REBT: A Primer For School Counselors

REBT: A Primer For School Counselors

Course Study Description

CCEUS03 - REBT: A Primer For School Counselors [Approved for 10 contact hours by The National Board For Certified Counselors - Provider #5936] -[$50.00 -  NO OTHER COURSE FEES APPLY] The course is an overview of the tenets of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.  Inferential applications for school counselors based upon a thorough knowledge of the theory in working with students makes up the main focus of the work in this course.  Rationality is that which helps people to achieve their basic goals and purposes.  It is logical and empirically consistent with reality.  Irrationality, on the other hand, is that which prevents people from achieving their basic goals and purposes.  It is illogical, dogmatic, and empirically inconsistent with reality.  This course will seek to provide a solid grounding in the theory and allude to some uses in the school setting to give counselors a powerful tool to employ in helping young people to make better decisions about their lives.

Course Directions

Click on the Course Directions page to read course procedures. 

Course Outcomes

As a result of the study in this course, the student will

Text [Required Reading To Be Prepared For The Exam]

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Reader [paperback] edited by Windy Dryden ISBN 0803978596 available on The Bookstore Page for $31.50.

Study Guide Questions

1. What are the causes of emotional disturbance?

2. Discuss the tyranny of the "shoulds" and the "musts."

3. What does it mean to be disturbed about being disturbed?

4. Define discomfort disturbance or anxiety in the REBT client.

5. What is the "theory of force?"

6. Elaborate on the role of efficiency in the therapy.

7. Discuss the concept of th therapeutic alliance in REBT.

8. List and describe some of the concepts that a client needs to know when in therapy. 

9. What is the role of assessment in REBT.

10. What is chaining and how is it employed in REBT? 

11. Discuss the concept of thoughts giving rise to feelings.

12. What is the role of disputation in the process of counseling?  

13. How is persuasion useful in REBT?  

14. What role does forces and energy play in the therapeutic process? 

15. Outline some of the method commonly employed in REBT. 

16.  What approaches can a counselor employ in overcoming resistance in a client in REBT?

17. Briefly outline the counseling sequence in REBT. 

18. Describe the major milestones in counseling employing REBT. 

19. Define compromises and eclecticism in counseling. 

20. Elaborate on the context of REBT in counseling. 

21. Describe the ABC's of REBT. 

22. What are the 12 irrational ideas that cause and sustain neurosis

23. Describe three major differences between REBT and other schools of therapy. 

24.  What does REBT say about uncovering the past?  

25. Discuss several criticisms of REBT. 

26. List some techniques for disputing irrational beliefs. 

27. Discuss some reasons why an individual accepts himself or considers himself good or valuable in spite of their talents and achievements or lack thereof.

28. Discuss the conept of self-actualization in an REBT context.

29. Discuss the role of self-actualization in REBT.

30. Discuss the distinctive practices of REBT including:

Vocabulary

Supplementary Readings [Required Reading To Be Prepared For The Exam]

Rational emotive behavior therapists will listen while you whine about your mother, but in the final analysis, they put you at the center of the universe, largely responsible for your own actions and feelings.

Building Blocks of Therapy:

A. Activating Experience
B. Belief
C. Consequence
D. Dispute
E. Effects

ABC's. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy places the responsibility for a person's fate squarely upon his or her own shoulders. It is one's irrational beliefs (B) that cause "traumatic" experiences (A) to result in neurosis.

The REBT therapist leads a client to attack his or her irrational beliefs by disputing them (D). Once the client's attack has been successful, he or she is free to establish sensible beliefs and appropriate behavior which are psychologically healthy effects (E).

From any conventional viewpoint, Ms. P needed no therapy at all. She had just been offered an exceptionally good job. High-level men had sought her company after her husband's death. She had no problems with her 18-year-old daughter, who was adjusting well to an out-of-town college. Yet, she came to me in an extreme state of panic.

She slept little and fitfully, and vacillated about accepting the new job. These were recent, and she thought surface, manifestations of her anxiety. More important, she was afraid of failing on any job, although she had never failed. She believed her husband had lost interest in her before his death, though he had never shown signs of disinterest. And she felt inadequate sexually, despite her sexual partners' protestations about their inadequacies rather than about hers.

Instead of feeling better, in the light of her recent business and social successes, and after what she called "three highly successful years" of psychoanalysis, she was becoming considerably more anxious and disturbed.

Her previous analyst, a woman well trained in Freudian and Sullivanian methods, had guided her to believe that the basis of her disturbance was her attitude toward men. She had "learned" through psychoanalysis that she had vainly sought her father's love when she was a child, but had never succeeded in weaning him away from his much greater and obsessive interest in her older brother. Consequently, she unconsciously hated men. She had resolved this problem by forcing herself to compete compulsively with males, to win out over them in the business world. But she had felt it too dangerous to compete with them sexually, since they were always better at having orgasms than she. So she had retreated, according to her analyst, to extravaginal stimulation instead of intercourse.

Awareness of the psychoanalytic explanations for her disturbance was not enough for Ms. P. She decided that her analysis was not progressing, and in desperation decided to try rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT).

REBT, which I originated in 1955, goes further than orthodox psychoanalysis and classical behavioristic approaches. It places humans at the center of the universe and gives them considerable responsibility for their own fate. It is partly their choice to make or to refuse to make themselves neurotic. Although REBT's basic theory of human personality has strong roots in biological and environmental assumptions, it holds that the individual himself can, and usually does, significantly intervene between his environmental input and his emotional output, and that therefore he -- and, of course, she -- has, potentially, a good amount of control over what he feels and does.

The ABC's of REBT

REBT uses a simple ABC approach to human personality and its disturbance. The therapist usually begins with C, the upsetting emotional Consequence that the client has recently experienced. Typically, she has been rejected. This rejection can be called A, the Activating Experience, which the person wrongly believes directly causes C, her feelings of anxiousness, worthlessness, and depression. The client learns that by itself an Activating event (A) in the outside world does not cause or create any feelings or emotional Consequence (C). For if it did, the therapist explains, then virtually everyone who gets rejected would have to feel just as depressed as the client, Ms. P. But since this is hardly true, C is largely caused by some intervening variable, which is the individual's Belief system (B).

When rejection occurs, the healthy individual has a mainly healthy or rational set of negative beliefs: "Isn't it unfortunate that I was rejected. I will suffer real losses or disadvantages by this rejection. Now, how can I be accepted by this person in the future, or by some other person who will probably bring me almost as much joy?" These Beliefs are rational or useful because they increase a person's happiness and minimize his pain, and they are related to observable, empirically provable events.

If the individual held rigorously to his (or her) rational Belief about being rejected, he or she would experience profound feelings at point C, but they would not be those that accompany an irrational set of Beliefs: anxiousness, worthlessness and depression. Instead, he would have feelings of disappointment, frustration and annoyance. His feelings would then be quite healthy or appropriate to the Activating experience or event, since they would motivate him to try to change his life so that he would be accepted in the future and, hence, enjoy himself more.

Ms. P's Beliefs were irrational. If one assumes that she had failed to win her father's love because of his obsessive interest in her older brother, it becomes important to know why she had made those grim facts of life all-important and why she had insisted on letting them affect her for so long. Other females have fathers who favored their older brothers, but unlike Ms. P, they all do not unconsciously hate men forever and compulsively compete with them. A crucial question therefore was: What was her fundamental Belief system or philosophy of life, which she had brought to and derived from her unsuccessful attempts to get her father's love?

Choosing Beliefs

I began to teach Ms. P the ABC's of rational emotive behavior therapy and to show her why psychoanalysis, which had concentrated on A and C, but not on B, may have given her a misleading or highly superficial explanation of her disturbance.

As we probed, Ms. P began to see that her depression was not a direct result of her father's rejection, but was a consequence of her system of Beliefs. Her C responses, or Consequences, were not caused by her father's favoring her brother but by her own mediation processes, or what she thought about this favoritism.

She actually gave herself those Consequences by choosing to create certain value assumptions, or Beliefs. She had chosen these Beliefs early in life, and she still clung to them. I explained that she continued to demand that her father (and virtually all males) be devoted to her, and that she would not free herself from anxiety and hatred until she gave up her childish demands.

Although she was able to see, on theoretical grounds, that Activating events do not cause emotional Consequences in people unless their Beliefs about these events are strongly positive or negative, Ms. P did not feel comfortable with this idea. Her strong conviction, shared by most people, that emotions arise directly from experiences, helped block her acknowledgment of this REBT hypothesis. Also, her ardent allegiance to her previous analyst and to the analytic theory that current events are determined by past history helped increase her blocking. During our fifth season, the therapeutic tide turned. Ms. P started to cry. She told me about her father's death a year ago and about the unveiling of his headstone that was to take place at his grave the following Sunday. I asked why she was crying depressedly, since her father's death, at the age of 55, was a great loss that she could healthily grieve about but was it "awful" and "horrible," so that she could not enjoy anything again? She answered that the unveiling made it utterly final: "I still value his love highly, and it's very unfortunate that I'll never in any way be able to get it now."

I demurred. I thought there was more to it than that. If she thought the loss of his love was only quite unfortunate, she would feel very sad -- but not depressed, as she seemed to be.

"Yes," she agreed. "To be honest, when I was crying there, I was also feeling depressed. And I guess I still am, whenever I fully face the fact that he's gone, gone forever, and that I'll never get from him the love I always craved."

"And that makes you -- ?" I asked, in typical REBT fashion.

"A rotten person! A no-good, low-down, rotten person, whose own father never could, and now never will, love her!"

My hunch and my persistence had paid off. Ms. P clearly saw that there was something much more than the loss of her father's love that bothered her and caused her depression -- namely her profound Belief that she was worthless for losing that love. That turned the therapeutic tide. From that moment she acknowledged that she was the main cause of her emotional disturbance and that her Beliefs about her father and herself were self-defeating.

Changing Beliefs

Ms. P's new insight did not end her therapy. REBT has two main purposes. The first is to show the emotionally disturbed person how irrational Beliefs create dysfunctional Consequences. The second, and in some ways the more important, is to teach the individual how to Dispute (D) in order to change or surrender these irrational Beliefs. REBT overlaps significantly with various "insight" therapies, including Freudian psychoanalysis and Adlerian individual psychology, in regard to the first of these two purposes, but it tends to deviate radically from them on the second. REBT espouses forceful, philosophic and behavioristic attacks on the individual's self-sabotaging Belief system.

If the therapist succeeds in leading the individual to Dispute his irrational Beliefs about himself and the world, the client then proceeds to E, new and better-functioning Effects. The therapist encourages the client to adopt new philosophies of living, thus reducing feelings of anxiety. Eventually, the client will almost automatically stop creating anxiety when he undergoes frustrating Activating experiences.

Ms. P realized that it was not her early childhood experiences that created panic about her new job offer, depression about the supposed loss of her dead husband's love, and feelings or worthlessness about her sexuality. I then helped her see the main irrational Beliefs that caused her symptoms. Paraphrased, there were:

There are perhaps 10 to 15 supreme "necessities" that people commonly impose on themselves and others. These can be reduced to three dictates that cause immense emotional difficulties.

The first dictate is: "Because it would be highly preferable if I were outstandingly competent, I absolutely should and must be. It is awful when I am not. I am therefore a worthless individual."

The second irrational (and unprovable) idea is: "Because it is highly desirable that others treat me considerately and fairly, they absolutely should and must do so, and they are rotten people who deserve to be utterly damned when they do not."

The third impossible dictate is: "Because it is preferable that I experience pleasure rather than pain, the world absolutely should arrange this and life is horrible, and I can't bear it when the world doesn't."

These three fundamental irrational Beliefs, and their many corollaries and sub-ideas, are the main factors in what we often call neurosis. They are not the sole causes of TNS disorder, since they in their own turn may also have other origins or causes." However, the original "causes" or an individual's main irrational Beliefs are not that important -- and that is why psychoanalysis, which stresses such origins, is usually unhelpful. For if you believe, as did Ms. P, that your mate must completely love you, and you consequently feel insecure, even if you do discover exactly where and when you first got that unrealistic idea, how will your "insight" help you surrender it? What is more important, and what philosophers rather than psychologists have tended to see for many centuries, is a concerted uprooting of the disturbed person's irrational Belief system and a replacing of it by a considerably sounder, reality-oriented philosophy.

Ms. P succeeded in attacking and reconstructing her irrational Beliefs. She continued to learn positive approaches to life. I had shown her how to accept reality, give up all magical assumptions, and apply the scientific method to her everyday existence. REBT maintains that if you are an empiricist and invent no absolute necessities, it is almost impossible to make yourself neurotic. You may still feel sad or annoyed, joyful or even ecstatic. "Rational" in rational emotive behavior therapy does not mean unemotional. In fact, the more you are determined to be self-accepting, hedonistic and self-actualizing by working with your head and your other faculties, the more emotional and the more in touch with your feelings you will tend to be.

I used several other cognitive methods with Ms. P. I gave her information about sex and the frequency of female orgasm during intercourse. I taught her imaging techniques, such as sexual imaging, that helped her become more aroused and climax more intensely. I also had her read a number of REBT pamphlets and booklets and listen to some of our tape recordings.

On the emotive level, I taught her to use forceful confrontation to help Ms. P combat her irrational thinking and inappropriate emoting. She joined one of my regular therapy groups, where she engaged in various risk-taking exercises. For example, we induced her to speak up about her own and others' problems, even when she was most reluctant to do so. The members of the group confronted her with her hostility to men, which she was at first loath to acknowledge. We used empathy training, particularly through role-playing, in which we asked her to put herself into the "skin" of a man who was trying to relate to her and to satisfy her sexually. She received what Carl Rogers calls unconditional positive regard, and what REBT calls unconditional self-acceptance (USA), both from me and from other members of the group. She learned to acknowledge and reveal some of her positive emotions, especially by telling some of the male members of the group that she liked them when she was very hesitant to do so.

I also used several behavioral techniques with Ms. P in the course of her REBT individual and group sessions. We helped her, through role-playing with other members of the group, to be more assertive with her lover. To lose weight, we encouraged her to use a self-management schedule, using the principles of self-reward when she followed a reducing diet and self-penalization when she did not. She learned to desensitize herself, by relaxation techniques and by rational emotive imagery (REI), so that she lost her extreme fear of making public speeches. In REI, she was induced to fantasize herself in failing situations and practice feeling sorry and frustrated, rather than feeling destroyed and depressed, when she imagined them. She agreed upon homework assignments of accepting a new job offer and working through her panic about it. Also, through her homework, she learned to become emotionally involved with her lover, even though she was afraid he would later reject her.

All the techniques used in REI are designed to do more than change behavior and help the client feel better. They are also used to change basic philosophies and to give him or her specific means of restructuring these philosophies again and again, until he or she rarely reverts to personally sabotaging and other-hating views and actions.

After eight months of REBT, mostly in group therapy, Ms. P was remarkably improved. Her state of panic had long since vanished, and she only occasionally became anxious. She was working well on her new job, so well that she had received still another offer. She was able to accept the new position without vacillation and with little help from her therapy group. She was looking forward to taking it even though she knew that she might fail. She felt that if she did, she would feel "sad" but hardly "awful." She still had problems reaching orgasm in intercourse but was not bothered about this difficulty and viewed herself, in fact, as a "very good" sex partner to her lover.

Most important, perhaps, Ms. P accepted herself with all her symptoms. When she was anxious, indecisive, compulsively competitive, or failed to reach orgasm, she deplored her behavior but not herself. Therefore, she was able to turn her time and effort toward changing her unfortunate performances, instead of wasting her energy on flagellating and damning herself.

Humanism Means Self-Control

REBT is no miracle cure. It requires a considerable amount of effort and practice on the part of the client. Hence, it is hardly the therapy of choice for individuals who want to be coddled, who thing they must have immediate gratification within the therapy sessions, who believe that some sudden insight will produce a magic cure, or who refuse to work at helping themselves. It is also not the cup of tea for the therapist who primarily wants to gratify himself or herself during therapy.

REBT, however, can be used with a large variety of clients. It is cognitive-emotive-behavior therapy. It teaches individuals how to understand themselves and others, how to react differently, and how to change some of their basic personality patterns. I originally called it rational psychotherapy, since it is more honestly and directly teaching and persuasive than other forms of psychological treatment. After it was only a few years old, however, I began to see that it was in truth a cognitive-affective procedure. Now, my associates and I refer to it as rational emotive behavior therapy and acknowledge that it is definitely a form of behavior therapy. However, because it deliberately draws on intellectual processes, REBT goes beyond B.F. Skinner's operant conditioning or Joseph Wolpe's reciprocal inhibition (desensitization).

People sometimes charge that REBT is anti-humanistic and that it is over-intellectualized, mechanistic, and manipulative. These accusations are not only mistaken, but they miss an important point. Efficient therapies that stress the potentialities of the clients' control over their emotional processes are in many respects the most humanistic means of personality change that have yet been invented. They are usually human-centered, creativity-oriented, and relevant to maximum happiness and self-actualization.

Although experientially oriented psychologists, such as Abraham Maslow, Frits Perls, and Carl Rogers, are outstanding humanists, so too are

cognitively oriented therapists, such as Aaron Beck, Eric Berne, George Kelly and Arnold Lazarus.

Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) is a comprehensive system of psychotherapy. It is substantiated by research studies that show that the ABC theory of emotional disturbance and change works and by other studies that show its main methods, REBT teaching and the giving of homework assignments, is effective. Basically, REBT is a scientific procedure derived from and aiming at maximum humanization, or the more efficient and happiness-producing relating of the individual to herself, to others, and to the world.

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REBT is based on the assumption that what we label our "emotional" reactions are largely caused by our conscious and unconscious evaluations, interpretations, and philosophies. Thus, we feel anxious or depressed because we strongly convince ourselves that it is terrible when we fail at something or that we can't stand the pain of being rejected. We feel hostile because we vigorously believe that people who behave unfairly to us absolutely should not act the way they indubitably do, and that it is utterly insufferable when they frustrate us.

Like stoicism, a school of philosophy which existed some two thousand years ago. Rational emotive behavior therapy holds that there are virtually no good reasons why human beings have to make themselves very neurotic, no matter what kind of negative stimuli impinge on them. It gives them full leeway to feel strong negative emotions, such as sorrow, regret, displeasure, annoyance, rebellion, and determination to change social conditions. It believes, however, that when they experience certain self-defeating and unhealthy emotions (such as panic, depression, worthlessness, or rage), they are usually adding an unrealistic and illogical hypothesis to their empirically-based view that their own acts or those of others are reprehensible or inefficient and that something would better be done about changing them.

Rational emotive behavior therapists -- often within the first session or two of seeing a client -- can almost always put their finger on a few central irrational philosophies of life which this client is vehemently believing. They can show clients how these ideas inevitably lead to emotional problems and hence to presenting clinical symptoms, can demonstrate exactly how they forthrightly question and challenge these ideas, and can often induce them to work to uproot them and to replace them with scientifically testable hypotheses about themselves and the world which are not likely to get them into future neurotic difficulties. 

12 Irrational Ideas That Cause and Sustain Neurosis

Rational therapy holds that certain core irrational ideas, which have been clinically observed, are at the root of most neurotic disturbance. They are:

1. The idea that it is a dire necessity for adults to be loved by significant others for almost everything they do -- instead of their concentrating on their own self-respect, on winning approval for practical purposes, and on loving rather than on being loved.
2. The idea that certain acts are awful or wicked, and that people who perform such acts should be severely damned -- instead of the idea that certain acts are self-defeating or antisocial, and that people who perform such acts are behaving stupidly, ignorantly, or neurotically, and would be better helped to change. People's poor behaviors do not make them rotten individuals.
3. The idea that it is horrible when things are not the way we like them to be -- instead of the idea that it is too bad, that we would better try to change or control bad conditions so that they become more satisfactory, and, if that is not possible, we had better temporarily accept and gracefully lump their exis tence.
4. The idea that human misery is invariably externally caused and is forced on us by outside people and events -- instead of the idea that neurosis is largely caused by the view that we take of unfortunate conditions.
5. The idea that if something is or may be dangerous or fearsome we should be terribly upset and endlessly obsess about it -- instead of the idea that one would better frankly face it and render it non-dangerous and, when that is not possible, accept the inevitable.
6. The idea that it is easier to avoid than to face life difficulties and self-responsibilities -- instead of the idea that the so-called easy way is usually much harder in the long run.
7. The idea that we absolutely need something other or stronger or greater than ourself on which to rely -- instead of the idea that it is better to take the risks of thinking and acting less depen dently.
8. The idea that we should be thoroughly competent, intelligent, and achieving in all possible respects -- instead of the idea that we would better do rather than always need to do well and accept ourself as a quite imperfect creature, who has general human limitations and specific fallibilities.
9. The idea that because something once strongly affected our life, it should indefinitely affect it -- instead of the idea that we can learn from our past experiences but not be overly-attached to or prejudiced by them.
10. The idea that we must have certain and perfect control over things -- instead of the idea that the world is full of probability and chance and that we can still enjoy life despite this.
11. The idea that human happiness can be achieved by inertia and inaction -- instead of the idea that we tend to be happiest when we are vitally absorbed in creative pursuits, or when we are devoting ourselves to people or projects outside ourselves.
12. The idea that we have virtually no control over our emotions and that we cannot help feeling disturbed about things -- instead of the idea that we have real control over our destructive emotions if we choose to work at changing the musturbatory hypotheses which we often employ to create them.

Main Differences from Other Schools

1. De-emphasis of early childhood. While REBT accepts the fact that neurotic states are sometimes originally learned or aggravated by early teaching or irrational beliefs by one's family and by society, it holds that these early-acquired irrationalities are not automatically sustained over the years by themselves.

   Instead, they are very actively and creatively re-instilled by the individuals themselves. In many cases the therapist spends very little time on the clients' parents or family upbringing; and yet helps them to bring about significant changes in their disturbed patterns of living. The therapist demonstrates that no matter what the clients' basic irrational philosophy of life, nor when and how they acquired it, they are presently disturbed because they still believe this self-defeating world- and self-view. If they will observe exactly what they are irrationally thinking in the present, and will challenge and question these self-statements they will usually improve significantly.

2. Emphasis on deep philosophical change and scientific thinking. Because of its belief that human neurotic disturbance is largely ideologically or philosophically based, REBT strives for a thorough-going philosophic reorientation of a people's outlook on life, rather than for a mere removal of any of their mental or psychosomatic symptoms. It teaches the clients, for example, that human adults do not need to be accepted or loved, even though it is highly desirable that they be. REBT encourages individuals to be healthily sad or regretful when they are rejected, frustrated, or deprived. But it tries to teach them how to overcome feelings of intense hurt, self-deprecation, and depression. As in science, clients are shown how to question the dubious hypotheses that they construct about themselves and others. If they believe (as alas, millions of us do), that they are worthless because they perform certain acts badly, they are not merely taught to ask, "What is really bad about my acts?" and "Where is the evidence that they are wrong or unethical?" More importantly, they are shown how to ask themselves, "Granted that my acts may be mistaken, why am I a totally bad person for performing them? Where is the evidence that I must always be right in order to consider myself worthy? Assuming that it is preferable for me to act well rather than badly, why do I have to do what is preferable?"

   Similarly, when people perceive (let us suppose, correctly) the erroneous and unjust acts of others, and become enraged at these others, they are shown how to stop and ask themselves, "Why is my hypothesis that the people who committed these errors and injustices are no damned good a true hypothesis? Granted that it would be better if they acted more competently or fairly, why should they have to do what would be better?" REBT teaches that to be human is to be fallible, and that if we are to get on in life with minimal upset and discomfort, we would better accept this reality and then unanxiously work hard to become a little less fallible.

3. Use of psychological homework. REBT agrees with most Freudian, neo-Freudian, Adlerian, and Jungian schools that acquiring insight, especially so-called emotional insight, into the source of their neurosis is a most important part of people's corrective teaching. It distinguishes sharply, however, between so-called intellectual and emotional insight, and operationally defines emotional insight as individuals' knowing or seeing the cause of their problems and working, in a determined and energetic manner, to apply this knowledge to the solution of these problems. The rational emotive behavior therapist helps clients to acknowledge that there is usually no other way for him to get better but by their continually observing, questioning, and challenging their own belief-systems, and by their working and practicing to change their own irrational beliefs by verbal and behavioral counter-propagandizing activity. In REBT, actual homework assignments are frequently agreed upon in individual and group therapy. Assignments may include dating a person whom the client is afraid to ask for a date; looking for a new job; experimentally returning to live with a husband with whom one has previously continually quarrelled; etc. The therapist quite actively tries to encourage clients to undertake such assignments as an integral part of the therapeutic process.

The REBT practitioner is able to give clients unconditional rather than conditional positive regard because the REBT philosophy holds that no humans are to be damned for anything, no matter how execrable their acts may be. Because of the therapist's unconditional acceptance of them as a human, and actively teaching clients how to fully accept themselves, clients are able to express their feelings more openly and to stop rating themselves even when they acknowledge the inefficiency or immorality of some of their acts.

In many highly important ways, then, rational emotive behavior therapy utilizes expressive-experimental methods and behavioral techniques. It is not, however, primarily interested in helping people ventilate emotion and feel better, but in showing them how they can truly get better, and lead to happier, non-self-defeating, self-actualized lives.

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In 1955, Albert Ellis started a revolution in the treatment of emotional problems with the introduction of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). As REBT's reputation has grown, so has the number of people interested in learning more about it.

People hear about REBT in all kinds of ways - through college courses, workshops, in newspaper articles, or by word of mouth. Some of the things people hear about REBT are right on the mark. And some of what people hear is - well, a bit fuzzy. We decided to create this pamphlet to address some of the more common questions, confusions and concerns that have been raised about REBT.

REBT is a practical, action-oriented approach to coping with problems and enhancing personal growth. REBT places a good deal of its focus on the present: on currently-held attitudes, painful emotions and maladaptive behaviors that can sabotage a fuller experience of life. REBT also provides people with an individualized set of proven techniques for helping them to solve problems. REBT practitioners work closely with people, seeking to help uncover 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 people to develop a philosophy and approach to living that can increase their effectiveness and happiness at work, in parenting and educational settings, in living successfully with others, in making our community and environment healthier, and in enhancing their own health and personal welfare.

Contrary to what some people erroneously believe, REBT does recognize that we may be strongly influenced by events in early life. Much of our philosophy of life - what we think about ourselves and our values - is learned from past experiences. But the past is with us in the form of beliefs that we carry in our head in the present. REBT hones in on the beliefs that are harmful in our current emotional life and behavior - whether those beliefs arose in the distant reaches of our youth or within the past few weeks. REBT believes that the "nuttiness" of our past exerts its influence in our current-day thinking patterns and beliefs. Although we cannot change the past, we can change how we let the past influence the way we are today and the way we want to be tomorrow. In this sense, REBT is an optimistic approach to living and to solving problems.

This is a fundamental misconception of REBT. Perhaps more so than any other approach, REBT emphasizes the involvement of emotions in just about every aspect of our thinking and actions. REBT proposes that when our negative emotions become too intense (e.g., rage, panic, or depression), not only do we feel very unhappy, but our ability to manage our lives begins to deteriorate. At these times, the quality of our thinking changes and we begin to take things over-personally, blow things out of perspective, condemn others for their transgressions and generally become less tolerant of life's hassles and hardships. REBT helps restore the emotional balance in an individual's life by providing methods for thinking more realistically and level-headedly about ourselves, other people, and the world.

Of course! But it is the quality of feelings that is important. Experiencing intense irritation and displeasure when things go wrong can motivate you to change frustrating conditions. Feelings of rage, on the other hand, often land you in a smoldering stew, where either you are stymied from taking any action at all, or you act in ways that are impulsive and self-defeating. A bit of anxiety or some degree of concern about facing the boss can add an edge of excitement that sharpens performance; excessive anxiety, however, can interfere with thinking and action. While REBT tries to minimize debilitating emotions, that does not mean that it's unhealthy to experience keen feelings of sorrow or displeasure when you experience misfortune.

One of REBT's favorite maxims (first expressed by Reinhold Neibuhr) is: "Grant me the courage to change the things I can change, the serenity to accept those that I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference." REBT seeks to empower individuals both by helping them more effectively handle their own painful emotions, and by enabling them to change their own behavior and improve their world where possible. When you get too upset, it is much more difficult to behave in constructive ways. By gaining better control over upsetting emotions, you become far more able to act assertively to change bad outside circumstances.

A very good question. Yes, many people are too selfish for their own and others' good. REBT provides people with the skills and attitudes to become less selfish. Selfishness is often motivated by ego-gratification. Many selfish people tend to be very needy and demanding and are intent on getting what they want at any cost in order to feel good about themselves. REBT helps people to reduce their own neediness and specifically their need to prove themselves to others. To discourage selfishness, REBT teaches what Albert Ellis calls the value of rational self-acceptance. According to Ellis, healthy people are usually glad to be alive and accept themselves just because they are alive and have some capacity to enjoy themselves. They refuse to measure their intrinsic worth by their extrinsic accomplishments, materialistic possessions and by what others think of them. They frankly choose to accept themselves unconditionally; and then try to completely avoid globally rating themselves - meaning their totality or their "essence." They attempt to enjoy rather than prove themselves. Thus, rather than acting out of selfishness, they learn to operate from responsible self-interest.

REBT does help people by teaching them to recognize and change those aspects of their thinking which are not sensible, accurate or useful. This is probably what is meant by intellectual disputing. However, it also uses a host of other emotional and behavioral methods designed to reduce upset feelings and increase personal effectiveness. These include rational-emotive imagery; assertiveness, self nurturance, risk-taking, and other behavioral homework assignments; communication skill training; and "shame-attacking" exercises.

REBT can work very well with very bright people. Good brain power can help certain people analyze more quickly the ways in which their thinking is illogical when they are upset. However, just because you have the potential to quickly see the irrational qualities of your thinking, doesn't mean you will use your potential to help yourself. Many very bright people are more motivated to argue the "rightness" of their beliefs than to consider they might be wrong. Over the years, REBT methods have been adopted for children as young as five or six years old, and even for the learning-impaired. Rational emotive behavior therapists are trained to tailor REBT to meet the wide variety of intellectual, cognitive-developmental and other personal characteristics of clients.

REBT practitioners are very concerned about establishing a helpful, supportive, and facilitative alliance with people. They realize that not all people come to therapy ready for action and change, and that some people - because of their personalities and problems - require a great deal of support and empathy before they are ready to change. At the same time, REBT practitioners tend to take an active role with their clients. They help provide people as quickly as possible with the tools to help them change their beliefs leading to disturbing emotions, thus freeing them to confront their everyday problems with all their resources.

REBT practitioners have excellent insight into the nature of problems in living and how to help clients free themselves from their emotional misery about them. They are conscious that many clients find it difficult to address the main problems in their lives and their own inner obstacles to happiness. Rational emotive behavior therapists work collaboratively with clients to clarify existing problems, and to identify important general problems to work on together. And yes, REBT practitioners are active in teaching clients new methods for changing their thinking, feelings and behavior. However, REBT does not control the client. Rather, it empowers clients to manage their own emotional problems more effectively and to take control of their own behavior in order to try to obtain more of what they want in life.

REBT defines rational beliefs as those which help people life satisfying, healthy, and fulfilled lives. Over the years, Albert Ellis has identified a set of rational beliefs or values which abet a person's happiness and survival. For example, rational self-acceptance - which involves people giving up the self-rating game - seems to help people significantly reduce anxiety and increase feelings of self-acceptance. High frustration tolerance, which encourages people to accept (not like) life's hardships and other people's imperfections, leads to greater perseverance, patience, and the ability to get along with others. REBT practitioners are careful, however, not to impose "rational" beliefs. REBT accepts that there are also other "non-rational" belief systems that can help people achieve happiness. And further, REBT accepts the value system of the client and works within that framework to facilitate the client's goals.

REBT has discovered that when people impose rigid expectations on themselves, other people, and the world they are likely to experience unnecessary emotional distress. In REBT, these expectations are expressed as absolutistic "shoulds," "oughts," and "musts." For example, "I should be successful in important things I do at work" can get you into emotional hot water when you make mistakes or fail. REBT affirms the value of achievement, but helps clients give up their demandingness for total success at all times. REBT advocates instead a more preferential system of values: one which encourages people to work toward their professional goals, but never to condemn and damn themselves when they fail to achieve them. In a similar way, REBT is useful in helping people from diverse religious backgrounds to be more self-accepting, as well as more accepting of other people who may not share their particular values.

When you think about it, what REBT sets out to accomplish sounds pretty ambitious: its goal is no less than changing core irrational beliefs that you've spent your whole life rehearsing, living, and "feeling." For many people, it takes some time before the emotional "gut" follows what their head already "knows." Learning new ways of thinking and new beliefs can be compared to a horse-driven carriage which has had the same driver and horse for years. The horse knows where to go without having to be told by the driver. Once you change the driver (new ways of thinking), the horse still goes in the same direction (old emotions and behaviors), but the driver has to strain at the reins to produce a change in direction (new emotions and behaviors). The positive aspect of the strain you may experience in using REBT is that it shows you are learning new ways of feeling and behaving and that you are taking charge of your own direction in life.

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If you want to increase your ra-tionality and re-duce your self-de-feating irrational beliefs, you can spend at least ten minutes every day asking your-self the following questions and carefully thinking through (not merely parroting!) the healthy an-swers. Write down each ques-tion and your answers to it on a piece of paper; or else record the questions and your an-swers on a tape recorder.

1. WHAT SELF-DEFEATING IR-RA-TIO-NAL BELIEF DO I WANT TO DIS-PUTE AND SURRENDER?

ILLUSTRATIVE ANSWER: I must receive love from someone for whom I really care.

2. CAN I RATIONALLY SUPPORT THIS BELIEF?

ILLUS-TRATIVE ANSWER: No.

3. WHAT EVIDENCE EXISTS OF THE FALSENESS OF THIS BELIEF?

ILLUSTRATIVE ANSWER:

Many indications exist that the belief that I must receive love from someone for whom I really care is false:

a) No law of the universe exists that says that someone I care for must love me (although I would find it nice if that person did!).

b) If I do not receive love from one person, I can still get it from others and find happiness that way.

c) If no one I care for ever cares for me, which is very unlikely, I can still find enjoyment in friendships, in work, in books, and in other things.

d) If someone I deeply care for rejects me, that will be most unfortunate; but I will hardly die!

e) Even though I have not had much luck in winning great love in the past, that hardly proves that I must gain it now.

f) No evidence exists for any absolu-tis-tic must. Consequently, no proof exists that I must always have anything, including love.

g) Many people exist in the world who never get the kind of love they crave and who still lead happy lives.

h) At times during my life I know that I have remained unloved and hap-py; so I most probably can feel happy again under unloving condi-tions.

i) If I get rejected by someone for whom I truly care, that may mean that I possess some poor, unloving traits. But that hardly means that I am a rotten, worthless, totally un-lovable individual.

j) Even if I had such poor traits that no one could ever love me, I would still not have to down myself as a lowly, bad individual.

4. DOES ANY EVIDENCE EXIST OF THE TRUTH OF THIS BELIEF?

ILLUSTRATIVE ANSWER: No, not really. Considerable evidence exists that if I love someone dearly and never am loved in return that I will then find my-self disadvantaged, incon-venienced, frustrated, and deprived. I certainly would prefer, therefore, not to get re-ject-ed. But no amount of inconvenience amounts to a horror. I can still stand frustration and loneli-ness. They hardly make the world aw-ful. Nor does rejection make me a turd! Clearly, then, no evi-dence exists that I must receive love from someone for whom I really care.

5. WHAT ARE THE WORST THINGS THAT COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN TO ME IF I DON'T GET WHAT I THINK I MUST (OR DO GET WHAT I THINK I MUST NOT GET)?

ILLUSTRATIVE ANSWER: If I don't get the love I think I must receive:

a) I would get deprived of various possible plea-sures and conveniences.

b) I would feel inconvenienced by having to keep looking for love else-where.

c) I might never gain the love I want, and thereby continue indefinitely to feel deprived and disadvantaged.

d) Other people might down me and consider me pretty worthless for get-ting rejected-and that would be annoying and unpleasant.

e) I might settle for pleasures other than and worse than those I could receive in a good love relationship; and I would find that distinctly undesir-able.

f) I might remain alone much of the time; which again would be un-pleasant.

g) Various other kinds of misfortunes and deprivations might occur in my life- none of which I need define as awful, terrible, or unbearable.

6. WHAT GOOD THINGS COULD I MAKE HAPPEN IF I DON'T GET WHAT I THINK I MUST (OR DO GET WHAT I THINK I MUST NOT GET)?

a) If the person I truly care for does not return my love, I could devote more time and energy to winning someone else's love-and probably find some-one better for me.

b) I could devote myself to other enjoyable pursuits that have little to do with loving or relating, such as work or artistic endeavors.

c) I could find it challenging and enjoy-able to teach myself to live happily without love.

d) I could work at achieving a philos-o-phy of fully accepting myself even when I do not get the love I crave.

You can take any one of your major irratio-n-al beliefs--your shoulds, oughts, or musts--and spend at least ten minutes every day, often for a period of several weeks, actively and vigorously disputing this belief. To help keep yourself devot-ing this amount of time to the DIBS method of rational disputing, you may use operant conditioning or self-management methods (originated by B.F. Skinner, David Premack, Marvin Goldfried, and other psychologists). Select some activity that you highly enjoy that you tend to do every day--such as reading, eating, television viewing, exercis-ing, or social con-tact with friends. Use this activity as a reinforcer or reward by ONLY allowing yourself to engage in it AFTER you have practiced Disputing Irrational Beliefs (DIBS) for at least ten minutes that day. Otherwise, no reward!

In addition, you may penalize yourself every single day you do NOT use DIBS for at least ten minutes. How? By making yourself perform some activity you find distinctly unpleasant--such as eating some-thing ob-noxious, contributing to a cause you hate, getting up a half-hour earlier in the morning, or spending an hour convers-ing with some-one you find boring. You can also arrange with some person or group to monitor you and help you actually carry out the penalties and lack of rewards you set for yourself. You may of course steadi-ly use DIBS with-out any self-reinforce-ment, since it becomes reinforcing in its own right after awhile. But you may find it more effective at times if you use it along with rewards and penalties that you execute immediate-ly after you practice or avoid practicing this ratio-nal-emotive method.

Summary of Questions

to Ask Yourself in DIBS

1. WHAT SELF-DEFEATING IR-RA-TIO-NAL BELIEF DO I WANT TO DIS-PUTE AND SURRENDER?

2. CAN I RATIONALLY SUPPORT THIS BELIEF?

3. WHAT EVIDENCE EXISTS OF THE FALSENESS OF THIS BELIEF?

4. DOES ANY EVIDENCE EXIST OF THE TRUTH OF THIS BELIEF?

5. WHAT ARE THE WORST THINGS THAT COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN TO ME IF I DON'T GET WHAT I THINK I MUST (OR DO GET WHAT I THINK I MUST NOT GET)?

6. WHAT GOOD THINGS COULD I MAKE HAPPEN IF I DON'T GET WHAT I THINK I MUST (OR DO GET WHAT I THINK I MUST NOT GET)?

Disputing (D) your dysfunctional or irra-tio-nal Beliefs (iBs) is one of the most effec-tive of REBT techniques. But it is still often ineffective, because you can easily and very strongly hold on to an iB (such as, "I abso-lutely must be loved by so-and-so, and it's awful and I am an inadequate person when he/she does not love me!"). When you question and chal-lenge this iB you often can come up with an Effective New Philosophy (E) that is accurate but weak: "I guess that there is no reason why so-and-so must love me, because there are other people who will love me when so-and-so does not. I can there-fore be reasonably happy without his/her love." Believing this almost Effec-tive New Philosophy, and believing it lightly, you can still easily and forcefully believe, "Even though it is not awful and terrible when so-and-so does not love me, it really is! No matter what, I still need his/her affection!"

Weak, or even moderately strong, Disput-ing will therefore often not work very well to help you truly disbelieve some of your powerful and long-held iB's; while vigor-ous, persistent Disputing is more likely to work.

One way to do highly powerful, vigorous Disputing is to use a tape

recorder and to state one of your strong irrational Beliefs into it, such as, "If I fail this job inter-view I am about to have, that will prove that I'll never get a good job and that I might as well apply only for low-level positions!"

Figure out several Disputes to this iB and strongly present them on this same tape. For example: "Even if I do poorly on this inter-view, that will only show that I failed this time, but will never show that I'll always fail and can never do well in other inter-views. Maybe they'll still hire me for the job. But if they don't, I can learn by my mistakes, can do better in other inter-views, and can finally get the kind of job that I want."

Listen to your Disputing on tape. Let other people, including your therapist or members of your therapy group, listen to it. Do it over in a more forceful and vigorous manner and let them listen to it again, to see if you are disputing more forcefully, until they agree that you are getting better at doing it. Keep listening to it until you see that you are able to con-vince yourself and others that you are becoming more powerful and more convinc-ing.

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