"If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic"
About this Quote
Ellis is doing what he did best: yanking “irrational” out of the realm of quirky personality and planting it squarely in the realm of consequences. The line has the blunt, workshop feel of cognitive-behavioral therapy: if your belief system doesn’t track reality, reality will eventually collect the debt. “Irrational” isn’t framed as immoral or embarrassing; it’s framed as dysfunctional engineering. A thought is a tool. If it’s warped, it won’t fit the job.
The intent is corrective, even prophylactic. Ellis wants clients to stop treating feelings as evidence and start treating beliefs as hypotheses. By coupling “irrational” with “won’t work,” he undercuts the seductive romance of self-defeating narratives: catastrophizing, perfectionism, mind-reading, the rigid “musts” and “shoulds” he famously targeted. The subtext is pragmatic and unsentimental: you don’t get points for sincerity. You get outcomes.
Context matters here. Ellis helped pioneer Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy in mid-century America, a moment when psychotherapy could drift toward endless excavation and interpretive sophistication. He pushes the opposite direction: fast feedback, disputation, behavioral change. That’s why the phrasing is so plain. It’s not a manifesto; it’s a lever.
The second sentence, “It’s usually unrealistic,” softens the absolutism just enough to stay clinically useful. “Usually” leaves room for nuance without surrendering the core claim: mental health, in Ellis’s view, is less about being “positive” than being accurate. Reality-testing becomes a kind of emotional hygiene, and “irrationality” becomes less a flaw than a faulty map you can redraw.
The intent is corrective, even prophylactic. Ellis wants clients to stop treating feelings as evidence and start treating beliefs as hypotheses. By coupling “irrational” with “won’t work,” he undercuts the seductive romance of self-defeating narratives: catastrophizing, perfectionism, mind-reading, the rigid “musts” and “shoulds” he famously targeted. The subtext is pragmatic and unsentimental: you don’t get points for sincerity. You get outcomes.
Context matters here. Ellis helped pioneer Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy in mid-century America, a moment when psychotherapy could drift toward endless excavation and interpretive sophistication. He pushes the opposite direction: fast feedback, disputation, behavioral change. That’s why the phrasing is so plain. It’s not a manifesto; it’s a lever.
The second sentence, “It’s usually unrealistic,” softens the absolutism just enough to stay clinically useful. “Usually” leaves room for nuance without surrendering the core claim: mental health, in Ellis’s view, is less about being “positive” than being accurate. Reality-testing becomes a kind of emotional hygiene, and “irrationality” becomes less a flaw than a faulty map you can redraw.
Quote Details
| Topic | Reason & Logic |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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