Rational Emotive

Behavior Therapy
(REBT)
R = Rational: Which means thinking in self-enhancing and self-
facilitating ways
E = Emotive: Emotions are affected by what happens to people and
how they think about those events.

B = Behavior: What people do (their behavior) affects how they think

and feel, and vice versa.

T = Therapy, but it can also mean Teaching or Training.

 Introduction
 Developed by Dr. Albert Ellis in 1955. REBT is an action-oriented approach to managing cognitive,
emotional, and behavioral disturbances.
 REBT assists 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.
View of Human Nature
 REBT assumes that people are “inherently rational and irrational, sensible and crazy”

 According to Ellis, this latter duality is biologically inherent

 People innately and by social teaching develop into rational and irrational thinkers.

 By nature, human beings are gullible, highly suggestible, and are easily disturbed.

 People have within themselves the means to control their thoughts, feelings, and actions.

 it is largely our thinking about events that leads to emotional and behavioral upset.
 Key Concepts
 According to REBT, certain values promote emotional adjustment & mental
health these are following:

 Self acceptance: healthy people accept themselves unconditionally and do not

measure their worth by their achievement.
 High frustration tolerance:. Healthy people can differentiate between those
problems which can be changed and which cannot be changed and they apply energy
to only those problems which can be changed.
 Self responsibility for disturbance: do not play the blame game (self, others &
world). They accept responsibility for their own thoughts and behaviors.
 Key Concepts
 Self-interest: healthy people put their own interest above the interest of
others.
 Social interest: people act morally and protect the rights of others contribute
to the society.
 Tolerance: healthy individuals allow themselves and others the right to be
wrong; they may condemn the behavior but not the individuals.
 Flexibility:healthy individual are open to change, & flexible in their thinking,
they do not make rigid rules for themselves or others.
 Key concepts
Individuals possess absolutistic should and musts that leads to emotional & behavioral difficulties
these should and musts fall under three main categories.

 1) Self demanding: This ego-oriented form of demandingness often, when blocked, leads to
anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation and to dysfunctional behaviors like procrastination,
withdrawal, and obsessiveness.

 2) Other demanding: This other-directed form of demandingness often leads to strong feelings of
anger, rage, fury, hurt, jealousy, and self-pity and to disruptive behaviors like fights, vindictiveness,
riots, homicides, feuds, wars, and genocide.

 3) World demanding: The conditions under which I live (my environment, the ecology, the
economic and political conditions) must be favorable, safe, hassle-free, and easily enjoyable. This
form of world-demandingness often leads to LFT and strong feelings of self-pity, despair, anger, and
depression, and to dysfunctional behaviors like withdrawal, procrastination, phobias, and addiction.
 Irrational beliefs or illogical ways of evaluating oneself, others & the world negatively impact our lives.

Irrational Beliefs

Ego Disturbance Discomfort

Disturbance
 Ego disturbance represents an upset to the self-image. It results from holding demands about
one’s ‘self’, e.g. ‘I must not fail / get approval from others’; followed by negative self
evaluations.
 These beliefs create ‘ego anxiety’ – emotional tension resulting from the perception that one’s
‘self’ or personal worth is threatened – and lead to other problems such as avoidance of
situations where failure, disapproval, etc. might occur.
 Discomfort disturbance:
 Low frustration tolerance (LFT) happens when individuals feel they should not have to face
any difficulty, if any difficulty does occur these individuals tend to catastrophize. (things
should be as I want them to be)
 Low discomfort tolerance (LDT) is our intolerance for discomfort, difficulties, frustration,
and painful emotions. Here we believe the idea that our situation is too difficult, too much, or
unbearable. Cues may include: agitation, tension, poor attention. Leads to Discomfort anxiety
Rational Emotional Behavior Therapy
Goals
ABCDE model
assessment
therapeutic relationship

PRESENTED BY: ZASHEER AMAN

Goals of REBT
ASSIST PEOPLE IN:
• MINIMIZING EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCES
• DECREASING SELF DEFEATING BEHAVIORS.
• BECOMING MORE SELF ACTUALIZED.
 Clearer and more thinking

 New philosophy of life that can make the client more

appropriately and act more efficiently and effectively

 Cognitions, emotions and behaviors that create the problems

and their underlying themes.
Irrational thinking does not work for us. It does not help us
obtain our medium and long-term goals
REBT’s ABCDE Model

 A = Activating Event
B = Beliefs (both rational and irrational (IB’s)
C = Consequences
D = Disputing
E = More Effective ways to think, feel and behave.
Many people are A – C people.
 They believe: “You made me angry.”
 They believe the A – your remark or action – caused the C,
their anger.
 Your behavior caused their anger.
In order to feel and act differently, someone
doing an ABC moves on to the D and the E.
D (Disputes) – in this step, you dispute or question
or challenge your irrational beliefs:

Where is the evidence that no one should ever yell

at me?
Where is it written that a boss must always behave
professionally?
Why is it so awful? Why isn’t just a “hassle not a
horror?”
Where is the evidence that “It won’t matter.”
 E – then they move on to figure out more
EFFECTIVE thoughts, feelings and behaviors

I don’t like it, but I can stand it.

 Because I really do not like people yelling at me, I will talk to
him later when he calms down. But I will remember that I
don’t always get what I want.
 I will try to feel annoyed and determined (to keep my job)
rather than enraged.
 I will go exercise or go to yoga class tonight because I always
think better after I do that.
Major steps of Rational Emotional
Behavior therapy
 1. Identifying the underlying irrational thought patterns and
beliefs.

 To identify the irrational thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that lead to

psychological distress.
 In many cases, these irrational beliefs are reflected as absolutes,
 "I must,"
"I should,"
or
"I cannot."
2. Challenging the irrational beliefs.

 The therapist must dispute these beliefs using very direct

and even confrontational methods.
 Ellissuggested that rather than simply being warm and
supportive, the therapist needs to be blunt, honest, and
logical in order to push people toward changing their
thoughts and behaviors.
 3. Gaining Insight & Recognizing Irrational
Thought Patterns

• Once the client has identified the problematic beliefs, the goal of
REBT is to help people respond rationally to such situations.

• It is also important to recognize that while rational emotive behavior

therapy utilizes cognitive strategies to help clients, it also focuses on
emotions and behaviors as well.

• In addition to identifying and disputing irrational beliefs, therapists

and clients also work together to target the emotional responses that
accompany problematic thoughts.
Assessments

 The REBT SELF HELP Form (Dryden, Walker, and Ellis,

1996)
 Disputing and replacing the irrational beliefs.
 Both therapeutic and diagnostic purposes.
 Therapists listen to the beliefs the clients have about the
activating event.
 Million clinical MultiAxial inventory II
 Beck Depression Inventory
 Frustration Discomfort Scale
Therapeutic Relationship

Ellis believes that the best way to develop therapeutic

relationship is to:
 help solve the clients immediate problem.
 Identifies the activating events, irrational beliefs and
emotional and behavioral consequences.
 Introduces the purpose of the therapy to unfamiliar
patient.
 Working with children proceed cautiously in
developing a good relation before teaching REBT
methods.
 THE VICIOUS CYCLE OF
IRRATIONAL THINKING
– Life
shouldn’t be so
–Ideserve better –
poor me!
 Self-pity
or hard
– You should be different
– I’m such a failure Self-doubting –I should be different
– I’m worthless!
Demanding-ness
 Low
frustration
–I can’t stand it
tolerance Awfulizing
– It’s – Negative exaggeration
terrible, awful, unfair
– Negative evaluation
– We “crank it up” on our
scale
 HOW TO BREAK THE VICIOUS CYCLE
Self-Pity:
Practice
– I’m such a failure – unconditional self-
I’m worthless! acceptance – Life shouldn’t be so hard
– I deserve better –  Self-pity
or – You should be different
poor me! – I should be different
Self-doubt:
Self-doubting Demanding-
Question
your assumptions ness Try“Preferential
Thinking”


Low
frustration Try “combat
– I can’t stand it
–
tolerance Awfulizing your rating”
It’s terrible, awful, unfair

Try an ABC – Negative exaggeration

reality check – Negative evaluation
– We “crank it up” on our
scale
The process of therapy, irrational beliefs and core elements,
disputing nature and types

MARIAM SAEED
Process of therapy
Engage client

Assess the problem, person and

situation

Prepare the client for therapy

Implement the treatment program

Evaluate progress

Prepare for termination

Common Irrational Beliefs
 The idea that you must have love or approval from all the significant people in

your life

 The idea that you absolutely must be thoroughly competent, adequate, and

achieving or The idea that you must be competent or talented in some important

area.

 The idea that other people absolutely must not act obnoxiously and unfairly, and,

that when they do, you should blame and damn them, and see them as bad,

wicked, or rotten individuals.

 The idea that you have to see things as being awful, terrible, and
catastrophic when you are seriously frustrated or treated unfairly.

 The idea that you must be miserable when you have pressures and
difficult experiences; and that you have little ability to control, and
cannot change, your disturbed feelings.

 The idea that if something is dangerous or fearsome, you must obsess

about it and frantically try to escape from it.
 The idea that you can easily avoid facing many difficulties and self-
responsibilities and still lead a highly fulfilling existence.
 The idea that your past remains all-important and because something once
strongly influenced your life, it has to keep determining your feelings and
behavior today.
 The idea that people and things absolutely must be better than they are and
that it is awful and horrible if you cannot change life’s grim facts to suit you.
 The idea that you can achieve maximum happiness by inertia and inaction or
by passively and uncommitted enjoying yourself (Ellis and Harper, 1961).
Key Elements

 Dogmatic Demands
 Dogmatism has been defined as the unfounded positivity in matters of opinion;
arrogant assertion of opinions as truths.
 We see it in our government, in our religion, and in our relationships. When we hold
dogmatic beliefs, we essentially close our minds to alternative perspectives and
opinions.
 Should, must, ought.
Key Elements

 Awfulizing
 Some things are terrible, awful or catastrophic.
 It’s terrible/horrible statements.
Key Elements
 Low frustration tolerance
 One cannot bear hassles, unpleasant emotions or situations or what
one does not like.
 I Can’t Stand it statements.
 Self/Human worth ratings
 People can be rated globally as bad or worthless.
 I’m no good, rotten, bad, worthless statements.
Disputing

 The purpose of D is to challenge rigid and inflexible beliefs and replace them with
rational alternatives. Disputing strategy puts the responsibility on the clients to
prove that what they are thinking is correct.
Disputing

Styles Nature

Target
Target of Disputing

Philosophical
• Men are disloyal and so is my husband.

Inferential
• My husband did not greet me when I came home,
hence he does not love me.
Considerations
 Personal epistemology is the study of how the individual develops a
conception of knowledge and how that individual uses that to understand
the world.

Authoritarian

Constructivist Narcissistic
Nature of the Dispute

Empirical Logical Heuristic

• evidence • Sound • functionality
• proof reasoning
• Link of
desirability and
reality
Disputing Styles
Socratic
• Asking open ended questions

Didactic
• Psychoeducational Intervention Style; explaining, mentoring

Metaphoric
• Metaphors, parables, comparisons, analogues

Humorous
• Target is the belief not the client; a lighter tone

Others
• Self-disclosure and enactive disputing
 Disputing Belief: I am no good if my classmates look down upon me…

Logical Empirical Functional/ Rational

Heuristic Alternative

Didactic If your class mates You have many I can observe that Rather you can
look down upon parts of your holding this belief believe that you are
you than what they personality; if some makes you upset, an imperfect human
do is they observe part is faulty does hurt and depressed. being and you have
parts of your not prove all of you your strengths and
personality that are bad. weaknesses even if
bad and jump to you class mates
conclusions. This look down upon
isn’t logical. you.
DEMONSTRATION
Cognitive techniques
SAMEET AFZAAL
 Rational coping statements

 Modeling

 Refrenting

 Cognitive homework
 Proselytizing

 Stop and monitor

 Bibliography
EMOTIVE TECHNIQUES
 Rational emotive imagery

 Role playing

 Reverse role playing

 Shame attacking
 Forceful self esteem statements

 Forceful self dialogue

 Humor

 Teaching unconditional acceptance (self and others)

 Encouragement

 Encounter Exercises
BEHAVIOR TECHNIQUES
 Activity Homework

 Reinforcement and Penalties