighs, and nether parts as one would expect of fans of Ellis’s books, Sex Without Guilt and The Art of Erotic Seduction. Ellis watched in horror, and helplessly, as he was unable to swim. Despite his vigorously disputing*** this deficit.
And in another moment, they were gone, Ms. Ellis, too, all ripped to shreds, eaten up, blood painting the gentle whitecaps, clumps of hair bobbing in the current. Ellis, rushing to the shoreline, looked out at what had so recently been a positive tableau. He stood deep in thought. For a moment he considered his A B C’s but found them wanting. Before long an insight came to him, one that would save the day:
“You know,” he said to the tropical breeze, and in fact to no human being anywhere, “this is bad. But it isn’t awful.”****
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** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Ellis. See subheading: “Prevention of Unhappiness”.
*** https://albertellis.org/2015/12/over-disputing/.
**** https://albertellis.org/awfulizing-time/.
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Comments are welcome, but I'd suggest you first read "Feeling-centered therapy" and "Ocean and boat" for a basic introduction to my kind of theory and therapy.