What are Irrational Beliefs?

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About Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

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What are Irrational Beliefs?

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Ellis placed Irrational Beliefs at the very heart of REBT, as these are the primary reason for human misery and dysfunction. By challenging, questioning, disputing and acting against our Irrational Beliefs we can change our emotional responses to events, from unhealthy to healthy, which better aid us in achieving our goals in life.

Before summarising the main types of Irrational and Rational beliefs, it is important to ensure clarity about the use of the terms irrational and rational. Although many people have wrongly assumed that Ellis argued that there was such a thing as rational world, this was never his intention. Rather, he chose the terms irrational as a euphemism for unhelpful, illogical and inconsistent with our social reality. Rational beliefs on the other hand are a euphemism for beliefs that are helpful, logical, and consistent with our social reality.

The four types of Irrational Beliefs

Demands: These are the primary Irrational belief. They often feature phrases such as must, absolute shoulds, have to, need and ought. Example: I would love to succeed and therefore I have to!

All other Irrational Beliefs following from the demand.

Awfulising: In REBT awful is defined as anything that is evaluated as being worse than 100% bad. Example: If I don't succeed in my presentation is will be awful!

Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT): Otherwise known as I-can't-stand-it-itis, LFT beliefs feature an acknowledgement of a struggle and an assertion that the struggle is truly unbearable or cannot be stood. Example: If people are rude to me I cannot stand it!

Conditional Self (other, life) Acceptance: Otherwise known as self-downing, this is where we define our self based on one aspect. Example: If I fail at something important to me then I am a failure!

The four types of Rational Beliefs

Preferences: Rather than demanding, preferring is a much more helpful attitude to have about life. Example: I would love to succeed but I don't have to.

Anti-awfulising: Nothing in this world could not be worse, and anti-awfulising beliefs reflect this. Example: If I don't succeed in my presntation, it may be bad but never truly awful!

High Frustration Tolerance (HFT): Usually, we tell ourselves we cannot stand something when in fact we do not like it (and we might dislike it very much indeed). HFT enables us to face difficulty with more courage and resilience. Example: If people are rude to me, I do not like it, but I can stand it and it would be worth the struggle.

Unconditional Self (other, life) Acceptance: We are far to complex to be rated in one aspect or dimension. In fact it is impossible to truly define a human being in any one way. We are better off rating our behaviour, not ourselves. Example: If I fail at something then I will have failed at an important thing to me, but that would never make me a failure I would be a fallible human being.Rational Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

REBT is the pioneering form of cognitive behavior therapy developed by Dr. Albert Ellis in 1955. REBT is an action-oriented approach to managing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral disturbances.

According to REBT, it is largely our thinking about events that leads to emotional and behavioral upset. With an emphasis on the present, individuals are taught how to examine and challenge their unhelpful thinking which creates unhealthy emotions and self-defeating/self-sabotaging behaviors.

REBT is a practical approach to assist individuals in coping with and overcoming adversity as well as achieving goals. REBT places a good deal of its focus on the present. REBT addresses attitudes, unhealthy emotions (e.g., unhealthy anger, depression, anxiety, guilt, etc.) and maladaptive behaviors (e.g., procrastination, addictive behaviors, aggression, unhealthy eating, sleep disturbance, etc.) that can negatively impact life satisfaction. REBT practitioners work closely with individuals, seeking to help identify their individual set of beliefs (attitudes, expectations and personal rules) that frequently lead to emotional distress.

REBT then provides a variety of methods to help people reformulate their dysfunctional beliefs into more sensible, realistic and helpful ones by employing the powerful REBT technique called disputing. Ultimately, REBT helps individuals to develop a philosophy and approach to living that can increase their effectiveness and satisfaction at work, in living successfully with others, in parenting and educational settings, in making our community and environment healthier, and in enhancing their own emotional health and personal welfare.

Albert Ellis, an important contributor to the ideas behind cognitive-behavioral therapy and the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), discovered that peoples beliefs strongly affected their emotional functioning. In particular certain irrational beliefs made people feel depressed, anxious or angry and led to self-defeating behaviors.

When Ellis presented his theory in the mid-1950s (Ellis, 1962), the role of cognition in emotional disturbance had not been fully addressed by the field of psychology. Ellis developed REB theory and therapy in reaction to what he saw as the inadequate techniques of psychoanalysis and behaviorism. He attributed the deficiency in the two camps techniques to their conceptualization of personality and emotional disturbance. Ellis felt that by ignoring the role thinking played in emotional disturbance both psychoanalytic and behavior theory failed to explain how humans originally became disturbed and how they remained disturbed.

The word belief means a conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something. So a belief is a thought with an emotional component (conviction) and a factual component (truth, actuality or validity). Beliefs can be either positive or negative. Having a negative belief is not necessarily a bad thing; however, when one believes in something that is false, a negative belief tends to become what Ellis called an irrational belief. Irrational beliefs are not friendly to happiness and contentment and are definitely unhelpful for getting ones basic desires for love and approval, comfort and achievement or success met.

Core Irrational Beliefs

Demandingness or Absolutism inflexible, dogmatic, extreme beliefs signaled by words such as should, must, have to, and need to (e.g., I should not be in pain or I should be able to do what I used to do). This is not the kind of should as in I should go to the store and get some milk, but rather a should with a capital S, a demand.

Demand for Love and Approvalfrom nearly everyone one finds important

Demand for Success or Achievementin things one finds important

Demand for Comfortor nearly no frustration or discomfort.

When someone holds one of these irrational beliefs, they also tend to hold one or a combination of the following irrational beliefs.

Awfulization refers to 100% disasterizing beliefs signaled by such words as disaster, horrible or awful, and catastrophe.

Low Frustration Tolerance beliefs signaled by words such as intolerable, cant stand it, and too hard.

Global-Rating beliefs in which you condemn or blame your entire selfhood or someone elses basic value in some important way. Global rating is signaled by such words as loser, worthless, useless, idiot, stupid.

ABCDE Model of Emotional Disturbance

Albert Ellis thought people developed irrational beliefs in response to preferential goals being blocked. He set this up in an ABCDE model (Ellis and Dryden, 1987). A stands for Activating Event or Adversity. This is any event. It is just a fact. B refers to ones Irrational Belief about the event at A. That belief then leads to C, the emotional and behavioral Consequences. D stands for disputes or arguments against irrational beliefs. E stands for New Effect or the new, more effective emotions and behaviors that result from more reasonable thinking about the original event.

Disputing Irrational Beliefs

It is important to use vigor or energy when disputing irrational beliefs. Disputing is not just a rational or cognitive method but also an emotional method of changing irrational beliefs into rational ones.

Disputing Irrational Beliefs Continued

Rational beliefs are flexible and are based on preferences, not extremist demands for comfort, success and approval. A belief also develops an emotional component after it is practiced repeatedly. Unfortunately, humans can rehearse untrue ideas and develop irrational beliefs. Typically, common sense tells us that an irrational belief is false, but there is little emotion connected to that common-sense thought. In other words, one can see the idea is wrong but it feels true. People tend to confuse this feeling, because it is so strong, with the truth and then tend to engage in activities that support the irrational belief. Disputing irrational beliefs involves asking oneself a few simple questions.

1. The Empirical or Scientific Dispute. Ask where is the proof that this belief is true? With this question, one is looking for the scientific evidence of the irrational beliefs validity. For example, Johns irrational belief is that his love interest, Jane, should not reject him. But John is feeling very sad and rejected because Jane turned him down for a dinner date and he thinks that he cannot stand this rejection and that it is just awful! Where is the proof that his belief that Jane should not reject him is true? There isnt any. In fact, she did reject him, therefore, the irrational belief that she should not reject him is clearly false. If John did not hold his irrational belief about Janet in the first place, he would not feel overly sad or rejected.

2. The Functional Dispute. Ask is my irrational belief helping me or does it make things worse for me? In other words, does the belief work to help achieve basic goals? Is this belief helping happiness or hurting it? It was clear that Johns irrational belief made him feel worse when his belief was confronted with the facts.

3. The Logical Dispute. Ask is this belief logical? Does it ring true to common sense? With this question, one is looking for ways in which the belief does not stem from preferences for love and approval, comfort and success or achievement. There may be overgeneralizing going on. Does it make sense that Janet should not reject John because he believes that she should not? Humans three basic goals of love and approval, comfort and success or achievement are desires. They are preferences or wants. When engaging in demanding thinking or absolutist thinking those preferences become absolutes (Ellis and Dryden, 1987).

Preferences are not laws of nature. While it is true that humans have these basic desires or preferences for their lives that does not mean that those preferences are necessarily achieved. Remember in the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson states that we have the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We do not have the inherent right to happiness but only a right to pursue it. The reason why he does not say we have the right to happiness is that happiness is not a law of nature. That we like happiness appears to be law and that we pursue happiness appears to be law of our nature. That we like love and approval, comfort and success is a fact. But because we like something or want something or prefer something does not make it a law that we must have it. We definitely suffer if we dont have happiness or get our goals met; that is true. It is not a law that we must have it. If it were a law of nature we would simply be happyour desires for love, comfort and success would just exist for everybody as a fact. And there would be no reason for Jefferson to state that we have the right to pursue happiness. He would have just said we have the right to happiness.

Any irrational belief stems from a core should, must, have to, need to statement. The illogical inferences of low frustration tolerance, awfulizing, and self or other downing (global rating) all flow from the demands for comfort, love and approval, and success or achievement. In a logical dispute the first question to ask is, Do my conclusions stem from my preferences or do they stem from some demand that I have made? Lets take a look at how making a demand can lead to false conclusions.

The statement all dogs must have white hair followed by the presence of what appears to be a dog with black hair leads us to incorrectly conclude that this dog-like creature with black hair is not a dog. When we say I must have love and approval and we dont get it from someone we find important, we then tend to conclude that it is awful, that it is intolerable, and that maybe we are unworthy.

We can also argue against these conclusions as being illogical. If it were a fact that not getting the love we want was truly awful or intolerable we would just drop dead. We would not be able to survive. And if we conclude that we are unworthy or unlovable because we do not get someones love we also make a false statement. It is impossible for ones basic worth to be based on getting the love or approval of one particular person. It is our judgment of ourselves that makes us feel bad or good. When we judge our self-worth on external events we conclude that our value as a person is dependent on getting someones love or approval and it clearly is not.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy was first called Rational Therapy, later Rational Emotive Therapy, then changed to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. It was first introduced in 1955 byDr. Albert Elliswho had become increasing frustrated with the ineffectiveness of psychotherapy. Ellis drew from his knowledge of philosophy and psychology to devise a method which he believed was more directive, efficient, and effective.

Understanding Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy's (REBT) central premise is that events alone do not cause a person to feel depressed, enraged, or highly anxious. Rather, it is ones beliefs about the events which contributes to unhealthy feelings and self defeating behaviors.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy teaches the client to identify, evaluate, dispute, and act against his or her irrational self- defeating beliefs, thus helping the client to not only feel better but to get better.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is an active-directive, solution-oriented therapy which focuses on resolving emotional, cognitive and behavioral problems in clients. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is one of the first forms of Cognitive Behavior Therapy and was first expounded by Ellis in 1953. Fundamental to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy ) is the concept that emotional suffering results primarily, though not completely, from our evaluations of a negative event, not solely by the events themselves. In other words, human beings on the basis of their belief system actively, though not always consciously, disturb themselves, and even disturb themselves about their disturbances.

The Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy framework assumes that humans have both rational and irrational tendencies. Irrational thought/images prevent goal attainment, lead to inner conflict, lead to more conflict with others and poor mental health. Rational thought/images lead to goal attainment and more inner harmony. In other words rational beliefs reduce conflicts with others and improved health.

REBT claims that irrational and self-defeating thinking, emoting and behaving are correlated with emotional difficulties such as self-blame, jealousy, guilt, Low Frustration Tolerance, depression, and anxiety. This is a view shared with some other well-known therapies, such as Re-evaluation Counseling and Person-centred counseling - as these both arose in the mid-50s, Ellis is thought to have had an influence on them. REBT is an educational and active-directive process in which the therapist teaches the client how to identify irrational and self-defeating tendencies which in nature are unrealistic, illogical and absolutist, and then to forcefully and emotionally dispute them, and replace them with more rational and self-helping ones. By using different methods and activities, the client, together with help from the therapist and in homework exercises, can gain a more rational, logical and constructive rational way of thinking, emoting and behaving.

One of main objectives in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is to show the client that whenever unpleasant activating events occur in people's lives, they have a choice of making themselves feel healthily and self-helpingly sorry, disappointed, frustrated, and annoyed, or making themselves feel unhealthily and self-defeatingly horrified, terrified, panicked, depressed, self-hating, and self-pitying.

More about Rational Emotive Therapy

One of the main pillars of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is that irrational patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving are the cause of much human disturbance, includingdepressionandanxiety. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy teaches that turning flexible preferences and wishes into grandiose absolutistic demands and commands will cause disturbances. Albert Ellis has suggested three core beliefs that cause disturbances (Ellis, 2003):

"I must be thoroughly competent, adequate, achieving, and lovable at all times, or else I am an incompetent worthless person." This belief usually leads to feelings of anxiety, panic, depression, despair, and worthlessness.

"Other significant people in my life, must treat me kindly and fairly at all times, or else I cant stand it, and they are bad, rotten, and evil persons who should be severely blamed, damned, and vindictively punished for their horrible treatment of me." *:This leads to feelings of anger, rage, fury, and vindictiveness and lead to actions like fights, feuds, wars, genocide, and ultimately, an atomic holocaust."

"Things and conditions absolutely must be the way I want them to be and must never be too difficult or frustrating. Otherwise, life is awful, terrible, horrible, catastrophic and unbearable." This leads to low-frustration tolerance, self-pity, anger, depression, and to behaviors such as procrastination, avoidance, and inaction. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy then holds that an irrational belief system has strong tendencies to the following self-defeating components: Demands (or as Ellis calls musturbation), Awfulizing, Low Frustration Tolerance, People Rating, and Overgeneralizing.

It is therefore the evaluative belief system, based on core philosophies, that is likely to create unrealistic, arbitrary, and crooked inferences and distortions in thinking. REBT therefore first teaches that when people in an unsensible way overuse absolutistic and rigid "shoulds", "musts", and "oughts", they will very likely disturb themselves. Essential to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is that most "isms" and dogmas are, by nature, unhealthy and self-defeating, and that absolutistic ways of thinking will, in most cases, create unnecessary disturbances. These inflexible philosophies are, therefore, better replaced with more flexible, un-dogmatic and self-helping attitudes. The healthy alternative to demandingness is therefore unconditional acceptance of humans -- not their behavior, but that which cannot be changed -- and rigorous, effortful problem solving.

Disturbed evaluations occur through overgeneralization, wherein one exaggerates and globalizes events or traits, usually unwanted events or traits or behaviors, out of context, while almost always ignoring the positive events or traits or behaviors. For example, awfulizing is mental magnification of the importance of an unwanted situation to a catastrophe, elevating the rating of something from bad to worse than it should be, to beyond totally bad, to intolerable, to a holocaust. The same exaggeration and overgeneralizing occurs with human rating, wherein humans come to be defined by their flaws or misdeeds: the person is bad based on bad behavior or bad traits. Frustration intolerance occurs when one sees that tasks are more difficult, tedious, or boring than one wants, but exaggerates the badness of this to something that is wrongly too hard, too much, not as easy as it should be or beyond what one can stand.

Many of these self-defeating beliefs are both innately biological and indoctrinated in early life and might grow stronger as a person continually revisits them. By emotive, cognitive and behavioral methods the client learns to replace the absolutistic and dogmatic musts with flexible and non-rigid preferences, which are likely to cause more healthy and constructive emotions and behavior. The Rational Emotive Behavior therapist strongly believes in a rigorous application of the rules of logic, straight thinking, and of scientific method to everyday life (Ellis, 2003).

REBT points out that irrational beliefs will often be obvious in how people talk to themselves. The therapist asking, "What are you telling yourself about...?" will usually reveal both irrational inferences, and, by closer examination, demands and exaggerated evaluations. The therapist is most interested in finding core-beliefs and deep-rooted philosophical evaluations. These are usually the automatic causes of negative inferences and higher level evaluative thoughts.

REBT teaches that:

Unconditional self-acceptance, other-acceptance and life-acceptance is of prime importance in achieving mental wellness.People and the world are fallible and that people better accept themselves, life's hassles and unfairnesses and others "as is".They consider themselves valuable just as a result of being alive and kicking; and are better off not to measure their "self" or their "being" and give themselves any global rating, because all humans are far too complex to rate, and do both good and bad deeds and have both, not either-or, good and bad attributes and traits.REBT holds that ideas and feelings about self-worth are largely definitional and are not empirically confirmable or falsifiable (Ellis, 2003).

REBT believes that the client has to work hard to get better, and this work may include homework assigned by the therapist. The assignments may include desensitization tasks, i.e. by having the client confronting the very thing the client is making himself afraid of. Often Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy focuses on specific problems and is used as a brief therapy, but in deeper problems longer therapy is promoted. Another factor contributing to the brevity of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is that the therapist helps the client learn how to get better through hard work, and help himself to get through future adversities. It holds that hard work, and hard work only, is the only way to get, and stay, better and not only temporarily feel better. An ideal successful collaboration between the REBT therapist and a client results in changes to the client's philosophical way of evaluating himself, others and his life, which is likely to yield effective results: The client's better move toward unconditional self-acceptance, other-acceptance and life-acceptance.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), was developed by Dr.Albert Ellis in 1955. It has since flourished and spawned a variety of other cognitive-behavior therapies. REBT's effectiveness, short-term nature, and low cost are major reasons for its popularity.

REBT's comprehensive approach works best for individuals desiring a scientific, present-focused, and active treatment for coping with life's difficulties, rather than one which is mystical, historical, and largely passive.

REBT is based on a few simple principles having profound implications:

1. You are responsible for your own emotions and actions,

2. Your harmful emotions and dysfunctional behaviors are the product of your irrational thinking,

3. You can learn more realistic views and, with practice, make them a part of you,

4. You'll experience a deeper acceptance of yourself and greater satisfactions in life by developinga reality-based perspective.

REBT distinguishes clearly between two very different types of difficulties:practicalproblems andemotionalproblems. Your flawed behavior, unfair treatment by others, and undesirable situations, representpracticalproblems. Regrettably, your human tendency is to upset yourself about these practical problems, thereby unnecessarily creating a second order of problems--emotionalsuffering. REBT addresses the latter by helping you:

1. Take responsibility for your distress. The first lesson in healthy emoting and relating was stated by the Roman philosopher Epictetus more than 2000 years ago: only you can upset yourself about events--the events themselves, no matter how undesirable, can never upset you.

Recognize that neither another person, nor an adverse circumstance, can ever disturb you--only you can. No one else can get into your gut and churn it up. Others can cause you physical pain--by hitting you over the head with a baseball bat, for example--or can block your goals. But you create your own emotional suffering, or self-defeating behavioral patterns, about what others do or say.

2. Identify your "musts." Once you admit that you distort your own emotions and actions, then determine precisely how. The culprit usually lies in one of the three core "musts:"

"Must" #1 (a demand on yourself): "I MUST do well and get approval, or else I'm worthless." This demand causes anxiety, depression, and lack of assertiveness.

"Must" #2 (a demand on others): "You MUST treat me reasonably, considerately, and lovingly, or else you're no good." This "must" leads to resentment, hostility, and violence.

"Must" #3 (a demand on situations): "Life MUST be fair, easy, and hassle-free, or else it's awful." This thinking is associated with hopelessness, procrastination, and addictions.

Ascertain what you're demanding of yourself, of your significant others, or of your circumstances. Not until you have discovered the "must" can you then go on effectively to reduce your distress.

3. Dispute your "musts." The only way you can ever remain disturbed about adversity is by vigorously and persistently agreeing with one of these three "musts." Thus, once you've bared them, then relentlessly confront and question your demands.

Begin by asking yourself: "What's the evidence for my 'must?' " "How is it true?" "Where's it etched in stone?" And then by seeing: "There'snoevidence." "My 'must' is entirely false." "It's not carved indelibly anywhere." Make your view "must"-free, and then your emotions will heal.

4. Reinforce your preferences. Conclude, therefore:

Preference #1: "I strongly PREFER to do well and get approval, but even if I fail, I will accept myself fully,"

Preference #2: "I strongly PREFER that you treat me reasonably, kindly, and lovingly, but since I don't run the universe, and it's a part of your human nature to err, I, then, cannot control you,"

Preference #3: "I strongly PREFER that life be fair, easy, and hassle-free, and it's very frustrating that it isn't, but I can bear frustration and still considerably enjoy life."

Assuming that you take the above suggestions to heart and thereby greatly reduce your anxiety, hostility, depression, and addictions, what remains? Will you exist robot-like, devoid of human feeling and motivation? Hardly! Without your turmoil, you'll more easily experience love, involvement, and joy. And without your addictions, you'll be freer to engage in the gratifying experiences of spontaneity, commitment, and self-actualization.

As you can see, REBT will appeal to you if you relish quickly taking control of your own life, rather than remaining dependent upon a therapist for years. By giving you tools for identifying and overcoming the true source of your difficulties, it will prepare you to act in many ways as your own therapist. And by helping you to reinforce realistic, self-benefitting beliefs, it will enable you to eliminate present emotional and behavioral problems, and to avoid future ones.

An Introduction to Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

Rational emotive behaviour therapy focuses on uncovering irrational beliefs which may lead to unhealthy negative emotions and replacing them with more productive rational alternatives.

ARTICLE CONTENTS

Underlying Theory of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy Therapeutic Approach of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy Criticisms of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy Best Fit With Clients Further Reading on Rational Emotive Behaviour TherapySkip to Related ArticlesUnderlying Theory of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

Rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) views human beings as responsibly hedonistic in the sense that they strive to remain alive and to achieve some degree of happiness. However, it also holds that humans are prone to adopting irrational beliefs and behaviours which stand in the way of their achieving their goals and purposes. Often, these irrational attitudes or philosophies take the form of extreme or dogmatic musts, shoulds, or oughts; they contrast with rational and flexible desires, wishes, preferences and wants. The presence of extreme philosophies can make all the difference betweenhealthynegative emotions (such as sadness or regret or concern) andunhealthynegative emotions (such as depression or guilt or anxiety). For example, one persons philosophy after experiencing a loss might take the form: It is unfortunate that this loss has occurred, although there is no actual reason why it should not have occurred. It is sad that it has happened, but it is not awful, and I can continue to function. Anothers might take the form: This absolutely should not have happened, and it is horrific that it did. These circumstances are now intolerable, and I cannot continue to function. The first persons response is apt to lead to sadness, while the second person may be well on their way to depression. Most importantly of all, REBT maintains that individuals have it within their power to change their beliefs and philosophies profoundly, and thereby to change radically their state of psychological health.

REBT employs the ABC framework depicted in the figure below to clarify the relationship between activating events (A); our beliefs about them (B); and the cognitive, emotional or behavioural consequences of our beliefs (C). The ABC model is also used in some renditions ofcognitive therapyor cognitive behavioural therapy, where it is also applied to clarify the role of mental activities or predispositions in mediating between experiences and emotional responses.

The figure below shows how the framework distinguishes between the effects of rational beliefs about negative events, which give rise to healthy negative emotions, and the effects of irrational beliefs about negative events, which lead to unhealthy negative emotions.

In addition to the ABC framework, REBT also employs three primary insights:

1. While external events are of undoubted influence, psychological disturbance is largely a matter of personalchoicein the sense that individuals consciously or unconsciouslyselectboth rational beliefs and irrational beliefs at (B) when negative events occur at (A)

2. Past history and present life conditions stronglyaffectthe person, but they do not, in and of themselves,disturbthe person; rather, it is the individuals responses which disturb them, and it is again a matter of individual choice whether to maintain the philosophies at (B) which cause disturbance.

3. Modifying the philosophies at (B) requires persistence and hard work, but it can be done.

Therapeutic Approach of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

The main purpose of REBT is to help clients to replace absolutist philosophies, full of musts and shoulds, with more flexible ones; part of this includes learning to accept that all human beings (including themselves) are fallible and learning to increase their tolerance for frustration while aiming to achieve their goals. Although emphasizing the same core conditions as person-centred counselling namely, empathy, unconditional positive regard, and counsellor genuineness in the counselling relationship, REBT views these conditions as neither necessary nor sufficient for therapeutic change to occur.

The basic process of change which REBT attempts to foster begins with the client acknowledging the existence of a problem and identifying any meta-disturbances about that problem (i.e., problems about the problem, such as feeling guilty about being depressed). The client then identifies the underlying irrational belief which caused the original problem and comes to understand both why it is irrational and why a rational alternative would be preferable. The client challenges their irrational belief and employs a variety of cognitive, behavioural, emotive and imagery techniques to strengthen their conviction in a rational alternative. (For example, rational emotive imagery, or REI, helps clients practice changing unhealthy negative emotions into healthy ones at (C) while imagining the negative event at (A), as a way of changing their underlying philosophy at (B); this is designed to help clients move from an intellectual insight about which of their beliefs are rational and which irrational to a stronger gut instinct about the same.) They identify impediments to progress and overcome them, and they work continuously to consolidate their gains and to prevent relapse.

To further this process, REBT advocates selective eclecticism, which means that REBT counsellors are encouraged to make use of techniques from other approaches, while still working specifically within the theoretical framework of REBT. In other words, REBT maintains theoretical coherence while pragmatically employing techniques that work.

Throughout, the counsellor may take a very directive role, actively disputing the clients irrational beliefs, agreeing homework assignments which help the client to overcome their irrational beliefs, and in general pushing the client to challenge themselves and to accept the discomfort which may accompany the change process.

Criticisms of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

As one leading proponent of REBT has indicated, REBT is easy to practise poorly, and it is from this that one immediate criticism suggests itself from the perspective of someone who takes a philosophical approach to life anyway: inelegant REBT could be profoundly irritating! The kind of conceptual disputing favoured by REBT could easily meander off track into minutiae relatively far removed from the clients central concern, and the mental gymnastics required to keep client and therapist on the same track could easily eat up time better spent on more productive activities. The counsellors and clients estimations of relative importance could diverge rather profoundly, particularly if the clients outlook really does embody significant irrationalities. Having said all that, each of the preceding sentences includes the qualifier could, and with a great deal of skill, each pitfall undoubtedly could be avoided.

Perhaps more importantly, it would appear that the need to match therapeutic approach with client preference is even more pressing with REBT than with many others. In other words, it seems very important to adopt the REBT approach only with clients who truly are suitable, as it otherwise risks being strongly counter-productive. On this point, however, it is crucial to realize that some clients specifically do appreciateexactlythis kind of approach, and counsellors who are unable or unwilling to provide the disputation required are probably not right for those clients.

Best Fit With Clients

REBT is much less empirically supported than some other approaches: the requisite studies simply have not been completed yet, and the relevant data points for determining the best match with clients are therefore thin on the ground. However, one may envision clients responding particularly well who are both willing and able to conceptualise their problems within the ABC framework, and who are committed to active participation in the process of identifying and changing irrational beliefs (including performing homework assignments in support of the latter). Clients will also need to be able to work collaboratively with a counsellor who will challenge and dispute with them directly, and a scientific and at least somewhat logical outlook would seem a pre-requisite. REBT would be less suitable for clients who do not meet one or more of the above. And as hinted above in the section on Criticims, one might alsospeculatethat clients who are already highly skilled in philosophical engagement could find the approach less useful. (Perhaps REBT-style self help could be of more benefit for such clients?)

Further Reading on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

Ourannotated bibliographyincludes pointers to additional reading on this and other therapeutic approaches. The comment referenced in the section on Criticisms, on the easiness of practising REBT poorly, is due toDryden (2002b), p. 367; the notion of selective eclecticism is due toDryden (1987). Note that REBT is closely related tocognitive therapyand is viewed by many as a subset of it.