Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
A. Biography of Albert Ellis
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 17, 1913, Albert Ellis, the oldest of
three children, was born to Jewish parents. His sister was 4 years younger than him, and
he had a brother who was 2 years younger. The family relocated to the Bronx in New
York when he was 4 years old. Ellis has portrayed his father as a businessman who had
little success, who had a small amount of affection for his kids, and who spent a lot of
time away from home while Ellis was a young child on business trips. Ellis characterized
his mother as a conceited bipolar woman. Ellis' mother was emotionally aloof from her
children, just like his father was. Ellis was hospitalized for a renal condition when he was
5 years old. Between the ages of 5 and 7, he was subsequently hospitalized eight times,
with one stay lasting nearly a year. Ellis claimed that because his parents didn't offer him
much emotional support at this period, his sicknesses taught him how to deal with his
feelings of inferiority.
First known as rational emotive therapy, Ellis created the first cognitive
behavioral psychotherapy approach that was intended to be therapeutic (RET). In part
because he thought psychoanalysis was ineffective and inefficient, he developed this
treatment strategy. The Stoic philosophers, like as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, can be
credited with the philosophical foundations of RET. According to Ellis, all irrational,
unsettling, or neurotic feelings are the outcome of how a person interprets their
circumstances, not the circumstances themselves. By adding the word "behavior" to his
theoretical framework, Ellis reworked RET in the 1980s. When RET evolved into REBT,
changing the client's self-talk was a key objective. Because to its goal of altering how
individuals think and behave, REBT also developed strong ties with the cognitive
theoretical school.
B. Theory of Personality: Rational Emotive ABC
The ABC model of personality is highlighted by REBT. A stands for an activating
event or experiences that cause tension or worry, such as family issues or early childhood
trauma. B stands for "belief system," the mental aspect of how we react to things.
Irrational, self-defeating ideas, which are the root of our dissatisfaction, are particularly
significant. The letter C stands for the effects of our beliefs, such as the neurotic
symptoms and unfavorable emotions like wrath, rage, and depression. People have
unpleasant effects as a result of irrational ideas. Even while the pain from our activation
events may be excruciatingly real, it is our erroneous beliefs that lead to maladaptive
behavior. Ellis modified the ABC formula by including D and E. The therapist supports
the client in disputing the irrational beliefs (D) to take pleasure in the positive
psychological effects (E) of eradicating irrational belief. Below are the detail of ABCDE
model:
A = Activating event
B = Belief system
C = Emotional consequences of A and B
D = Disputing irrational thoughts and beliefs
E = Cognitive and emotional effects of revised beliefs
Clients learn how to recognize illogical ideas from therapists, particularly those
that are absolute "shoulds" and "musts," "awfulizing," and "self-downing." After that,
clients dispute their illogical views in order to engage in healthy discourse about their
dysfunctional beliefs. Clients also learn to distinguish between sensible and illogical
views, which includes self-defeating beliefs. In his prime, Ellis yelled, interrupted,
shouted, and concentrated on the irrational thoughts of his clients. His objective was to
assist customers in changing their negative, unrealistic thinking into a more pragmatic
and adaptable assessment of trying circumstances. REBT aims to swap out negative self-
talk for constructive self-talk. Clients are guided in the development of E, an effective
philosophy, after being taught how to discriminate between their rational ideas and
irrational ones. E denotes the results of people reevaluating how they perceive the
circumstances. When Ellis pushed people to give up their fundamentally illogical beliefs,
he discovered that they frequently refused.
C. The Therapeutic Process and REBT
The goal of REBT is to assist clients in developing a more pragmatic, logical
philosophy of life. Practitioners of REBT don't spend a lot of time listening to their
clients' histories or their in-depth accounts of suffering. The therapist doesn't spend a lot
of time going over the grisly specifics of the client's life, such as who did what to whom.
These things are thought to be a smokescreen that hides the true problem of irrational
thinking. In the initial few sessions, the REBT therapist frequently questions clients'
illogical ideas.
REBT is meant to be a quick therapy. The typical length of stay for short-term
REBT patients ranges from 1 to 10 sessions. Clients may typically grasp their dominant
philosophical stance during this phase, learn the ABC way of identifying emotional
difficulties, and start to alter the fundamental disturbance-creating irrational ideas. For at
least six months, clients with severe disruptions are urged to attend individual or group
sessions.
Three powerful insights are offered to clients by REBT. The first insight notes
that a person's self-destructive behavior typically results from the combination of A
(adversity) and B (belief about the adversity). When A and B interact, disturbing
consequences (C) result, meaning that A + B = C. The second insight is the knowledge
that individuals have become emotionally distressed due to their continued indoctrination
with the same illogical notions. These ideas are now habitual in the lives of clients
because they have been conditioned responses (CR).Dysfunctional beliefs will probably
persist as long as customers refuse to acknowledge and take responsibility for them.
Third insight: customers understand that only effort and repetition can disprove false
beliefs.
D. Role of the REBT Therapist
The ability to differentiate between rational and irrational thoughts is a skill that
REBT therapists must possess. The therapist's main responsibility is to concentrate on the
main illogical beliefs that underlie the feelings clients have expressed in treatment,
particularly their beliefs that the way they have been treated is terrible. Using data from
the clients' own experiences as well as from the therapist's general knowledge of people,
the therapist actively challenges the unreasonable beliefs of the clients. The therapist
works with clients to identify "shoulds" and "musts" in their life, acknowledge them, and
then challenge them. The therapist continually attempting to encourage clients to realize
that their beliefs are illogical rather than just telling them so.
The client's progress toward constructive and positive conduct is aided by the
therapist's reassuring assertion that they can experience emotions such as anxiety and
depression. There are three stages of REBT. The client hears the cognitive foundation of
REBT from the therapist during the cognitive phase. Therapist may asking at the
beginning such as ‘What issues have you been worrying about lately’. Writing down
clients' troubling thoughts is a major focus of the cognitive phase. Clients are told during
the emotional phase that they can learn to manage their emotions by being aware of the
thoughts that underlie those emotions and by practicing substituting different thoughts.
Clients are taught how to modify their conduct during the behavioristic phase.
E. Role of The Client
Assertion training, operant conditioning, role-playing, didactic discussion, and
activity-focused homework assignments are only a few of the therapeutic methods used
in REBT. One method is referred to as language change. REBT asserts that the use of
imprecise language might lead to erroneous thinking. Customers are taught how to
transform their "musts" into "preferences."
Dispute resolution incorporates two stages and is one of the counseling
techniques. The client's irrational beliefs that they express in treatment are carefully
examined in the first section, sentence by sentence. Using cognitive, imaginal, and
behavioral disputation techniques makes up the second level. Asking direct questions
during cognitive disputation is an attempt to persuade the client. The therapist can
inquire, "Can you prove it? How did you find out? What could possibly go wrong for you
if what you say is accurate? How will you feel as long as you have that belief?”
Imaginal disputation is a different kind of disagreement. Clients are asked to
picture themselves in the unpleasant circumstance by their therapist. The therapist
instructs clients to convert their fear into moderate anxiety and their wrath into mild
irritation after they have been brought into their current feelings. Once clients indicate
that they are picturing various emotions and behaviors, they are told to pay attention to
what they are saying or thinking to themselves in order to trigger those various emotions.
If clients continue using logical emotive imagery, they may eventually stop being
bothered by unpleasant occurrences.
