Ellis produced dozens of self-help type books on REBT, Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, from which CBT was created. Ellis said that perhaps if one had mild or moderate neurotic tendencies that one might be able to correct their thoughts and actions by using the books alone. He said this was difficult because it is hard to be self-reflective. I suppose it could be done if one had specific goals.

I don't know. I have been trying to do it with very minimal support from a counselor and I actually think I am not seeing very much improvement, which is actually causing me to become more depressed.