Lecture 11 - Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) Flashcards

1
Q

Outline Self-talk as a corner stone of REBT

A
  • How we internally communicate to ourselves
  • Ironice processing = dont think about an elephant -can lead to negative self-talk
  • The Language we use is very powerful
  • What we say to ourselves, the impact this has
  • Ask: Are the better ways to use self-talk?
  • How can we encourage helpful self-talk
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2
Q

What is REBT all about?

A
  • Smart Thinking

- Which includes self-talk

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3
Q

Outline the Background of REBT, who came up with it?

A
  • Albert Ellis
  • Very famous American Psychologist
  • Developed REBT
    •Developed from a clinical approach
    •Argued people are aware of irrational beliefs, but they dont let them go, they hold onto them and this influences behaviour
    •Our cognitions reinforce our own distress
  • Argued that Cognitions -> Emotions -> Behaviours
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4
Q

Outline Subjective Worldview

-hypothesis

A
  • We subjectively develop hypothesis about the world
  • It is important to test these, especially if they are irrational
  • Having irrational beliefs leads to stress, anxiety etc
  • Interpretations of the world influence our emotional or behavioural Responses
  • But this can be motivating - this event is the most important of my life, and i must succeed
  • one hypothesis could be: that the world should be a fair place for us
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5
Q

What did Ellis (1958) say caused emotional or psychological disturbances?

A

Irrational or illogical thinking
- This can interfere with positive functioning and enjoying life

  • REBT is a theory of human disturbance
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6
Q

What is the purpsose/ goals of REBT?

A

Purpose of REBT is to change irrational thoughts, feelings and behaviours into rational ones

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7
Q

Outline Epictetus’ quotes that summarises REBT

- what does it suggest?

A

“People are disturbed not by things, but by the view they take of them”

  • Suggests that it is not the event/ situatoin that causes anxiety, but it is their beliefs about that event, as an individual that causes the anxiety/ depressoin etc
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8
Q

How can anxiety be helpful?

A
  • Healthy anxiety = being concerned
  • but you should change this unhealthy anxiety t a healthy level of concern
  • Anxiety often leads to avoidance, but it can become healthy
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9
Q

What is the ABC model of REBT?

A
  1. Adversity
  2. Beliefs (the part we can learn to conrol)
  3. emotional and behavioural Consequences
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10
Q

Outline an unhealthy ABC model

A
  1. Adversity
  2. Irrational Beliefs
  3. Unhealthy consequences: negative emotions and maladapative behaviours
  • beliefs determine behaviours
  • Irrational beliefs lead to unhealthy beliefts
  • An unhealhty emotion would be depression after a funeral, not just sadness
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11
Q

Outline a healthy ABC model

A
  1. Adversity
  2. Rational Beliefs
  3. Healthy Consequences: Negative emotions and adaptive behaviours
  • Negative emotions can still be healthy, e.g. after a funeral, a healthy emotion would be sadness (acute).
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12
Q

How does REBT try and change the ABC?

A
  • Doesnt try and change the stimulus - if its an exam, its an exam, dont avoid it
  • we accept the adversity, and try to change the B
  • Other therapies may try to change/ diffuse the adversity, REBT accepts it is real.
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13
Q

What are the 4 features of irrational beliefs?

A
  1. Inconsistent with reality
  2. Non-pragmatic (unhelpful)
  3. Lead to unehalthy negative emotions (UNE’s) (Rage/ depression, sinister of destructive emotions)
  4. Leads to maladaptive behaviours (E.g. avoidance)
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14
Q

What are the 4 features of rational beliefs

A
  1. Consistent with reality
  2. Pragmatic (helpful)
  3. Leads to healthy Negative emotions (HNE’s), like anxiety and sadness in moderation
  4. Leads to adaptuve behaviours (e.g. preparation)
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15
Q

What would A-C thinkers say about an exam

A

They would say:
this exam is making me feel stressed
- but actually, its the beliefs about the exam that is making you stressed (REBT)

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16
Q

How does cognitions shift in sporting situations?

A
  • Shift from ‘Want’ to the irrational “have to” due to pressure situations
  • This shift is caused by pressure of competing and obsession with results (Botteril, 2005)
  • ‘Have to’ = rigid, inflexible and destructive
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17
Q

Outline an irrational belief that athletes commonly have (Fair)

A
  • Athletes, especially in UK have access to high-quality training and facilities
  • May lead to them forming a belief that the world should always be fair to them
  • Go somewhere else and say “i cant play on this pitch, its not flat”
  • Irratioal belief that the world has to be fair to them
    Botteril, 2005
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18
Q

What are irrational beliefs commonly associated with?

A
  • anxiety
  • anger
  • shame
  • depression
  • Suicide thoughts

Maladaptive behaviours, such as:

  • Social avoidance
  • Self-harming
  • Procrastination
  • Anger suppression
  • Aggression
  • Violence
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19
Q

So what is REBT’s Central Mechanism?

A

Changing irrational beliefs, into rational beliefs via a structured therapeutic process following the ABCDE framework

20
Q

How do rational beliefs change with age?

A
  • The older we become, the more rational we become
  • We have more experience in life and more acceptance
  • We have had lots of life changes (marriage, bereavement, children) we start to develop that the world isnt a fair place and that bad things happen to good people
  • Learn we cant always perform at a high level
21
Q

What were the 3 parts of irrational thoughts according to Ellis

A

Ellis (1987)

  1. Thinking Errors
    - ignoring the positive
    - Exaggerating the negative
    - Overgeneralisation
  2. Mustabatory Thinking
    - everyone musterbates, i must, you must, i must suceed
  3. Core Musts, e.g.:
    - i should always be successful
    - Everyone should love and approve of me
22
Q

What can and is always contained in Irrational Beliefs?

A
  • ALWAYS CONTAIN rigid/ extreme demans (i have to)
  • CAN CONTAIN awfulising - it would be awful
  • CAN CONTAIN i-cant-stand-it-itis (it would be unbearable)
  • CAN CONTAIN self/other depreciation
  • i/ they are idiotic/ a failure
23
Q

How do you measure irratioanl beliefs and what does it assess>

A

iPBI (Turner et al (2018), measures the 4 core irrational beliefs

  1. Demandingness
  2. LFT
  3. Awfulizing
  4. Depreciation
24
Q

Outline the 6 Stages of the smart thinking process that can treat individuals/ group irrational beliefs

A
  1. Recognize
  2. Evidence
  3. Logic
  4. Pragmatism
  5. Replace
  6. Committ
  • Back to one
25
Q

Outline 1. Recognise as a stage of the smart thinking process

A
  • This part is about understanding the ABC’s
  • Recognising what your irrational beliefs are
  • What am i telling myself about the situation, that is causing these unhelpful feelings
  • Challenge these beliefs by recognising what they are and how to change them
26
Q

Outline 2. Evidence as a stage of the smart thinking process

A
  • Ask the client to provide evidence to support the claim of their irrational belief
  • “where does it say you must succeed?”
  • makes them realise how irrational their beliefs are
  • If the belief is: “i must be treated fairly”, ask them, have they been mistreated in the past? Disproves that you should always be treated fairly
27
Q

Outline WHat Albert Ellis did to gather evidence/ Counter evidence

A
  • Was painfully shy of women due to bad childhood experiences with girls
  • So one day, in New York Botanical Garden, he sat on a bench and would speak to every single women who sat down
  • In one month, he approached 130 women
  • Tried to challenge and diffuse his irrational beliefs, by providing evidence that there is no logic about it
  • Ultimately, he got over his shyenss by thinking, feeling and especially acting in differerntly
  • Nothing terrible actually happened, no one rang the police or threw up etc
28
Q

Outline 3. Logic as a stage of the smart thinking process

A

Putting things into perspective, there are lots of worse things that can happen

  • Badness scale
  • Rory Mcillroy was winning for 3 days but then messed up and was crying. He then did some charity work in Haiti and realised that it wasnt that bad
  • Peoples irrational beliefs are often very exaggerated but get into perspective
29
Q

Outline the badness scale as a part of the 3rd step: Logic

A
  • Rate things out of 100
  • Where 101% would be terrible/ awful/ life ending etc
  • Asked people how bad it would be if:
    •Lost your phone
    •stub your toe
    • Lose a loved one
    •Get a terminal illness
  • In high performance sport, e.g. football academy, asked how bad it would be to lose an FA cup youth semi-final most rank it at 95%+
  • But not as bad as losing a loved one etc
30
Q

Outline 4. Pragmatism as a stage of the smart thinking process

A
  • acceptance of self and reality
  • dont treat things as life and death
  • In football, there are a lot of ideas surrounding life and death etc
  • Telling a team it is a must win game doesnt make them play good
  • We can prepare the best we can but sometimes the other team are better
31
Q

Outline 5. Replace as a stage of the smart thinking process

A
  • Get them to rewrite narratives
  • Get them to write credos/ mantras
  • These are philosophies they start to buy into
  • Similar to epictetus: We have to buy into a life philopshy that affects how we view the world we operate in - might as well make it a positive one
  • “I would like more than anything to win, but its not the end of the world if i dont”
32
Q

Outline 6. Commit as a stage of the smart thinking process

A
  • It’s all well and good coming up with internal dialogues (to our self) and external dialogues (to others), mantrats, and behavioural stuff, but you need to commit to it
  • Write down some rational thinking statements to keep you sane from day to day
  • Put it into an affirming statement/ mantra - “i acknowledge that i am a fallible human being equal in worth to others”
33
Q

Outline Homework Assingments as a part of REBT

A
  • Big part is what clients do on their own
  • ## MOST IMPORTANT PART OF REBT
34
Q

Outline Rational-Emotive Imagery as a homework

A
  • Can do anywhere, anytime
  • To get in touch with feelings in times of high emotional disturbance
  • They are told to change that feeling and how they think about the event
  • Repeat it and encourage them
  • Telling the therapist about instances they visualised themselves coping with the situation, and how they changed their imagery, and what effect it had
35
Q

What are the 3 Homework tasks?

A
  1. Rational-Emotive Imagery
  2. Flooding
  3. Paradoxical Behaviour
36
Q

Outline Flooding as a homework

A
  • Flood your irrational beleifs, e.g. Ellis in the botanical gardens
  • “Stay in there” exercises
  • If it feels uncomfortable, stick with it until you feel okay
  • Increases your resilience
37
Q

Outline Pardoxical Behaviour as a homework

A
  • Do things you desperately want to avoid
  • Every time you give into anxiety and avoid, the problem gets worse - so you create opportunities for rejection/ disapointment, and confront difficult situations
  • Its not that bad after all!
  • See, whats the worst that can happen?
38
Q

What has research found about reducing irrational thoughts and performance?

A
  • Reducing irrational thoughts and anxiety improves performance
  • ## E.g. Elko & Ostrow (1991)
39
Q

Outline Elko & Ostrow (1991)

A

Found that reducing anxiety in 5 gymnasts and enhanced performance in 3 of the gymnasts

40
Q

Outline Turner, Slater & Barker (2014) methods

A
  • Measured demand for success beliefs and demand for fairness beliefs before, during and after one REBT sessions
  • Then repeated it but gave the athletes 3 REBT Sessions
41
Q

Outline Turner, Slater & Barker (2014) findings for one REBT session condition

A
  • Demands for success and demands for fairness beleifs both dropped from pre-levels (high) to lower after the one intervention
  • But quickly after, it went back to previous levels
  • This shows you need to maintain and commit to it

They said about REBT:
• Mistakes arent end of the world
•Words we say have an impact
• Basic words add pressure without you knowing

42
Q

Outline Turner, Slater & Barker (2014) findings for three REBT session condition

A
  • Levels of demand for success and demands for fairness were reduced and stayed low
  • Shows that the more reinforcement/ support from sessions, the longer term change

They said about REBT:
•Helped remove words ‘must’ and ‘need to’ out of my thoughts
• Helps bounce back from failure
•Accept it and move on

43
Q

Outline Turner & Barker (2014) methods

A

Looked at members of a company being made redunant, at 4 time points:

  1. Before 1st Workshop
  2. After 2nd Workshop
  3. Before 2nd Workshop
  4. After 2nd Workshop
    - measured demand for success and Demand for Fairness
  • 2 intensive, 4 hour REBT workshops, very interactive, trying to get them to challenge their irrational beliefs about being made redundant
44
Q

Outline Turner & Barker (2014) Findings

A
  • Before 1st and 2nd Workshop, levels of both increased again
  • But after both there levels dropped again. They dropped lower after 2nd intervention
  • Over time, they are accepting the redunancy more and seeing it as not a bad thing - see some positives of it
  • They down others less, and down themselves less
  • They down themselves less, to a lower point than they down others

They said:
•REBT helped me deal with emotions about being redundant

45
Q

What does the Police’s ‘Cant stand losing you song’ show?

A

The prevalence of rats of irrational thinking in our culture

46
Q

Outline Protinsky & (Popp, 1978)

A
  • A review of popular music in the 1970s revealed that 82% of country-western and rock songs expressed irrational philosophies