Rationality and the Pursuit of Happiness

“This book is a labor of love! Michael Bernard has painstakingly transcribed a number of Albert Ellis’s therapy and demonstration sessions as well as a selection of his lectures and has used this material to excellent effect to make Dr Ellis’s views on psychological health and happiness come alive. A gem of a book on a gem of a man by a gem of an author.”
Professor Windy Dryden, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

“Michael Bernard’s book reveals the importance of ‘rationality’ as a positive faculty of mind that enables people to strengthen their resilience and self-efficacy in order to not only cope with the inevitable challenges, demands and changes characteristic of our post-modern age but, in addition, through the application of different principles of rational living identified by legendary psychologist Albert Ellis, to live fulfilled and meaningful professional and personal lives. I confidently commend this book.”
Professor Field Rickards, Dean, Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne, Australia

Albert Ellis, one of the world’s most influential psychologists, founded Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) in the 1950s. Over the years, this pioneering form of cognitive behavior therapy has advanced the emotional well-being of hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Yet while Ellis’s innovative approaches for helping people with emotional difficulties are well known, his views on the pursuit of personal happiness – which have also influenced generations of people both with and without such problems – are far more elusive. Ellis’s powerful arguments in favor of the rational pursuit of happiness are set out for the very first time in this book.

Rationality and the Pursuit of Happiness presents Ellis’s views on how the principles of rational living can be used by anyone to achieve lifelong happiness. Transcripts of private counseling sessions and public forums reveal the great power of rationality and the self-defeating nature of irrationality. Drawing on 50 years of Ellis’s writing, Michael Bernard shows how the emotional misery that arises from irrational thinking of the human psyche can obstruct our innate potential for self-actualization and happiness. In doing so, he firmly establishes Ellis as a pioneer of positive psychology and a human being whose superior intellect and years of public education and psychotherapy experience offer genuine insights into the eternal question of what makes for a happy life.