How Rational Emotive Therapy Works

By Christine Fadhley

Dr. Albert Ellis (1913-2007) is credited as the founder of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). REBT, to paraphrase his own words, is a comprehensive approach to psychological imbalance that deals not only with the emotional and behavioral aspects of human disturbance, but places a great deal of stress on the thought processes behind it.

Negative Thinking Patterns

His theory states that behind all of our negative feelings are “negative conscious and unconscious evaluations, interpretations, and philosophies.” To put this more simply, it is not the bad experience that causes anxiety and stress; rather it is the negative things we tell ourselves repeatedly that cause self limiting beliefs and feelings.

Negative Scripts

We may have negative scripts fixed in our minds such as:

• I can’t have a meaningful relationship
• I am ugly and undesirable

Such negative thoughts may be repeated until they become beliefs. As a result of these beliefs, the individual may start to feel anxious and fearful in situations relating to relationships. This is just one example. Albert Ellis lists the following irrational ideas that “cause and sustain neuroses”.

Core Irrational Ideas

1. The absolute need for approval from significant others instead of building self respect
2. The belief that people’s bad behavior means they are damnable and evil – rather than seeing them just as fallible human beings
3. The idea that everything has to be perfect – rather than accepting that things go wrong for everybody at times
4. The belief that stuff happens to us because of outside forces, people and events – rather than learning that our own attitudes affect how we feel about events in our lives (i.e. being a victim)
5. Allowing oneself to be terribly upset and obsess about negative happenings rather than learning to face dangers or to accept them
6. Avoiding unpleasant things rather than face up to them and learning from the process
7. Thinking that we need something outside ourselves to help us cope with life rather than learning to take responsibility ourselves
8. The idea that we should always be thoroughly competent and never fail at anything we try
9. The thought that if something affected us one time it will affect us the same forever
10. The need always to be in perfect control, rather than learning that we can still enjoy life with all its uncertainty
11. The idea that lack of action leads to happiness – rather than being absorbed fully in life
12. The belief that our emotions control us rather than the other way round.

How REBT Works

The REBT therapist aims, through dialogue with the client, to identify which negative scripts are underlying their neuroses. Then the client is given homework to do which could entail testing out the positive script way of behaving.

Case Study

One woman had the script that she would never get a boyfriend of the right calibre. Because of this she engaged in “people pleasing” behavior where she wasn’t being true to herself whenever she was with someone that she really liked.

Ellis suggested to her that this wouldn’t be sustainable in a long term relationship and she would be better to just behave like herself. In this way she would enjoy her interactions more and she was more likely to find a compatible partner who loved her for herself. Her homework was to go out on a date and to be true to herself.