2. Encourage clients to read
books and printed materials
Listen to audio and visual aids
Visit web sites that explain the
REBT philosophy
3. Listening and the use of empathy are not the critical
tools
Some listening is always necessary
Using questions and encouraging the client to talk, the
REBT therapist will conduct a client assessment
Assessment: giving test, gathering biographical
information, & discussion of the client’s life
circumstances
The information obtained will be used to assess how the
client distorts events and uses irrational thinking
The client might be directed to obtain materials that will
increase his/her understanding of the REBT philosophy &
is encouraged to practice specific interventions aimed at
changing the way he/she thinks, acts, and feels.
BEING ACTIVE AND DIRECTIVE
4. It should not be confused with heavy-duty confrontation
The therapist suggest to their clients that they examine
their current way of thinking, feeling, and behavioral
processes.
You are not going to tell them what to feel, what to do or
what to think. Rather, you are going to help them to
understand what their options are about what to believe
and what the likely emotional, behavioral, and thinking
consequences are of these belief options. Once they have
understood this, your job is to help them choose the
belief option that best helps them to achieve their
healthy emotional, behavioral, and thinking goals.
CHALLENGING CLIENTS
5. To demonstrate to clients how irrational
beliefs are causing emotional distress, not the
situation or the activating event.
ABC’S OF FEELING AND BEHAVING
6. Example:
I am having an ongoing problem with my mother. She turned
70, my father recently died, and I would like her to live with
me. she’s insistent that she wants to live on her own forever.
However, she never listens to anything I say and refuses to
move in with me. I know she is perfectly capable of making
her own decisions, but if she lived with me, she would be
much be better off. I just think she is taking a risk with her
life! If I don’t do something soon, I know something bad will
happen. What if she falls and can’t get to phone? I am waking
up in the middle of the night having panic attacks about this.
I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in a month. Can you get her
to listen to me?
ABC’S OF FEELING AND BEHAVING
7. Activating event (A): father recently died and mom now lives
alone.
Irrational belief (iB): this is client is awfulizing the situation
with his mother and placing demands on himself. The client
believes that things must be the way he wants them to
be(ib3), that unhappiness is caused by conditions outside his
control(iB4), and that he had better worry about these things;
otherwise, they might happen(iB5).
Consequences(C): the client is having panic attacks and
sleeping poorly– all the result of the irrational beliefs, not the
activating event.
ABC’S OF FEELING AND BEHAVING
8. As clients realized that many of their cognitions,
behaviors, and emotions have not been healthy.
Thus, they are encouraged by the therapist to dispute
the unhealthy ones and replace them with healthy
ones.
Disputations can occur cognitively, behaviorally, or
emotionally.
ENCOURAGING THE DISPUTING OF
DYSFUNCTIONAL COGNITIONS,
BEHAVIORS, AND EMOTIONS
9. Cognitive Disputation – as clients begin to realize that it is
not the event causing the feeling or behaviors, but the beliefs
about the event.
Dispute the Irrational Beliefs (DIBS)
Yankura and Dryden (1990) encourage clients to ask the
following disputing questions:
o Where is the evidence of this belief?
o Is that really true?
o Why must it be so?
o Is there another way to think about this?
o What’s the worst thing that could happen? Would that really
be awful?
o What’s this way of thinking about things going to get me?
ENCOURAGING THE DISPUTING OF
DYSFUNCTIONAL COGNITIONS,
BEHAVIORS, AND EMOTIONS
10. Behavioral disputations – clients are generally encourage to
practice behaviors that challenge the emotional beliefs that
are responsible for the behaviors.
Example“:
Instead of trying to convince her mom to move in with him,
the client might ask her what kind of help, if any, she would
like. Or why not have the son ask her mother if he can help
her plan a cruise or assist her in meeting new people?
Shame-attacking Exercise – purposeful acting out of a
situation that might normally cause embarrassment, it’s a
technique that reinforces the fact that approval from others is
not necessary.
ENCOURAGING THE DISPUTING OF
DYSFUNCTIONAL COGNITIONS,
BEHAVIORS, AND EMOTIONS
11. Activating event (A): Father recently died and mom now lives
alone.
Irrational belief (iB): There is no evidence that Mom is doing
poorly, and I can wait and see how she does. I cannot control
her decisions and cannot excessively worry about something I
cannot control.
Consequences(C): Concern, but not excessive worry about
mother’s situation; offer help if she wants, but don’t try to
force my opinions on her.
12. Emotive Disputations
Rational-emotive imagery – in this process , clients are asked
to closed their eyes and focus intensely on the situation that
is causing them extreme emotional upset. When the client
experiences the emotional upset, he/she signals the
therapist, often by lifting a prearranged finger. The therapist
then asks the client to change the self-defeating emotion to
an appropriate emotion, usually assigned by the therapist.
After the client accomplishes this, the therapist asks the
client what he/she was able to do to change the feeling.
It teaches the client that one can have control over one’s
thoughts, and ultimately, over one’s emotions and behaviors.
ENCOURAGING THE DISPUTING OF
DYSFUNCTIONAL COGNITIONS,
BEHAVIORS, AND EMOTIONS
13. REBT assumes that people had better take things seriously,
but not too seriously.
The therapist will sometimes humor to help clients see the
ridiculousness of their plight.
The fearful son who is afraid of his mother’s future. It’s ironic,
and almost funny, that she is perfectly satisfied in life, and he
is the one with the pathology!
HUMOR
14. A less directed method
Will sometime be used in an effort to illustrate and reinforce
points that the REBT therapist is trying to make.
Example:
You know, your mother reminds me of the Empire State
Building. Despite the fact that the building is aging, and from
another era, it still stands erect and strong in the middle of
the city.
METAPHORS AND STORIES
15. Therapist will often actively encourage their
clients to practice many techniques at home.
All of these techniques are tried with the
intent of maintaining the new, more rational
belief system.
HOMEWORK
16. 1. Assess client’s situation and hypothesize how the ABC’s
apply
2. Teaching the REBT philosophy
3. Demonstrating how the client’s situation fits the REBT
model
4. Directing the change process
5. Reinforcing the change and terminating the relationship
THE THERAPEUTIC PROCESS
17. REBT is largely a form of tolerance training. It encourages you
to think, feel, and act the ways you want --- but warns against
rigidity and fanaticism.
Whatever you believe, do not do it in an absolutist manner.
Truth is relative, and your beliefs are only your truth in a
moment in time.
It advocates for tolerance --- tolerance toward self and
tolerance toward others.
The bottom line: Understand differences and don’t be
absolutist or dogmatic, and don’t rigidly practice “shoulds” or
“musts” toward yourself or others.
SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND SPIRITUAL
ISSUES
18. Ellis suggested that his approach has use with a wide variety
of clients but would not be helpful for individuals who have
strong, absolutist tendencies or ways of thinking.
Ellis’s approach has been shown to work with clients
exhibiting a wide range of symptoms, although it is probably
not as useful with those who have long-term entrenched
problems or severe thought disorders, or resistant clients.
It was suggested that this kind of brief approach fits well in
today’s managed-health-care system
