quote:

ELLIS: Right. We're born gullible to our parents, influenceable, teachable, in the first place. Therefore we stupidly listen to our parents, but then we invent many musts, shoulds, oughts, demands, commands, in addition to the standards, the values, that we adopt from our parents. But the standards don't upset us. We mainly upset ourselves with those Jehovan commands.

MISHLOVE: You've used the term -- I think you must have coined it -- "musterbation."

ELLIS: Right. "Masturbation is good and delicious, but musterbation is evil and pernicious," is one of my sayings.

MISHLOVE: Musterbation is when we tell ourselves, "I must do this," or, "Things must be this way," even though they're not.

ELLIS: Right. The three main musts are "I must do well or I'm no good," "You, you louse, must treat me well or your'e worthless and deserve to roast in hell," and "The world must give me exactly what I want, precisely what I want, or it's a horrible, awful place."

MISHLOVE: It would be awful.

ELLIS: It would be terrible, right. Because of the must. If you didn't musterbate, then you wouldn't awfulize, terribilize, catastrophize, say "I can't stand it," and put yourself down. If you only stuck with, "I'd like very much to do well, but I never have to," you wouldn't then disturb yourself.