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Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), previously called rational therapy and rational emotive therapy, is an active-directive, philosophically and
empirical Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how t ...
ly based
psychotherapy Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of Psychology, psychological methods, particularly when based on regular Conversation, personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase hap ...
, the aim of which is to resolve
emotion Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiology, neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavior, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or suffering, displeasure. There is ...
al and
behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions of Individual, individuals, organisms, systems or Artificial intelligence, artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or or ...
al problems and disturbances and to help people to lead happier and more fulfilling lives. REBT posits that people have erroneous beliefs about situations they are involved in, and that these beliefs cause disturbance, but can be disputed and changed.


History

Rational emotive behavior therapy was created and developed by the American
psychotherapist Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of Psychology, psychological methods, particularly when based on regular Conversation, personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase hap ...
and
psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...
Albert Ellis Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was cer ...
, who was inspired by many of the teachings of
Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
n, Greek, Roman and modern philosophers. REBT is a form of
cognitive behavioral therapy Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a form of psychotherapy that aims to reduce symptoms of various mental health conditions, primarily depression, PTSD, and anxiety disorders. Cognitive behavioral therapy focuses on challenging and chang ...
(CBT) and was first expounded by Ellis in the mid-1950s; development continued until his death in 2007. Ellis became synonymous with the highly influential therapy. ''
Psychology Today ''Psychology Today'' is an American media organization with a focus on psychology and human behavior. The publication began as a bimonthly magazine, which first appeared in 1967. The print magazine's reported circulation is 275,000 as of 2023. ...
'' noted, "No individual—not even Freud himself—has had a greater impact on modern psychotherapy." REBT is both a psychotherapeutic system of theory and practices and a school of thought established by Ellis. He first presented his ideas at a conference of the American Psychological Association in 1956 then published a seminal article in 1957 entitled "Rational psychotherapy and individual psychology", in which he set the foundation for what he was calling rational therapy (RT) and carefully responded to questions from Rudolf Dreikurs and others about the similarities and differences with Alfred Adler's individual psychology. This was around a decade before psychiatrist Aaron Beck first set forth his " cognitive therapy", after Ellis had contacted him in the mid-1960s. Ellis' own approach was renamed ''Rational Emotive Therapy'' in 1959, then the current term in 1992. Precursors of certain fundamental aspects of rational emotive behavior therapy have been identified in ancient philosophical traditions, particularly to Stoics
Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius Antoninus ( ; ; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoicism, Stoic philosopher. He was a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors ...
, Epictetus,
Zeno of Citium Zeno of Citium (; , ; c. 334 – c. 262 BC) was a Hellenistic philosophy, Hellenistic philosopher from Kition, Citium (, ), Cyprus. He was the founder of the Stoicism, Stoic school of philosophy, which he taught in Athens from about 300 BC. B ...
,
Chrysippus Chrysippus of Soli (; , ; ) was a Ancient Greece, Greek Stoicism, Stoic Philosophy, philosopher. He was a native of Soli, Cilicia, but moved to Athens as a young man, where he became a pupil of the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes. When Cleanthes ...
, Panaetius of Rhodes,
Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...
, and Seneca, and early Asian philosophers
Confucius Confucius (; pinyin: ; ; ), born Kong Qiu (), was a Chinese philosopher of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. Much of the shared cultural heritage of the Sinosphere originates in the phil ...
and
Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...
. In his first major book on rational therapy, Ellis wrote that the central principle of his approach, that people are rarely emotionally affected by external events but rather by their thinking about such events, "was originally discovered and stated by the ancient Stoic philosophers." Ellis illustrates this with a quote from the ''Enchiridion'' of Epictetus: "Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them." Ellis noted that
Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
expressed a similar thought in ''
Hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...
'': "There's nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so." Ellis also acknowledges early 20th century therapists, particularly Paul Charles Dubois, though he only read his work several years after developing his therapy.


Theoretical assumptions

The REBT framework posits that humans have both innate rational (meaning self-helping, socially helping, and constructive) and irrational (meaning self-defeating, socially defeating, and unhelpful) tendencies and leanings. REBT claims that people to a large degree consciously and unconsciously construct emotional difficulties such as self-blame, self-pity, clinical anger, hurt, guilt, shame, depression and
anxiety Anxiety is an emotion characterised by an unpleasant state of inner wikt:turmoil, turmoil and includes feelings of dread over Anticipation, anticipated events. Anxiety is different from fear in that fear is defined as the emotional response ...
, and behavior tendencies like
procrastination Procrastination is the act of unnecessarily delaying or postponing something despite knowing that there could be negative consequences for doing so. It is a common human experience involving delays in everyday chores or even putting off tasks such ...
, compulsiveness, avoidance,
addiction Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use can ...
and withdrawal by the means of their irrational and self-defeating thinking, emoting and behaving.Ellis, A. (2001). Feeling better, getting better, staying better. Impact Publishers REBT is then applied as an
education Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...
al process in which the therapist often active-directively teaches the client how to identify irrational and self-defeating beliefs and philosophies which in nature are rigid, extreme, unrealistic, illogical and absolutist, and then to forcefully and actively question and dispute them and replace them with more rational and self-helping ones. By using different cognitive, emotive and behavioral methods and activities, the client, together with help from the therapist and in
homework Homework is a set of tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed at home. Common homework assignments may include required reading, a writing or typing project, Exercise (mathematics), math problems to be completed, informatio ...
exercises, can gain a more rational, self-helping and constructive rational way of thinking, emoting and behaving. One of the main objectives in REBT is to show the client that whenever unpleasant and unfortunate activating events occur in people's lives, they have a
choice A choice is the range of different things from which a being can choose. The arrival at a choice may incorporate Motivation, motivators and Choice modelling, models. Freedom of choice is generally cherished, whereas a severely limited or arti ...
between making themselves feel healthily or, self-helpingly, sorry, disappointed, frustrated, and annoyed or making themselves feel unhealthily and self-defeatingly horrified, terrified, panicked, depressed, self-hating and self-pitying.Ellis, Albert (2003). Early theories and practices of rational emotive behavior theory and how they have been augmented and revised during the last three decades. Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 21(3/4) By attaining and ingraining a more rational and self-constructive philosophy of themselves, others and the world, people often are more likely to behave and emote in more life-serving and adaptive ways. A fundamental premise of REBT is that humans do not get emotionally disturbed by unfortunate circumstances, but by how they construct their views of these circumstances through their language, evaluative beliefs, meanings and philosophies about the world, themselves and others.Ellis, Albert (2001). Overcoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and Behaviors: New Directions for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.
Prometheus Books Prometheus Books is a publishing company founded in August 1969 by the philosopher Paul Kurtz (who was also the founder of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and co-founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry). The publ ...
.
This concept has been attributed as far back as the Stoic philosopher Epictetus, who is often cited as utilizing similar ideas in antiquity.


A-B-C-D-E-F Model

In REBT, clients usually learn and begin to apply this premise by learning the ''A-B-C''-''D-E-F'' model of
psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
disturbance and change. The following letters represent the following meanings in this model: :A Adversity :B Beliefs about adversity :C Emotional consequences :D Disputations to challenge beliefs about adversity :E Effective new rational beliefs :F New feelings The A-B-C model states that it is not an ''A'', ''a''dversity (or ''a''ctivating event) that cause disturbed and dysfunctional emotional and behavioral ''C''s, ''c''onsequences, but also what people ''B'', irrationally believe about the ''A'', ''a''dversity. ''A'', ''a''dversity can be an external situation, or a thought, a feeling or other kind of internal event, and it can refer to an event in the past, present, or future.Dryden W., & Neenan M. (2003). Essential Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. Wiley. The ''B''s, irrational beliefs that are most important in the ''A-B-C'' model are the explicit and implicit philosophical meanings and assumptions about events, personal desires, and preferences. The ''B''s, ''b''eliefs that are most significant are highly evaluative and consist of interrelated and integrated cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects and dimensions. According to REBT, if a person's evaluative ''B'', ''b''elief about the ''A'', ''a''ctivating event is rigid, absolutistic, fictional and dysfunctional, the ''C'', the emotional and behavioral ''c''onsequence, is likely to be self-defeating and destructive. Alternatively, if a person's belief is preferential, flexible, and constructive, the ''C'', the emotional and behavioral ''c''onsequence is likely to be self-helping and constructive. Through REBT, by understanding the role of their mediating, evaluative and philosophically based illogical, unrealistic and self-defeating meanings, interpretations and assumptions in disturbance, individuals can learn to identify them, then go to ''D'', ''d''isputing and questioning the evidence for them. At ''E, e''ffective new philosophy, they can recognize and reinforce the notion no evidence exists for any psychopathological ''must'', ''ought'' or ''should'' and distinguish them from healthy constructs, and subscribe to more constructive and self-helping philosophies. This new reasonable perspective leads to ''F'', new ''f''eelings and behaviors appropriate to the ''A'' they are addressing in the exercise.


Psychological dysfunction

One of the main pillars of REBT is that irrational and dysfunctional ways and patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving are contributing to human disturbance and emotional and behavioral self-defeatism and social defeatism. REBT generally teaches that when people turn flexible preferences, desires and wishes into grandiose, absolutistic and fatalistic dictates, this tends to contribute to disturbance and upset. These dysfunctional patterns are examples of cognitive distortions.


Irrational beliefs

REBT proposes four core irrational ways of thinking that create suffering: # Demands: The tendency to demand success, fair treatment, and respect (e.g., I must be treated fairly). # Awfulizing: The tendency to consider adverse events as awful or terrible (e.g., It's awful when I am disrespected). # Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT): The belief that one could not stand or tolerate adversity (e.g., I cannot stand being treated unfairly). # Depreciation: The belief that one event reflects the person as a whole (e.g., When I fail it shows that I am a complete failure).


Core beliefs that disturb humans

Ellis has suggested that humans take the above distorted ways of thinking and created three core beliefs or philosophies that humans tend to disturb themselves through:


Rigid demands that humans make

REBT commonly posits that at the core of irrational beliefs there often are explicit or implicit rigid demands and commands, and that extreme derivatives like awfulizing, low frustration tolerance, people
deprecation Deprecation is the discouragement of use of something human-made, such as a term, feature, design, or practice. Typically something is deprecated because it is claimed to be inferior compared to other options available. Something may be deprec ...
and overgeneralizations are accompanied by these. According to REBT, the core dysfunctional philosophies in a person's evaluative emotional and behavioral belief system are also very likely to contribute to unrealistic, arbitrary and crooked inferences and distortions in thinking. REBT therefore first teaches that when people in an insensible and devout way overuse absolutistic, dogmatic and rigid "shoulds", "musts", and "oughts", they tend to disturb and upset themselves.


Over-generalization

Further, REBT generally posits that disturbed evaluations to a large degree occur through overgeneralization, wherein people exaggerate and globalize events or traits, usually unwanted events or traits or behavior, out of context, while almost always ignoring the positive events or traits or behaviors. For example, awfulizing is partly mental
magnification Magnification is the process of enlarging the apparent size, not physical size, of something. This enlargement is quantified by a size ratio called optical magnification. When this number is less than one, it refers to a reduction in size, so ...
of the importance of an unwanted situation to a catastrophe or horror, elevating the rating of something from bad to worse than it should be, to beyond totally bad, worse than bad to the intolerable and to a "
holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
". The same exaggeration and overgeneralizing occurs with human rating, wherein humans come to be arbitrarily and
axiom An axiom, postulate, or assumption is a statement that is taken to be true, to serve as a premise or starting point for further reasoning and arguments. The word comes from the Ancient Greek word (), meaning 'that which is thought worthy or ...
atically defined by their
perceive Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
d flaws or misdeeds.


Low frustration tolerance

Low frustration tolerance is the inability to tolerate unpleasant feelings or stressful situations.


Secondary disturbances

Essential to REBT theory is also the concept of secondary disturbances which people sometimes construct on top of their primary disturbance. As Ellis emphasizes:
Because of their self-consciousness and their ability to think about their thinking, they can very easily disturb themselves about their disturbances and can also disturb themselves about their ineffective attempts to overcome their emotional disturbances.


Origins of dysfunction

Regarding cognitive-affective-behavioral
process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management * Business process, activities that produce a specific s ...
es in mental functioning and dysfunctioning, originator Albert Ellis explains:
REBT assumes that human thinking, emotion, and action are not really separate or disparate processes, but that they all significantly overlap and are rarely experienced in a pure state. Much of what we call emotion is nothing more nor less than a certain kind—a biased, prejudiced, or strongly evaluative kind—of thought. But emotions and behaviors significantly influence and affect thinking, just as thinking influences emotions and behaviors. Evaluating is a fundamental characteristic of human
organisms An organism is any living thing that functions as an individual. Such a definition raises more problems than it solves, not least because the concept of an individual is also difficult. Many criteria, few of them widely accepted, have been pr ...
and seems to work in a kind of closed circuit with a feedback mechanism: First,
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
bias Bias is a disproportionate weight ''in favor of'' or ''against'' an idea or thing, usually in a way that is inaccurate, closed-minded, prejudicial, or unfair. Biases can be innate or learned. People may develop biases for or against an individ ...
es response, and then response tends to bias subsequent perception. Also, prior perceptions appear to bias subsequent
perception Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous syste ...
s, and prior responses appear to bias subsequent responses. What we call feelings almost always have a pronounced evaluating or appraisal element.
REBT then generally proposes that many of these self-defeating cognitive, emotive and behavioral tendencies are both innately biological and indoctrinated early in and during life, and further grow stronger as a person continually revisits, clings and acts on them. Ellis alludes to similarities between REBT and the
general semantics General semantics is a school of thought that incorporates philosophy, philosophic and science, scientific aspects. Although it does not stand on its own as a separate list of schools of philosophy, school of philosophy, a separate science, or ...
when explaining the role of irrational beliefs in self-defeating tendencies, citing
Alfred Korzybski Alfred Habdank Skarbek Korzybski (; ; July 3, 1879 – March 1, 1950) was a Polish-American philosopher and independent scholar who developed a field called general semantics, which he viewed as both distinct from, and more encompassing than, ...
as a significant modern influence on this thinking. REBT differs from other clinical approaches like
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...
in that it places little emphasis on exploring the past, but instead focuses on changing the current evaluations and philosophical thinking-emoting and behaving in relation to themselves, others and the conditions under which people live.


Disturbances

REBT sees disturbances as caused by characteristics of a person, rather than a particular past event;
Almost all (neurotic clients) have innate tendencies to take their strong desires and preferences (which they learn and which they also have biological predispositions to construct) and to escalate them into unrealistic, illogical, absolutist demands and to thereby disturb themselves when these rigid imperatives are not fulfilled.


Other insights

Other insights of REBT (some referring to the ABCDEF model above) are:
Insight 1 – People seeing and accepting the reality that their emotional disturbances at point C are only partially caused by the activating events or adversities at point A that precede C. Although A contributes to C, and although disturbed Cs (such as feelings of panic and depression) are much more likely to follow strong negative As (such as being assaulted or raped), than they are to follow weak As (such as being disliked by a stranger), the main or more direct cores of extreme and dysfunctional emotional disturbances (Cs) are people's irrational beliefs—the "absolutistic" (inflexible) "musts" and their accompanying inferences and attributions that people strongly believe about the activating event.
Insight 2 – No matter how, when, and why people acquire self-defeating or irrational beliefs (i.e. beliefs that are the main cause of their dysfunctional emotional-behavioral consequences), if they are disturbed in the present, they tend to keep holding these irrational beliefs and continue upsetting themselves with these thoughts. They do so not because they held them in the past, but because they still actively hold them in the present (often unconsciously), while continuing to reaffirm their beliefs and act as if they are still valid. In their minds and hearts, the troubled people still follow the core "masturbatory" philosophies they adopted or invented long ago or ones they recently accepted or constructed.
Insight 3 – No matter how well they have gained insights 1 and 2, insight alone rarely enables people to undo their emotional disturbances. They may feel better when they know, or think they know, how they became disturbed, because insights can feel useful and curative. But it is unlikely that people will actually get better and stay better unless they have and apply insight 3, which is that ''there is usually no way to get better and stay better except by continual work and practice in looking for and finding one's core irrational beliefs''; actively, energetically, and scientifically disputing them; replacing one's absolute "musts" (rigid requirements about how things should be) with more flexible ''preferences''; changing one's unhealthy feelings to healthy, self-helping emotions; and firmly acting against one's dysfunctional fears and compulsions. Only by a combined cognitive, emotive, and behavioral, as well as a quite persistent and forceful attack on one's serious emotional problems, is one likely to significantly ameliorate or remove them, and keep them removed.


Intervention

As explained, REBT is a therapeutic system of both theory and practice; generally one of the goals of REBT is to help clients see the ways in which they have learned how they often needlessly upset themselves, teach them how to "un-upset" themselves and then how to empower themselves to lead happier and more fulfilling lives. The emphasis in therapy is generally to establish a successful collaborative therapeutic working alliance based on the REBT educational model. Although REBT teaches that the therapist or counsellor is better served by demonstrating unconditional other-acceptance or unconditional positive regard, the therapist is not necessarily always encouraged to build a warm and caring relationship with the client. The tasks of the therapist or counselor include understanding the client's concerns from his point of reference and work as a facilitator, teacher and encourager. In traditional REBT, the client together with the therapist, in a structured active-directive manner, often work through a set of target problems and establish a set of therapeutic goals. In these target problems, situational dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and beliefs are assessed in regards to the client's values and
goal A goal or objective is an idea of the future or desired result that a person or a group of people envision, plan, and commit to achieve. People endeavour to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. A goal is roughly similar to ...
s. After working through these problems, the client learns to generalize insights to other relevant situations. In many cases after going through a client's different target problems, the therapist is interested in examining possible core beliefs and more deep rooted philosophical evaluations and schemas that might account for a wider array of problematic emotions and behaviors. Although REBT much of the time is used as a brief therapy, in deeper and more complex problems, longer therapy is promoted. In therapy, the first step often is that the client acknowledges the problems, accepts emotional responsibility for these and has willingness and determination to change. This normally requires a considerable amount of insight, but as originator
Albert Ellis Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was cer ...
explains:
Humans, unlike just about all the other animals on earth, create fairly sophisticated
languages Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...
which not only enable them to think about their feeling, their actions, and the results they get from doing and not doing certain things, but they also are able to think about their thinking and even think about thinking about their thinking.
Through the therapeutic process, REBT employs a wide array of forceful and active, meaning multimodal and disputing, methodologies. Central through these methods and techniques is the intent to help the client challenge, dispute and question their destructive and self-defeating cognitions, emotions and behaviors. The methods and techniques incorporate cognitive-philosophic, emotive-evocative-dramatic, and behavioral methods for disputation of the client's irrational and self-defeating constructs and helps the client come up with more rational and self-constructive ones. REBT seeks to acknowledge that understanding and insight are not enough; in order for clients to significantly change, they need to pinpoint their irrational and self-defeating constructs and work forcefully and actively at changing them to more functional and self-helping ones. REBT posits that the client must work hard to get better, and in therapy this normally includes a wide array of homework exercises in day-to-day life assigned by the therapist. The assignments may for example include desensitization tasks, i.e., by having the client confront the very thing he or she is afraid of. By doing so, the client is actively acting against the belief that often is contributing significantly to the disturbance. Another factor contributing to the brevity of REBT is that the therapist seeks to empower the client to help himself through future adversities. REBT only promotes temporary solutions if more fundamental solutions are not found. An ideal successful
collaboration Collaboration (from Latin ''com-'' "with" + ''laborare'' "to labor", "to work") is the process of two or more people, entities or organizations working together to complete a task or achieve a goal. Collaboration is similar to cooperation. The ...
between the REBT therapist and a client results in changes to the client's philosophical way of evaluating himself or herself, others, and his or her life, which will likely yield effective results. The client then moves toward unconditional self-acceptance, other-acceptance and life-acceptance while striving to live a more self-fulfilling and happier life.


Applications and interfaces

Applications and interfaces of REBT are used with a broad range of clinical problems in traditional psychotherapeutic settings such as individual-, group- and
family therapy Family therapy (also referred to as family counseling, family systems therapy, marriage and family therapy, couple and family therapy) is a branch of psychotherapy focused on families and couples in intimate relationships to nurture change and ...
. It is used as a general treatment for a vast number of different conditions and psychological problems normally associated with
psychotherapy Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of Psychology, psychological methods, particularly when based on regular Conversation, personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase hap ...
. In addition, REBT is used with non-clinical problems and problems of living through counselling, consultation and coaching settings dealing with problems including relationships, social skills, career changes,
stress management Stress management consists of a wide spectrum of techniques and psychotherapy, psychotherapies aimed at controlling a person's level of psychological stress, especially chronic stress, generally for the purpose of improving the function of everyda ...
, assertiveness training, grief, problems with aging, money, weight control etc. More recently, the reported use of REBT in sport and exercise settings has grown, with the efficacy of REBT demonstrated across a range of sports. REBT also has many interfaces and applications through self-help resources, phone and internet counseling, workshops & seminars, workplace and educational programmes, etc. This includes Rational Emotive Education (REE) where REBT is applied in education settings, Rational Effectiveness Training in business and work-settings and SMART Recovery (Self Management And Recovery Training) in supporting those in addiction recovery, in addition to a wide variety of specialized treatment strategies and applications.


Efficacy

REBT and CBT in general have a strong and substantial
research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...
base to verify and support their psychotherapeutic efficiency and their theoretical underpinnings. Meta-analyses of outcome-based studies reveal REBT to be effective for treating various psychopathologies, conditions and problems. Recently, REBT randomized clinical trials have offered a positive view on the efficacy of REBT. In general REBT is arguably one of the most investigated theories in the field of psychotherapy and a large amount of clinical experience and a substantial body of modern psychological research have validated and substantiated many of REBTs theoretical assumptions on
personality Personality is any person's collection of interrelated behavioral, cognitive, and emotional patterns that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life. These interrelated patterns are relatively stable, but can change over long time per ...
and psychotherapy.Colin Feltham (ed) (1997). Which Psychotherapy?: Leading Exponents Explain Their Differences. SAGE, 1997David D. et al. (2005). A synopsis of rational-emotive behavior therapy: Fundamental and applied research. Journal of rational-emotive and cognitive-behavior therapy 2005, vol. 23Ellis A., Abrams M. & Abrams L. (2008). Theories of Personality. Sage Press REBT may be effective in improving sports performance and mental health. Ellis himself later in life accepted that REBT was not universally effective; "I hope I am also not a devout REBTer, since I do not think it is an unmitigated cure for everyone and do accept its distinct limitations."


Limitations and critique

The clinical research on REBT has been criticized by both supporters and detractors. For instance, originator
Albert Ellis Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was cer ...
has on occasion emphasized the difficulty and complexity of measuring psychotherapeutic effectiveness, because many studies only tend to measure whether clients merely feel better after therapy instead of them getting better and staying better. Ellis has also criticized studies for having limited focus primarily to cognitive restructuring aspects, as opposed to the combination of cognitive, emotive and behavioral aspects of REBT. As REBT has been subject to criticisms during its existence, especially in its early years, REBT theorists have a long history of publishing and addressing those concerns. It has also been argued by Ellis and by other clinicians that REBT theory on numerous occasions has been misunderstood and misconstrued both in research and in general. Some have criticized REBT for being harsh, formulaic and failing to address deep underlying problems. REBT theorists have argued in reply that a careful study of REBT shows that it is both philosophically deep, humanistic and individualized collaboratively working on the basis of the client's point of reference. They have further argued that REBT utilizes an integrated and interrelated methodology of cognitive, emotive-experiential and behavioral interventions. Others have questioned REBTs view of rationality, both radical constructivists who have claimed that reason and logic are subjective properties and those who believe that reason can be objectively determined. REBT theorists have argued in reply that REBT raises objections to clients' irrational choices and conclusions as a working hypothesis and through collaborative efforts demonstrate the irrationality on practical, functional and social consensual grounds. In 1998 when asked what the main criticism on REBT was, Albert Ellis replied that it was the claim that it was too rational and not dealing sufficiently enough with emotions. He repudiated the claim by saying that REBT on the contrary emphasizes that thinking, feeling, and behaving are interrelated and integrated, and that it includes a vast amount of both emotional and behavioural methods in addition to cognitive ones.Ask Dr. Ellis Achieve (1996–2001). Albert Ellis Institute Ellis has himself in very direct terms criticized opposing approaches such as
psychoanalysis PsychoanalysisFrom Greek language, Greek: and is a set of theories and techniques of research to discover unconscious mind, unconscious processes and their influence on conscious mind, conscious thought, emotion and behaviour. Based on The Inte ...
,
transpersonal psychology Transpersonal psychology, or spiritual psychology, is an area of psychology that seeks to integrate the spiritual and transcendent human experiences within the framework of modern psychology. Evolving from the humanistic psychology movement, ...
and abreactive psychotherapies in addition to on several occasions questioning some of the
doctrine Doctrine (from , meaning 'teaching, instruction') is a codification (law), codification of beliefs or a body of teacher, teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the essence of teachings in a given branch of knowledge or in a ...
s in certain religious systems, spiritualism and
mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute (philosophy), Absolute, but may refer to any kind of Religious ecstasy, ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or Spirituality, spiritual meani ...
. Many, including REBT practitioners, have warned against dogmatizing and sanctifying REBT as a supposedly perfect psychological panacea. Prominent REBTers have promoted the importance of high quality and programmatic research, including originator Ellis, a self-proclaimed "passionate skeptic". He has on many occasions been open to challenges and acknowledged errors and inefficiencies in his approach and concurrently revised his theories and practices. In general, with regard to cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies' interventions, others have pointed out that as about 30–40% of people are still unresponsive to interventions, that REBT could be a platform of reinvigorating empirical studies on the effectiveness of the cognitive-behavioral models of psychopathology and human functioning. REBT has been developed, revised and augmented through the years as understanding and knowledge of psychology and psychotherapy have progressed. This includes its theoretical concepts, practices and methodology. The teaching of scientific thinking, reasonableness and un-dogmatism has been inherent in REBT as an approach, and these ways of thinking are an inextricable part of REBT's
empirical Empirical evidence is evidence obtained through sense experience or experimental procedure. It is of central importance to the sciences and plays a role in various other fields, like epistemology and law. There is no general agreement on how t ...
and skeptical nature.


Mental wellness

As would be expected, REBT argues that mental wellness and
mental health Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...
to a large degree results from an adequate amount of self-helping, flexible, logico-empirical ways of thinking, emoting and behaving. When a perceived undesired and stressful activating event occurs, and the individual is interpreting, evaluating and reacting to the situation rationally and self-helpingly, then the resulting consequence is, according to REBT, likely to be more healthy, constructive and functional. This does not by any means mean that a relatively un-disturbed person never experiences negative feelings, but REBT does hope to keep debilitating and un-healthy emotions and subsequent self-defeating behavior to a minimum. To do this, REBT generally promotes a flexible, un-dogmatic, self-helping and efficient belief system and constructive life philosophy about adversities and human desires and preferences. REBT clearly acknowledges that people, in addition to disturbing themselves, also are innately constructivists. Because they largely upset themselves with their beliefs, emotions and behaviors, they can be helped to, in a multimodal manner, dispute and question these and develop a more workable, more self-helping set of constructs. REBT generally teaches and promotes: * That the concepts and philosophies of life of unconditional self-acceptance, other-acceptance, and life-acceptance are effective philosophies of life in achieving mental wellness and
mental health Mental health is often mistakenly equated with the absence of mental illness. However, mental health refers to a person's overall emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It influences how individuals think, feel, and behave, and how t ...
. * That human beings are inherently fallible and imperfect and that they are better served by accepting their and other human beings' totality and humanity, while at the same time they may not like some of their behaviors and characteristics. That they are better off not measuring their entire self or their "being" and give up the narrow, grandiose and ultimately destructive notion to give themselves any global rating or report card. This is partly because all humans are continually evolving and are far too complex to accurately rate; all humans do both self-defeating / socially defeating and self-helping/socially helping deeds, and have both beneficial and un-beneficial attributes and traits at certain times and in certain conditions. REBT holds that
idea In philosophy and in common usage, an idea (from the Greek word: ἰδέα (idea), meaning 'a form, or a pattern') is the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophe ...
s and feelings about self-worth are largely definitional and are not empirically confirmable or falsifiable. * That people had better accept life with its hassles and difficulties not always in accordance with their wants, while trying to change what they can change and live as elegantly as possible with what they cannot change.


References


Further reading

*
Albert Ellis Albert Ellis (September 27, 1913 – July 24, 2007) was an American psychologist and psychotherapist who founded rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). He held MA and PhD degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, and was cer ...
et al., ''A Guide to Rational Living'' (3rd rev ed.); Wilshire Book Company, 1997. * Albert Ellis, ''Overcoming Destructive Beliefs, Feelings, and Behaviors: New Directions for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy''; Prometheus Books, 2001. * Albert Ellis, ''Feeling better, getting better, staying better''; Impact Publishers, 2001. * Albert Ellis and Michael Abrams, PhD, and Lidia Abrams, PhD. ''Theories of Personality: Critical Perspectives'', New York: Sage Press, 7/2008 (This was his final work, published posthumously). * Albert Ellis & Windy Dryden, ''The Practice of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (2nd ed.)''; Springer Publishing, 2007. * Albert Ellis & Catharine MacLaren, ''Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: A Therapist's Guide'' (2nd ed.); Impact Publishers, 2005. * Windy Dryden & Michael Neenan, ''Getting Started with REBT''; Routledge, 2005. * Windy Dryden, ''Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy in a Nutshell (Counselling in a Nutshell)''; Sage Publications, 2005. * Windy Dryden, ''Fundamentals of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy: A Training Manual''; John Wiley & Sons, 2002. * Windy Dryden, ''Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy; Theoretical Developments''; Brunner-Routledge, 2003. * Windy Dryden et al., ''A Practitioner's Guide to Rational-Emotive Therapy''; Oxford University Press, 1992. * Windy Dryden, Raymond Di Giuseppe & Michael Neenan, ''A Primer on Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy'' (2nd ed.); Research Press, 2002. * Stevan Lars Nielsen, W. Brad Johnson & Albert Ellis, ''Counseling and Psychotherapy With Religious Persons: A Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Approach''; Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. .


External links


The Albert Ellis Institute

Association for Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

UK Centre for Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

International Institute for the Advanced Studies of Psychotherapy and Applied Mental Health

Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

Wife of Dr Albert Ellis

REBT Information site
{{Authority control Cognitive behavioral therapy Psychotherapy by type