Understanding Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is a form of cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) developed by psychologist Albert Ellis in the 1950s. According to Ellis, our thoughts, beliefs and interpretations of an event play an important role in shaping our emotional response to said event, this response is not based on the result of the event. REBT is used to help individuals highlight these irrational beliefs and patterns of behaviour that lead to emotional stress. This knowledge can be used further to make small but effective changes in one’s thought process to mitigate negative responses.

The process follows a particular model, this model is known as the ABCDEF model.

Every alphabet in the name corresponds to a step in the process of REBT. These steps are as follows:

Adversity (A): Adversity is a specific aspect of a situation that might contribute to our disturbance.

Irrational Beliefs (B): The beliefs or attitudes that one actively forms in one’s mind about adversity.

Consequences (C): The irrational beliefs influence our emotions, thoughts and behaviour.

Disputing the Beliefs (D): This step tries to understand the result of our beliefs by processing the information from the prior steps.

Now let’s take a look at how these steps help us deal with our emotions:

1. Identifying the Trigger: By analyzing every aspect of an event and breaking it down into parts, people can better highlight the ‘trigger’ that brought upon the negative response. Triggers often give rise to emotional distress and irrational thoughts, these outcomes affect our behaviour and cloud our judgment.

2. Challenging Irrational Thoughts: Once the response is identified, we can question irrational thoughts with reason and logic. This process involves evaluating the accuracy, usefulness, and validity of irrational thoughts before replacing them with more reasonable and rational patterns of thought.

3. Changing Thought Process: REBT promotes reasonable ways of dealing with a trigger, this reworked thought process builds emotional resilience in a person resulting in the limitation of negative emotional responses.

REBT is most effective in treating emotion-based responses but it also helps people limit negative stimuli by using various cognitive skills:

Triggers: By focusing on problem-solving skills, social skills, conflict resolution skills and decision-making we can help address the triggers that cause the negative response. This thought process helps us better deal with the triggers and leads to rational thoughts.

Irrational Beliefs: We can target the irrational beliefs by reframing thought processes, prioritizing rationality and exposing ourselves to the outcomes to overcome the fear of the negative outcomes. All these methods condition our mind to not have a negative reaction to the triggers and limit emotional distress.

Emotional Consequences: Although dealing with the consequences can be hard at times, REBT promotes necessary coping skills to mitigate the mental damage done by said consequences. These coping methods include meditation, relaxation and mindfulness. By minimizing the emotional strain the negative responses put on our mind we can better help ourselves in dealing with the consequences and building mental resilience.

Summing up:

Although it might work for everyone out there, it is still worth a shot. The skills learnt in the process of REBT are useful in various forms of life. Overall, REBT promotes self-awareness, and resilience, increasing quality of life and fulfillment.

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