What are Irrational Beliefs?

In 'About REBT'
About Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy
Principles of REBT
What are Irrational Beliefs?
Back to 'Rebt'
Ellis placed Irrational Beliefs at the very heart of REBT, as these are the primary
reason for human misery and dysfunction. By challenging, questioning, disputing
and acting against our Irrational Beliefs we can change our emotional responses to
events, from unhealthy to healthy, which better aid us in achieving our goals in life.

Before summarising the main types of Irrational and Rational beliefs, it is important
to ensure clarity about the use of the terms irrational and rational. Although many
people have wrongly assumed that Ellis argued that there was such a thing as
rational world, this was never his intention. Rather, he chose the terms irrational as
a euphemism for unhelpful, illogical and inconsistent with our social reality. Rational
beliefs on the other hand are a euphemism for beliefs that are helpful, logical, and
consistent with our social reality.

The four types of Irrational Beliefs

Demands: These are the primary Irrational belief. They often feature phrases such
as must, absolute shoulds, have to, need and ought. Example: I would love to
succeed and therefore I have to!
All other Irrational Beliefs following from the demand.
Awfulising: In REBT awful is defined as anything that is evaluated as being worse
than 100% bad. Example: If I don't succeed in my presentation is will be awful!
Low Frustration Tolerance (LFT): Otherwise known as I-can't-stand-it-itis, LFT beliefs
feature an acknowledgement of a struggle and an assertion that the struggle is truly
unbearable or cannot be stood. Example: If people are rude to me I cannot stand it!
Conditional Self (other, life) Acceptance: Otherwise known as self-downing, this is
where we define our self based on one aspect. Example: If I fail at something
important to me then I am a failure!

The four types of Rational Beliefs

Preferences: Rather than demanding, preferring is a much more helpful attitude to
have about life. Example: I would love to succeed but I don't have to.
Anti-awfulising: Nothing in this world could not be worse, and anti-awfulising beliefs
reflect this. Example: If I don't succeed in my presntation, it may be bad but never
truly awful!
High Frustration Tolerance (HFT): Usually, we tell ourselves we cannot stand
something when in fact we do not like it (and we might dislike it very much indeed).
HFT enables us to face difficulty with more courage and resilience. Example: If
people are rude to me, I do not like it, but I can stand it and it would be worth the
struggle.
Unconditional Self (other, life) Acceptance: We are far to complex to be rated in one
aspect or dimension. In fact it is impossible to truly define a human being in any
one way. We are better off rating our behaviour, not ourselves. Example: If I fail at
something then I will have failed at an important thing to me, but that would never
make me a failure I would be a fallible human being.

Rational Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

REBT is the pioneering form of cognitive behavior therapy developed by Dr. Albert Ellis
in 1955. REBT is an action-oriented approach to managing cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral disturbances.
According to REBT, it is largely our thinking about events that leads to emotional and
behavioral upset. With an emphasis on the present, individuals are taught how to
examine and challenge their unhelpful thinking which creates unhealthy emotions and
self-defeating/self-sabotaging behaviors.
REBT is a practical approach to assist individuals in coping with and overcoming
adversity as well as achieving goals. REBT places a good deal of its focus on the
present. REBT addresses attitudes, unhealthy emotions (e.g., unhealthy anger,
depression, anxiety, guilt, etc.) and maladaptive behaviors (e.g., procrastination,
addictive behaviors, aggression, unhealthy eating, sleep disturbance, etc.) that can
negatively impact life satisfaction. REBT practitioners work closely with individuals,
seeking to help identify their individual set of beliefs (attitudes, expectations and
personal rules) that frequently lead to emotional distress.
REBT then provides a variety of methods to help people reformulate their dysfunctional
beliefs into more sensible, realistic and helpful ones by employing the powerful REBT
technique called disputing. Ultimately, REBT helps individuals to develop a philosophy
and approach to living that can increase their effectiveness and satisfaction at work, in
living successfully with others, in parenting and educational settings, in making our
community and environment healthier, and in enhancing their own emotional health and
personal welfare.

Albert Ellis, an important contributor to the ideas behind cognitive-behavioral therapy and
the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), discovered that peoples beliefs
strongly affected their emotional functioning. In particular certain irrational beliefs made
people feel depressed, anxious or angry and led to self-defeating behaviors.
When Ellis presented his theory in the mid-1950s (Ellis, 1962), the role of cognition in
emotional disturbance had not been fully addressed by the field of psychology. Ellis
developed REB theory and therapy in reaction to what he saw as the inadequate
techniques of psychoanalysis and behaviorism. He attributed the deficiency in the two
camps techniques to their conceptualization of personality and emotional disturbance. Ellis
felt that by ignoring the role thinking played in emotional disturbance both psychoanalytic
and behavior theory failed to explain how humans originally became disturbed and how they
remained disturbed.
The word belief means a conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something. So a
belief is a thought with an emotional component (conviction) and a factual component (truth,
actuality or validity). Beliefs can be either positive or negative. Having a negative belief is
not necessarily a bad thing; however, when one believes in something that is false, a
negative belief tends to become what Ellis called an irrational belief. Irrational beliefs are
not friendly to happiness and contentment and are definitely unhelpful for getting ones
basic desires for love and approval, comfort and achievement or success met.

Core Irrational Beliefs

Demandingness or Absolutism inflexible, dogmatic, extreme beliefs

signaled by words such as should, must, have to, and need to (e.g., I
should not be in pain or I should be able to do what I used to do). This
is not the kind of should as in I should go to the store and get some
milk, but rather a should with a capital S, a demand.
Demand for Love and Approval from nearly everyone one finds
important
Demand for Success or Achievement in things one finds important
Demand for Comfort or nearly no frustration or discomfort.

When someone holds one of these irrational beliefs, they also tend to hold one or a
combination of the following irrational beliefs.

Awfulization refers to 100% disasterizing beliefs signaled by such

words as disaster, horrible or awful, and catastrophe.
Low Frustration Tolerance beliefs signaled by words such as
intolerable, cant stand it, and too hard.

Global-Rating beliefs in which you condemn or blame your entire

selfhood or someone elses basic value in some important way. Global
rating is signaled by such words as loser, worthless, useless, idiot, stupid.

ABCDE Model of Emotional Disturbance

Albert Ellis thought people developed irrational beliefs in response to preferential goals
being blocked. He set this up in an ABCDE model (Ellis and Dryden, 1987). A stands for
Activating Event or Adversity. This is any event. It is just a fact. B refers to ones Irrational
Belief about the event at A. That belief then leads to C, the emotional and behavioral
Consequences. D stands for disputes or arguments against irrational beliefs. E stands for
New Effect or the new, more effective emotions and behaviors that result from more
reasonable thinking about the original event.

Disputing Irrational Beliefs

It is important to use vigor or energy when disputing irrational beliefs. Disputing is not just a
rational or cognitive method but also an emotional method of changing irrational beliefs into
rational ones.

Disputing Irrational Beliefs Continued

Rational beliefs are flexible and are based on preferences, not extremist demands for
comfort, success and approval. A belief also develops an emotional component after it is
practiced repeatedly. Unfortunately, humans can rehearse untrue ideas and develop
irrational beliefs. Typically, common sense tells us that an irrational belief is false, but there
is little emotion connected to that common-sense thought. In other words, one can see the
idea is wrong but it feels true. People tend to confuse this feeling, because it is so strong,
with the truth and then tend to engage in activities that support the irrational belief.
Disputing irrational beliefs involves asking oneself a few simple questions.
1. The Empirical or Scientific Dispute. Ask where is the proof that this

belief is true? With this question, one is looking for the scientific evidence
of the irrational beliefs validity. For example, Johns irrational belief is that
his love interest, Jane, should not reject him. But John is feeling very sad
and rejected because Jane turned him down for a dinner date and he
thinks that he cannot stand this rejection and that it is just awful! Where is
the proof that his belief that Jane should not reject him is true? There isnt
any. In fact, she did reject him, therefore, the irrational belief that she
should not reject him is clearly false. If John did not hold his irrational
belief about Janet in the first place, he would not feel overly sad or
rejected.

2. The Functional Dispute. Ask is my irrational belief helping me or does

it make things worse for me? In other words, does the belief work to help
achieve basic goals? Is this belief helping happiness or hurting it? It was
clear that Johns irrational belief made him feel worse when his belief was
confronted with the facts.
3. The Logical Dispute. Ask is this belief logical? Does it ring true to
common sense? With this question, one is looking for ways in which the
belief does not stem from preferences for love and approval, comfort and
success or achievement. There may be overgeneralizing going on. Does it
make sense that Janet should not reject John because he believes that she
should not? Humans three basic goals of love and approval, comfort and
success or achievement are desires. They are preferences or wants. When
engaging in demanding thinking or absolutist thinking those preferences
become absolutes (Ellis and Dryden, 1987).

Preferences are not laws of nature. While it is true that humans have these basic desires or
preferences for their lives that does not mean that those preferences are necessarily
achieved. Remember in the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson states that we
have the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We do not have the inherent right
to happiness but only a right to pursue it. The reason why he does not say we have the right
to happiness is that happiness is not a law of nature. That we like happiness appears to be
law and that we pursue happiness appears to be law of our nature. That we like love and
approval, comfort and success is a fact. But because we like something or want something
or prefer something does not make it a law that we must have it. We definitely suffer if we
dont have happiness or get our goals met; that is true. It is not a law that we must have it. If
it were a law of nature we would simply be happyour desires for love, comfort and
success would just exist for everybody as a fact. And there would be no reason for
Jefferson to state that we have the right to pursue happiness. He would have just said we
have the right to happiness.
Any irrational belief stems from a core should, must, have to, need to statement. The
illogical inferences of low frustration tolerance, awfulizing, and self or other downing (global
rating) all flow from the demands for comfort, love and approval, and success or
achievement. In a logical dispute the first question to ask is, Do my conclusions stem from
my preferences or do they stem from some demand that I have made? Lets take a look at
how making a demand can lead to false conclusions.
The statement all dogs must have white hair followed by the presence of what appears to
be a dog with black hair leads us to incorrectly conclude that this dog-like creature with
black hair is not a dog. When we say I must have love and approval and we dont get it
from someone we find important, we then tend to conclude that it is awful, that it is
intolerable, and that maybe we are unworthy.

We can also argue against these conclusions as being illogical. If it were a fact that not
getting the love we want was truly awful or intolerable we would just drop dead. We would
not be able to survive. And if we conclude that we are unworthy or unlovable because we do
not get someones love we also make a false statement. It is impossible for ones basic
worth to be based on getting the love or approval of one particular person. It is our judgment
of ourselves that makes us feel bad or good. When we judge our self-worth on external
events we conclude that our value as a person is dependent on getting someones love or
approval and it clearly is not.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy was first called Rational Therapy, later Rational Emotive Therapy,
then changed to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. It was first introduced in 1955 by Dr. Albert
Ellis who had become increasing frustrated with the ineffectiveness of psychotherapy. Ellis drew from his
knowledge of philosophy and psychology to devise a method which he believed was more directive,
efficient, and effective.

Understanding Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy's (REBT) central premise is that events alone do not cause a person
to feel depressed, enraged, or highly anxious. Rather, it is ones beliefs about the events which
contributes to unhealthy feelings and self defeating behaviors.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy teaches the client to identify, evaluate, dispute, and act against his or
her irrational self- defeating beliefs, thus helping the client to not only feel better but to get better.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is an active-directive, solution-oriented therapy which focuses on
resolving emotional, cognitive and behavioral problems in clients. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is
one of the first forms of Cognitive Behavior Therapy and was first expounded by Ellis in 1953.
Fundamental to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy ) is the concept that emotional suffering results
primarily, though not completely, from our evaluations of a negative event, not solely by the events
themselves. In other words, human beings on the basis of their belief system actively, though not always
consciously, disturb themselves, and even disturb themselves about their disturbances.
The Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy framework assumes that humans have both rational and
irrational tendencies. Irrational thought/images prevent goal attainment, lead to inner conflict, lead to
more conflict with others and poor mental health. Rational thought/images lead to goal attainment and
more inner harmony. In other words rational beliefs reduce conflicts with others and improved health.
REBT claims that irrational and self-defeating thinking, emoting and behaving are correlated with
emotional difficulties such as self-blame, jealousy, guilt, Low Frustration Tolerance, depression, and
anxiety. This is a view shared with some other well-known therapies, such as Re-evaluation Counseling
and Person-centred counseling - as these both arose in the mid-50s, Ellis is thought to have had an
influence on them. REBT is an educational and active-directive process in which the therapist teaches
the client how to identify irrational and self-defeating tendencies which in nature are unrealistic, illogical
and absolutist, and then to forcefully and emotionally dispute them, and replace them with more rational
and self-helping ones. By using different methods and activities, the client, together with help from the
therapist and in homework exercises, can gain a more rational, logical and constructive rational way of
thinking, emoting and behaving.
One of main objectives in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is to show the client that whenever
unpleasant activating events occur in people's lives, they have a choice of making themselves feel
healthily and self-helpingly sorry, disappointed, frustrated, and annoyed, or making themselves feel

unhealthily and self-defeatingly horrified, terrified, panicked, depressed, self-hating, and self-pitying.

More about Rational Emotive Therapy

One of the main pillars of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is that irrational patterns of thinking, feeling
and behaving are the cause of much human disturbance, including depression and anxiety. Rational
Emotive Behavior Therapy teaches that turning flexible preferences and wishes into grandiose
absolutistic demands and commands will cause disturbances. Albert Ellis has suggested three core
beliefs that cause disturbances (Ellis, 2003):
"I must be thoroughly competent, adequate, achieving, and lovable at all times, or else I am an
incompetent worthless person." This belief usually leads to feelings of anxiety, panic, depression,
despair, and worthlessness.
"Other significant people in my life, must treat me kindly and fairly at all times, or else I cant stand it, and
they are bad, rotten, and evil persons who should be severely blamed, damned, and vindictively
punished for their horrible treatment of me." *:This leads to feelings of anger, rage, fury, and
vindictiveness and lead to actions like fights, feuds, wars, genocide, and ultimately, an atomic
holocaust."
"Things and conditions absolutely must be the way I want them to be and must never be too difficult or
frustrating. Otherwise, life is awful, terrible, horrible, catastrophic and unbearable." This leads to lowfrustration tolerance, self-pity, anger, depression, and to behaviors such as procrastination, avoidance,
and inaction. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy then holds that an irrational belief system has strong
tendencies to the following self-defeating components: Demands (or as Ellis calls musturbation),
Awfulizing, Low Frustration Tolerance, People Rating, and Overgeneralizing.
It is therefore the evaluative belief system, based on core philosophies, that is likely to create unrealistic,
arbitrary, and crooked inferences and distortions in thinking. REBT therefore first teaches that when
people in an unsensible way overuse absolutistic and rigid "shoulds", "musts", and "oughts", they will
very likely disturb themselves. Essential to Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is that most "isms" and
dogmas are, by nature, unhealthy and self-defeating, and that absolutistic ways of thinking will, in most
cases, create unnecessary disturbances. These inflexible philosophies are, therefore, better replaced
with more flexible, un-dogmatic and self-helping attitudes. The healthy alternative to demandingness is
therefore unconditional acceptance of humans -- not their behavior, but that which cannot be changed -and rigorous, effortful problem solving.
Disturbed evaluations occur through overgeneralization, wherein one exaggerates and globalizes events
or traits, usually unwanted events or traits or behaviors, out of context, while almost always ignoring the
positive events or traits or behaviors. For example, awfulizing is mental magnification of the importance
of an unwanted situation to a catastrophe, elevating the rating of something from bad to worse than it
should be, to beyond totally bad, to intolerable, to a holocaust. The same exaggeration and
overgeneralizing occurs with human rating, wherein humans come to be defined by their flaws or
misdeeds: the person is bad based on bad behavior or bad traits. Frustration intolerance occurs when
one sees that tasks are more difficult, tedious, or boring than one wants, but exaggerates the badness of
this to something that is wrongly too hard, too much, not as easy as it should be or beyond what one can
stand.
Many of these self-defeating beliefs are both innately biological and indoctrinated in early life and might
grow stronger as a person continually revisits them. By emotive, cognitive and behavioral methods the
client learns to replace the absolutistic and dogmatic musts with flexible and non-rigid preferences, which
are likely to cause more healthy and constructive emotions and behavior. The Rational Emotive Behavior
therapist strongly believes in a rigorous application of the rules of logic, straight thinking, and of scientific
method to everyday life (Ellis, 2003).
REBT points out that irrational beliefs will often be obvious in how people talk to themselves. The
therapist asking, "What are you telling yourself about...?" will usually reveal both irrational inferences,
and, by closer examination, demands and exaggerated evaluations. The therapist is most interested in

finding core-beliefs and deep-rooted philosophical evaluations. These are usually the automatic causes
of negative inferences and higher level evaluative thoughts.
REBT teaches that:
Unconditional self-acceptance, other-acceptance and life-acceptance is of prime importance in achieving
mental wellness.
People and the world are fallible and that people better accept themselves, life's hassles and
unfairnesses and others "as is".
They consider themselves valuable just as a result of being alive and kicking; and are better off not to
measure their "self" or their "being" and give themselves any global rating, because all humans are far
too complex to rate, and do both good and bad deeds and have both, not either-or, good and bad
attributes and traits.
REBT holds that ideas and feelings about self-worth are largely definitional and are not empirically
confirmable or falsifiable (Ellis, 2003).
REBT believes that the client has to work hard to get better, and this work may include homework
assigned by the therapist. The assignments may include desensitization tasks, i.e. by having the client
confronting the very thing the client is making himself afraid of. Often Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
focuses on specific problems and is used as a brief therapy, but in deeper problems longer therapy is
promoted. Another factor contributing to the brevity of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is that the
therapist helps the client learn how to get better through hard work, and help himself to get through future
adversities. It holds that hard work, and hard work only, is the only way to get, and stay, better and not
only temporarily feel better. An ideal successful collaboration between the REBT therapist and a client
results in changes to the client's philosophical way of evaluating himself, others and his life, which is
likely to yield effective results: The client's better move toward unconditional self-acceptance, otheracceptance and life-acceptance.

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), was developed by Dr.Albert Ellis in 1955. It
has since flourished and spawned a variety of other cognitive-behavior therapies.
REBT's effectiveness, short-term nature, and low cost are major reasons for its
popularity.
REBT's comprehensive approach works best for individuals desiring a scientific,
present-focused, and active treatment for coping with life's difficulties, rather than one
which is mystical, historical, and largely passive.
REBT is based on a few simple principles having profound implications:
1. You are responsible for your own emotions and actions,
2. Your harmful emotions and dysfunctional behaviors are the product of your
irrational thinking,
3. You can learn more realistic views and, with practice, make them a part of you,
4. You'll experience a deeper acceptance of yourself and greater satisfactions in life
by developing
a reality-based perspective.
REBT distinguishes clearly between two very different types of
difficulties: practical problems and emotional problems. Your flawed behavior, unfair
treatment by others, and undesirable situations, represent practical problems.
Regrettably, your human tendency is to upset yourself about these practical problems,
thereby unnecessarily creating a second order of problems--emotional suffering. REBT
addresses the latter by helping you:
1. Take responsibility for your distress. The first lesson in healthy emoting and
relating was stated by the Roman philosopher Epictetus more than 2000 years
ago: only you can upset yourself about events--the events themselves, no matter
how undesirable, can never upset you.
Recognize that neither another person, nor an adverse circumstance, can ever
disturb you--only you can. No one else can get into your gut and churn it up.
Others can cause you physical pain--by hitting you over the head with a baseball
bat, for example--or can block your goals. But you create your own emotional
suffering, or self-defeating behavioral patterns, about what others do or say.

2. Identify your "musts." Once you admit that you distort your own emotions and
actions, then determine precisely how. The culprit usually lies in one of the three
core "musts:"
o "Must" #1 (a demand on yourself): "I MUST do well and get approval, or
else I'm worthless." This demand causes anxiety, depression, and lack of
assertiveness.
o

"Must" #2 (a demand on others): "You MUST treat me reasonably,

considerately, and lovingly, or else you're no good." This "must" leads to
resentment, hostility, and violence.

"Must" #3 (a demand on situations): "Life MUST be fair, easy, and hasslefree, or else it's awful." This thinking is associated with hopelessness,
procrastination, and addictions.

Ascertain what you're demanding of yourself, of your significant others, or of your

circumstances. Not until you have discovered the "must" can you then go on
effectively to reduce your distress.
3. Dispute your "musts." The only way you can ever remain disturbed about
adversity is by vigorously and persistently agreeing with one of these three
"musts." Thus, once you've bared them, then relentlessly confront and question
your demands.
Begin by asking yourself: "What's the evidence for my 'must?' " "How is it true?"
"Where's it etched in stone?" And then by seeing: "There's no evidence." "My
'must' is entirely false." "It's not carved indelibly anywhere." Make your view
"must"-free, and then your emotions will heal.
4. Reinforce your preferences. Conclude, therefore:
o Preference #1: "I strongly PREFER to do well and get approval, but even if
I fail, I will accept myself fully,"
o

Preference #2: "I strongly PREFER that you treat me reasonably, kindly,
and lovingly, but since I don't run the universe, and it's a part of your
human nature to err, I, then, cannot control you,"

Preference #3: "I strongly PREFER that life be fair, easy, and hassle-free,
and it's very frustrating that it isn't, but I can bear frustration and still
considerably enjoy life."

Assuming that you take the above suggestions to heart and thereby greatly reduce your
anxiety, hostility, depression, and addictions, what remains? Will you exist robot-like,
devoid of human feeling and motivation? Hardly! Without your turmoil, you'll more easily
experience love, involvement, and joy. And without your addictions, you'll be freer to
engage in the gratifying experiences of spontaneity, commitment, and self-actualization.
As you can see, REBT will appeal to you if you relish quickly taking control of your own
life, rather than remaining dependent upon a therapist for years. By giving you tools for
identifying and overcoming the true source of your difficulties, it will prepare you to act in
many ways as your own therapist. And by helping you to reinforce realistic, selfbenefitting beliefs, it will enable you to eliminate present emotional and behavioral
problems, and to avoid future ones.

An Introduction to Rational Emotive

Behaviour Therapy
Rational emotive behaviour therapy focuses on uncovering irrational
beliefs which may lead to unhealthy negative emotions and replacing
them with more productive rational alternatives.
ARTICLE CONTENTS

Underlying Theory of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

Therapeutic Approach of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

Criticisms of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

Best Fit With Clients

Further Reading on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

Skip to Related Articles

Underlying Theory of Rational Emotive Behaviour

Therapy
Rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT) views human beings as
responsibly hedonistic in the sense that they strive to remain alive and to
achieve some degree of happiness. However, it also holds that humans are
prone to adopting irrational beliefs and behaviours which stand in the way of
their achieving their goals and purposes. Often, these irrational attitudes or
philosophies take the form of extreme or dogmatic musts, shoulds, or
oughts; they contrast with rational and flexible desires, wishes, preferences
and wants. The presence of extreme philosophies can make all the difference
between healthy negative emotions (such as sadness or regret or concern)
andunhealthy negative emotions (such as depression or guilt or anxiety). For
example, one persons philosophy after experiencing a loss might take the form:
It is unfortunate that this loss has occurred, although there is no actual reason
why it should not have occurred. It is sad that it has happened, but it is not

awful, and I can continue to function. Anothers might take the form: This
absolutely should not have happened, and it is horrific that it did. These
circumstances are now intolerable, and I cannot continue to function. The first
persons response is apt to lead to sadness, while the second person may be
well on their way to depression. Most importantly of all, REBT maintains that
individuals have it within their power to change their beliefs and philosophies
profoundly, and thereby to change radically their state of psychological health.
REBT employs the ABC framework depicted in the figure below to clarify
the relationship between activating events (A); our beliefs about them (B); and
the cognitive, emotional or behavioural consequences of our beliefs (C). The
ABC model is also used in some renditions of cognitive therapy or cognitive
behavioural therapy, where it is also applied to clarify the role of mental
activities or predispositions in mediating between experiences and emotional
responses.

The figure below shows how the framework distinguishes between the effects of
rational beliefs about negative events, which give rise to healthy negative
emotions, and the effects of irrational beliefs about negative events, which lead
to unhealthy negative emotions.

In addition to the ABC framework, REBT also employs three primary insights:
1.

While external events are of undoubted influence, psychological

disturbance is largely a matter of personal choice in the sense that
individuals consciously or unconsciously select both rational beliefs and
irrational beliefs at (B) when negative events occur at (A)
2.
Past history and present life conditions strongly affect the person, but
they do not, in and of themselves, disturb the person; rather, it is the
individuals responses which disturb them, and it is again a matter of

individual choice whether to maintain the philosophies at (B) which cause

disturbance.
3.
Modifying the philosophies at (B) requires persistence and hard work, but
it can be done.

Therapeutic Approach of Rational Emotive Behaviour

Therapy
The main purpose of REBT is to help clients to replace absolutist philosophies,
full of musts and shoulds, with more flexible ones; part of this includes
learning to accept that all human beings (including themselves) are fallible and
learning to increase their tolerance for frustration while aiming to achieve their
goals. Although emphasizing the same core conditions as person-centred
counselling namely, empathy, unconditional positive regard, and counsellor
genuineness in the counselling relationship, REBT views these conditions as
neither necessary nor sufficient for therapeutic change to occur.
The basic process of change which REBT attempts to foster begins with the
client acknowledging the existence of a problem and identifying any metadisturbances about that problem (i.e., problems about the problem, such as
feeling guilty about being depressed). The client then identifies the underlying
irrational belief which caused the original problem and comes to understand
both why it is irrational and why a rational alternative would be preferable. The
client challenges their irrational belief and employs a variety of cognitive,
behavioural, emotive and imagery techniques to strengthen their conviction in a
rational alternative. (For example, rational emotive imagery, or REI, helps clients
practice changing unhealthy negative emotions into healthy ones at (C) while
imagining the negative event at (A), as a way of changing their underlying
philosophy at (B); this is designed to help clients move from an intellectual
insight about which of their beliefs are rational and which irrational to a stronger
gut instinct about the same.) They identify impediments to progress and
overcome them, and they work continuously to consolidate their gains and to
prevent relapse.
To further this process, REBT advocates selective eclecticism, which means
that REBT counsellors are encouraged to make use of techniques from other
approaches, while still working specifically within the theoretical framework of
REBT. In other words, REBT maintains theoretical coherence while pragmatically
employing techniques that work.
Throughout, the counsellor may take a very directive role, actively disputing the
clients irrational beliefs, agreeing homework assignments which help the client
to overcome their irrational beliefs, and in general pushing the client to

challenge themselves and to accept the discomfort which may accompany the
change process.

Criticisms of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

As one leading proponent of REBT has indicated, REBT is easy to practise poorly,
and it is from this that one immediate criticism suggests itself from the
perspective of someone who takes a philosophical approach to life anyway:
inelegant REBT could be profoundly irritating! The kind of conceptual disputing
favoured by REBT could easily meander off track into minutiae relatively far
removed from the clients central concern, and the mental gymnastics required
to keep client and therapist on the same track could easily eat up time better
spent on more productive activities. The counsellors and clients estimations of
relative importance could diverge rather profoundly, particularly if the clients
outlook really does embody significant irrationalities. Having said all that, each
of the preceding sentences includes the qualifier could, and with a great deal
of skill, each pitfall undoubtedly could be avoided.
Perhaps more importantly, it would appear that the need to match therapeutic
approach with client preference is even more pressing with REBT than with
many others. In other words, it seems very important to adopt the REBT
approach only with clients who truly are suitable, as it otherwise risks being
strongly counter-productive. On this point, however, it is crucial to realize that
some clients specifically do appreciate exactly this kind of approach, and
counsellors who are unable or unwilling to provide the disputation required are
probably not right for those clients.

Best Fit With Clients

REBT is much less empirically supported than some other approaches: the
requisite studies simply have not been completed yet, and the relevant data
points for determining the best match with clients are therefore thin on the
ground. However, one may envision clients responding particularly well who are
both willing and able to conceptualise their problems within the ABC framework,
and who are committed to active participation in the process of identifying and
changing irrational beliefs (including performing homework assignments in
support of the latter). Clients will also need to be able to work collaboratively
with a counsellor who will challenge and dispute with them directly, and a
scientific and at least somewhat logical outlook would seem a pre-requisite.
REBT would be less suitable for clients who do not meet one or more of the
above. And as hinted above in the section on Criticims, one might
also speculate that clients who are already highly skilled in philosophical
engagement could find the approach less useful. (Perhaps REBT-style self help
could be of more benefit for such clients?)

Further Reading on Rational Emotive Behaviour

Therapy
Our annotated bibliography includes pointers to additional reading on this and
other therapeutic approaches. The comment referenced in the section on
Criticisms, on the easiness of practising REBT poorly, is due to Dryden (2002b),
p. 367; the notion of selective eclecticism is due to Dryden (1987). Note that
REBT is closely related to cognitive therapy and is viewed by many as a subset
of it.