Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Albert Ellis developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), a brief, direct, and solution-oriented therapy which focuses on resolving specific problems facing a troubled individual. REBT is the first form of Cognitive Behavior Therapy first set forth by Ellis in 1953. Fundamental to REBT is the concept that our emotions result solely from our beliefs, not by the events that occur in our lives. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for our beliefs to be healthy and rational, because the consequences of these beliefs will be emotional growth and happiness. If our beliefs are irrational and self-defeating, our emotional life suffers from neuroses such as self-blame, depression, and anxiety. REBT is an educational process in which the therapist teaches the client how to identify irrational beliefs, dispute them, and replace them with rational ones. Once the client is equipped with healthy beliefs, emotional difficulties and problematic behavior are abated.

Psychological Dysfunction

In REBT thought, irrational beliefs are the cause of human neuroses, including depression and anxiety. Irrational beliefs tend to ignore the positive, exaggerate the negative, distort reality, and/or overgeneralize. REBT teaches that people tend to overuse ?shoulds,? ?musts,? and ?oughts? (see cognitive_distortion). Many of these self-defeating beliefs are indoctrinated in early life and grow stronger as a person continually revisits them.

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As mentioned previously, according to the A-B-C theory of personality, the belief, not the activating event, causes the emotional consequence. When the belief is irrational, the emotion is not healthy. The consequences of irrational beliefs can be relatively mild (procrastination, for example) but can also be extremely disruptive, immobilizing, or even dangerous.

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Irrational beliefs will often be obvious in how people talk to themselves. Asking the question, "What are you telling yourself about . . . ?" will usually reveal "shoulds," "musts," and so forth?but not always. Irrational beliefs probably exist as extreme, automatic attitudes or extreme, evaluative, psychological schemas about which people are not too clearly aware which generate the absolute language, the "must." It is possible, for example, to say them out loud, but not really be aware of what one is saying. Part of the difficulty in changing the irrational beliefs is becoming aware that they are present.

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