ALBERT ELLIS, sometimes called the Lenny Bruce of psychotherapy, had a different use for the phallus from Freud’s: action, not analysis. Or, action! he might say, adding his favored punctuation mark and maybe italics, too, lest the emphasis remain undetected. Freud’s methods were simply too glacial for him. Dr. Ellis, who died last week at 93, laid out his prescriptive calls to action in more than 75 books. Mostly the books deal with his pioneering and extremely popular and influential rational emotive behavior therapy, and how it can rid you of your neuroses (stop moping), but among them are a handful of sex manuals. Here’s a sampling from the Ellis oeuvre. MARY JO MURPHY

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From “How to Stubbornly Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable About Anything: Yes, Anything!”:

Not all emotional disturbance stems from arrogant thinking. But most of it does. And when you demand that you must not have failings, you can also demand that you must not be neurotic. ...

Neurosis still comes mainly from you. ... And you can choose to stop your nonsense and to stubbornly refuse to make yourself neurotic about virtually anything. ...

Image Credit... King Features

Will insight into your emotional problems help you overcome them? ... Conventional insight will help you very little. For it says that your knowledge of exactly how you got disturbed will make you less neurotic. Drivel! It will often help make you become nuttier!