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.

View of the Human Mind

REBT posits that human beings are born with the dual potentials for both healthy and unhealthy thought processes. The healthy process rational thinking and the unhealthy variety irrational thinking. Rational thinking, as would be expected, means objectively seeing things as they really are, whereas irrational thinking distorts reality by misinterpreting things that happen.

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At the core of REBT is the A-B-C theory of personality. The A stands for an activating event, usually some type of challenging life situation. An example activating event might be a teenage boy being ?dumped? by his girlfriend. The B represents a belief that takes over and causes the emotional consequence, represented by the C. If the belief is irrational (for example, the boy believes ?Everyone must always like me and treat me well?), the consequence is likely to be depression or anger. Alternatively, if the belief is rational (e.g. ?Sometimes people will not like me and will mistreat me?) the consequence would be only a temporary sadness that the relationship is over. Key to REBT thought is that the belief, not the activating event, causes the emotional consequence. Therefore, if a person has a number of irrational beliefs, then he or she is likely to experience much emotional pain throughout life as various challenges are encountered. On the other hand, if a person?s beliefs are rational, then he or she can handle the disappointing events of life with aplomb. In other words, how one feels is primarily determined by how one thinks.

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From whence do our self-sabotaging irrational beliefs originate? REBT teaches that we learn some of them from other people during our childhood and the rest we concoct on our own. This is the only way in which the past matters in REBT: our current beliefs are learned from past experiences. The past cannot be changed and REBT places very little emphasis on discussing it; instead, REBT works to replace the illogical beliefs with logical ones.

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