EDGC 671Theory Review

Dean Owen, Ph.D., LPCCDean Owen, Ph.D., LPCC

Rational Emotive Behavior TherapyRational Emotive Behavior Therapy

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Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Albert Ellis

1913-2007

Rational Emotive Behavior TherapyOverview: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)

Key Figure: Founder, Albert Ellis. The approach grew out of Ellis' disenchantment with psychoanalytically oriented therapy.

Ellis found that insight and awareness of early childhood events did not result in reduction of the client's emotional disturbances.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

A highly didactic, cognitive behavior‑oriented approach, it stresses the role of action and practice in combating irrational, self‑indoctrinated ideas.

It focuses on the role of thinking and belief systems as the roots of personal problems.

Rational Emotive Behavior TherapyPhilosophy and Basic Assumptions:

Individuals are born with the potential for rational thinking but tend to fall victims to the uncritical acceptance of irrational beliefs that are perpetuated through self‑re-indoctrination.

The assumption is that thinking, evaluating, analyzing, questioning, doing, practicing, and re-deciding are at the base of behavior change.

It is a didactic‑directive model.

Therapy is a process of reeducation.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Key Concepts: Though emotional disturbance is rooted in childhood, the individual keeps telling himself or herself irrational and illogical sentences.

The approach is based on the A‑B‑C theory of personality: A=actual event; B=belief system; C=consequence.

Emotional problems are the result of one's beliefs, which need to be challenged.

The scientific method of logical and rational thought is applied to irrational beliefs.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Therapeutic Goals: The goal is to eliminate a self‑defeating outlook on life and acquire a more rational and tolerant philosophy of life.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Therapeutic Relationship: A personal relationship between the client and therapist is not essential.

The therapist functions as a teacher, and client as a student.

As clients begin to understand how they continue to contribute to their problems, they must actively practice changing their self‑defeating behavior and converting it into rational behavior.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Techniques and Procedures: The approach tends to use diverse techniques and borrows many from behavioral approaches.

Techniques are designed to get the client to critically examine his or her present beliefs and behavior.

Procedures include persuasion, suggestion, confrontation, direct attack, challenging, teaching, reading, listening to tapes, contracts, homework assignments. questioning, probing, interpretations, role playing, desensitization, counter-conditioning, behavior rehearsal, modeling, hypnotherapy, operant conditioning and assertion training.

Rational Emotive Behavior TherapyApplications: Applications of this model include individual therapy, ongoing group therapy, marathon encounter groups, brief therapy, marriage and family therapy, sex therapy and classroom situations.

The approach is applicable to delinquents and criminals and to clients with moderate anxiety, neurotic disorders, character disorders, psychosomatic problems and sexual dysfunction.

It is most effective with those who can reason well and who are not seriously disturbed.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Contributions: Therapy focuses on the importance and value of thinking.

It has wide applicability.

Therapy is brief and places value on active practice in experimenting with new behavior so that insight is carried into doing.

It discourages dependence on the therapist and stresses the client's capacity to control his or her own destiny.

Basic Irrational Ideas

1. One must be loved and approved of all the time by all people one finds significant.

2. One must be thoroughly competent, adequate, and fully achieving in all areas all of the time. 3. Some people are generally bad, wicked, and villainous and should be blamed and punished. 4. When things do not go as I want them to go, it's a catastrophe. 5. Unhappiness comes from outside pressures and I have no ability to control my feelings.

6. If something is dangerous I must become terribly preoccupied with it and upset by it.

Basic Irrational Ideas

7. It is easier to avoid difficulties and responsibilities then to confront and deal with them. 8. One's past totally and completely determines present and future behavior. 9. There is only one right and correct solution to problems in life.

10. One can achieve happiness by inertia and by doing nothing.

11. One must have a high degree of order and certainty in order to feel happy or one must have some supernatural power on which to rely.

12. One's self-concept or global rating depends upon the goodness of one's performances and the degree that people approve of you.