These slides are related to psychotherapy applied to alter irrational thoughts to ration ones in depressive disorders or during anxiety, OCD etc

1. Counseling
Psychology
(PSY-602)
BS 8th M & E
By: Ms. Maryam Shahzadi
Department of Applied Psychology
GCWUF

2. Rational Emotive
Behavioral
Therapy
(REBT)

3. Rational and
Irrational Thinking
• Rational thinking can be defined as
a thinking process which is based on
reason and logic.
• Irrational thinking can be defined as
a thinking process where the
individual completely disregards
reason and logic in favor of emotion.
• Rational thinking has a logical basis.
• Irrational thinking does not have a
logical basis.
• Rational thinking is driven by
experience and facts.
• Irrational thinking is driven by
emotion.

4. View of Human Nature: human beings
● have both rational and irrational thinking
● are self-talking and self-evaluating
● have a tendency toward growth and actualization
● keep ourselves disturbed through self-talk
● have the capacity to change cognitive, emotive, and behavioral processes

5. Key concepts in REBT
●Stresses thinking, judging, analyzing, and doing
●Assumes that cognitions, emotions, and behaviors
interact to have a causal effect relationship
●Is a highly didactic, directive approach
●concern thinking and feeling
●Emotions are mainly generated by our beliefs,
evaluations, interpretations, and reactions to life
situations

6. View of Emotional Disturbance
●We learn irrational beliefs from significant others during
childhood
●Teach clients to feel un-depressed even when they are
unaccepted and unloved by significant others.
●Self-blame 🡪 emotional disturbances
●Irrational idea 🡪 internalize 🡪 self-defeating
●We have a tendency to make ourselves emotionally
disturbed by internalizing self-defeating beliefs

7. THE ABC OF REBT
● Activating (or Adverse) Event. First, it is
essential to identify the situation or event that
triggers the negative emotional and/or
behavioral response.

8. THE ABC OF REBT
● Beliefs. Second, the core beliefs that are attached to
the emotional or behavioral response must be
identified and examined. Like, the core beliefs can be
“I am an outcast. Nobody likes me.”

9. THE ABC OF REBT
● Consequences. The combination of the activating event
and the core beliefs will produce a result or consequence,
such as depression, social anxiety, antisocial behavior, or
issues with self-esteem. Similarly, the deconstruction of
these ingrained negative beliefs and integration of fresh,
positive perceptions can drastically improve a person’s
outlook and experience of life.

10. The A-B-C theory of
personality

11. Irrational Ideas
●Irrational ideas lead to self-defeating
behavior
●Some examples:
○ “I must have love or approval from all the significant people in
my life.”
○ “I must perform important tasks competently and perfectly.”
○ “If I don’t get what I want, it’s terrible, and I can’t stand it.”

12. Therapeutic Goals
●Minimize emotional disturbances
●Decrease self-defeating behaviors
●Become more self-actualized
●Acquire unconditional self-acceptance and unconditional other
acceptance
●Think rationally, feel appropriately, and act more effectively in
achieving the goals of living happily

13. Therapist’s function and Role
●Discover clients’ irrational beliefs
●Make connection of how irrational beliefs lead to
emotional disturbances
●Modify clients’ irrational beliefs.
●Dispute irrational beliefs and substitute rational
beliefs
●Not spending too much time on exploring clients’
early history

14. The Therapeutic Relationship
●The therapeutic relationship is important, but
intensive relationship is not required.
●Therapists show great faith in their clients’ ability
to change themselves.
●Therapists disclose their own beliefs to clients

15. Therapeutic
techniques-
-Cognitive
methods
● Disputing irrational beliefs
○ If I don’t get what I want, it is not at
the end of the world
● Writing cognitive homework
○ Applying ABC theory to daily life
problems
● Changing one’s language
○ It would be absolutely awful.🡪It
would be inconvenient
● Cost-benefit analysis
○ Make a list of
advantages/disadvantages of
smoking

16. Therapeutic
techniques-
-Emotional
Methods
● Rational-emotional imagery
○ Imagine the worst things that could
happen to them
● Role playing
● Shame-attacking exercises
○ Take risks to do something that the
clients are afraid to do because of
what others might think…until they
realize that their feelings of shame
are self-created.
● Forceful self-dialogue
○ A dialogue with oneself

17. Therapeutic techniques--Behavioral
methods
●Activity homework
○Write assignments that target on irrational beliefs
in order to reduce them
●Reinforcements and penalties
○Reward🡪 when accomplish a task
○Penalize🡪 fail to attempt a task
●Skill Training
○Assertiveness training

18. Research on
REBT
● More than 250 studies
● Most research on irrational beliefs
● Review of outcome studies:
○ REBT was more significantly more
effective than other therapies or control
group in 31 of 47 studies (DiGiuseppe &
Miller, 1977) and in 49 of 89 studies
(Silverman, McCarthy, & McGovern,
1992).
● Research Efforts
○ Most studies focus only on cognitive
methods

19. Summary
and
Evaluation
● Contributions
○ Focus on how we interpret and react to events
○ Put insight into action
○ Teach clients how to be their own therapists
● Limitations
○ Too confrontational
○ Ignoring the past
○ Power imbalance (teacher-student)

20. Activity
● Watch the video to explore about usage of
REBT in complicated grief
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGxc8
pyhV2Q

21. CLASS DISCUSSION + ACTIVITY

22. References
●https://www.healthline.com/health/rational-emotive-behavior-
therapy
●https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGxc8pyhV2Q
●https://study.com/academy/lesson/rational-emotive-behavior-
therapy-rebt-definition-techniques-video.html