Lecture 11 - Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) Flashcards
Outline Self-talk as a corner stone of REBT
- 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
What is REBT all about?
- Smart Thinking
- Which includes self-talk
Outline the Background of REBT, who came up with it?
- 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
Outline Subjective Worldview
-hypothesis
- 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
What did Ellis (1958) say caused emotional or psychological disturbances?
Irrational or illogical thinking
- This can interfere with positive functioning and enjoying life
- REBT is a theory of human disturbance
What is the purpsose/ goals of REBT?
Purpose of REBT is to change irrational thoughts, feelings and behaviours into rational ones
Outline Epictetus’ quotes that summarises REBT
- what does it suggest?
“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
How can anxiety be helpful?
- 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
What is the ABC model of REBT?
- Adversity
- Beliefs (the part we can learn to conrol)
- emotional and behavioural Consequences
Outline an unhealthy ABC model
- Adversity
- Irrational Beliefs
- 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
Outline a healthy ABC model
- Adversity
- Rational Beliefs
- 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).
How does REBT try and change the ABC?
- 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.
What are the 4 features of irrational beliefs?
- Inconsistent with reality
- Non-pragmatic (unhelpful)
- Lead to unehalthy negative emotions (UNE’s) (Rage/ depression, sinister of destructive emotions)
- Leads to maladaptive behaviours (E.g. avoidance)
What are the 4 features of rational beliefs
- Consistent with reality
- Pragmatic (helpful)
- Leads to healthy Negative emotions (HNE’s), like anxiety and sadness in moderation
- Leads to adaptuve behaviours (e.g. preparation)
What would A-C thinkers say about an exam
They would say:
this exam is making me feel stressed
- but actually, its the beliefs about the exam that is making you stressed (REBT)
How does cognitions shift in sporting situations?
- 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
Outline an irrational belief that athletes commonly have (Fair)
- 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
What are irrational beliefs commonly associated with?
- anxiety
- anger
- shame
- depression
- Suicide thoughts
Maladaptive behaviours, such as:
- Social avoidance
- Self-harming
- Procrastination
- Anger suppression
- Aggression
- Violence
So what is REBT’s Central Mechanism?
Changing irrational beliefs, into rational beliefs via a structured therapeutic process following the ABCDE framework
How do rational beliefs change with age?
- 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
What were the 3 parts of irrational thoughts according to Ellis
Ellis (1987)
- Thinking Errors
- ignoring the positive
- Exaggerating the negative
- Overgeneralisation - Mustabatory Thinking
- everyone musterbates, i must, you must, i must suceed - Core Musts, e.g.:
- i should always be successful
- Everyone should love and approve of me
What can and is always contained in Irrational Beliefs?
- 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
How do you measure irratioanl beliefs and what does it assess>
iPBI (Turner et al (2018), measures the 4 core irrational beliefs
- Demandingness
- LFT
- Awfulizing
- Depreciation
Outline the 6 Stages of the smart thinking process that can treat individuals/ group irrational beliefs
- Recognize
- Evidence
- Logic
- Pragmatism
- Replace
- Committ
- Back to one
Outline 1. Recognise as a stage of the smart thinking process
- 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
Outline 2. Evidence as a stage of the smart thinking process
- 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
Outline WHat Albert Ellis did to gather evidence/ Counter evidence
- 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
Outline 3. Logic as a stage of the smart thinking process
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
Outline the badness scale as a part of the 3rd step: Logic
- 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
Outline 4. Pragmatism as a stage of the smart thinking process
- 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
Outline 5. Replace as a stage of the smart thinking process
- 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”
Outline 6. Commit as a stage of the smart thinking process
- 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”
Outline Homework Assingments as a part of REBT
- Big part is what clients do on their own
- ## MOST IMPORTANT PART OF REBT
Outline Rational-Emotive Imagery as a homework
- 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
What are the 3 Homework tasks?
- Rational-Emotive Imagery
- Flooding
- Paradoxical Behaviour
Outline Flooding as a homework
- 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
Outline Pardoxical Behaviour as a homework
- 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?
What has research found about reducing irrational thoughts and performance?
- Reducing irrational thoughts and anxiety improves performance
- ## E.g. Elko & Ostrow (1991)
Outline Elko & Ostrow (1991)
Found that reducing anxiety in 5 gymnasts and enhanced performance in 3 of the gymnasts
Outline Turner, Slater & Barker (2014) methods
- 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
Outline Turner, Slater & Barker (2014) findings for one REBT session condition
- 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
Outline Turner, Slater & Barker (2014) findings for three REBT session condition
- 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
Outline Turner & Barker (2014) methods
Looked at members of a company being made redunant, at 4 time points:
- Before 1st Workshop
- After 2nd Workshop
- Before 2nd Workshop
- 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
Outline Turner & Barker (2014) Findings
- 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
What does the Police’s ‘Cant stand losing you song’ show?
The prevalence of rats of irrational thinking in our culture
Outline Protinsky & (Popp, 1978)
- A review of popular music in the 1970s revealed that 82% of country-western and rock songs expressed irrational philosophies
