Refuting Irrational Ideas: Davis 127-148 Flashcards
Self-talk
your internal thought language; these are the sentences with which you describe and interpret the world.
Accurate/in-touch w/ reality self-talk = you function well
Irrational and untrue self-talk =, you experience stress and emotional disturbance (ex. “I can’t bear to be alone ex” → No physically healthy person has ever died merely from being alone. Being alone may be uncomfortable, undesirable, and frustrating, but you can live with it and live through it.)
Irrational ideas
may be based on outright misperceptions (“When the airplane’s wing shakes, I know it’s going to fall off”) or the perfectionist’s should’s, ought’s, and must’s (“I ought to keep quiet rather than risk upsetting anyone*).
Feedback loop (who developed it, what therapy is it under, and what is the model it follows)
Albert Ellis developed “rational emotive therapy” (later renamed rational emotive behavior therapy) where emotions are only partially related to actual events.
Feedback loop: Between the event and the emotion is realistic or unrealistic self-talk, which is what produces emotions.
Ellis’ model (A, B, C):
A = Activating events
B = Beliefs about activating events (can be negative)
C = emotional/behavioral consequences
Emotional results are anxiety, depression, rage, guilt, jealousy, low frustration, tolerance, shame, and a sense of worthlessness. REBT decreases these emotional results.
What is at the root of an irrational idea? What is the reality? Some common forms are what?
The assumption that things are done to you; In reality, nothing is done to you; events happen → (a) experience activating events → (b) you engage in self-talk → (c) you experience emotions resulting from the self-talk; A does not cause C; B causes C
Two common forms are awfulizing (making catastrophic interpretations of your experience) and absolutizing (including words like “should”, “must”, “ought”, “always”, and “never”) → in reality, having rigid standards is what is bad because it is flexible and narrow-minded
Ellis’ 10 basic irrational ideas
- It is an absolute necessity for an adult to have love and approval from peers, family, and friends.
- You must be unfailingly competent, successful, and almost perfect in all that you undertake.
- Certain people are evil, wicked, and villainous and should be punished.
- It is horrible when people and things are not the way you would like them to be.
- External events cause most human misery people simply react as events trigger their emotions.
- You should feel fear or anxiety about anything that is unknown, uncertain, or potentially dangerous.
- It is caster to avoid than to face life’s difficulties and responsibilities.
- You absolutely need something other or stronger or greater than yourself to rely upon.
- The past has a lot to do with determining the present.
- Happiness can be achieved by inaction, passivity, and endless leisure.
Why might it be hard to identify irrational self-talk? What is the best way to uncover them?
Due to the speed and invisibility of thoughts
The best way to uncover these irrational ideas is to reflect on situations in which you experience distressing emotions such as anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, or a sense of worthlessness.
Five steps to disputing and eliminating irrational ideas
A. Write the facts of the event as they occurred at the time you were upset.
B. Write your self-talk about the event.
C. Focus on your emotional response.
D. Dispute and change the irrational self-talk identified in step B
1. select the irrational idea that you wish to dispute.
2. Is there any rational support for this idea?
3. What evidence exists for the falseness of this idea?
4. Does any evidence exist for the truth of this idea?
5. What is the worst thing that could happen to you if what you want to happen doesn’t, or what you don’t want to happen does?
6. What good things might occur if what you want to happen doesn’t, or what you don’t want to happen does?
E. Substitute alternative self-talk, now that you have clearly examined the irrational idea and compared it with rational thinking.
Rules to Promote Rational Thinking
- It doesn’t do anything to me.
- Everything is exactly the way it should be.
- All humans are fallible creatures.
- It takes two to have a conflict.
- The original cause is lost in antiquity.
- We largely feel the way we think.
If you have trouble promoting REBT, what are the three factors that may be influencing your difficulties?
You remain unconvinced that thoughts cause emotions. (if this is the case use rationale emotive imagery)
Your irrational ideas and self-talk are so lightning-swift that you have difficulty catching them.
You have difficulty remembering your thoughts.
Rational Emotive Imagery: Dr. Maxie Maultsby introduced rational emotive imagery (a technique to help develop strategies to change stressful emotions). What are they?
- Imagine an event that is stressful and usually accompanied by unpleasant emotions. Notice all the details of the situation: sights, smells, sounds, how you are dressed, what is being said, and so on.
- As you clearly imagine the event, allow yourself to feel uncomfortable. Let in the emotions of anger, anxiety, depression, worthlessness, or shame. Don’t try to avoid the emotion go ahead and feel it.
- After experiencing the stressful emotion, push yourself to change it to a healthier negative emotion. You can fundamentally alter these emotions so that anxiety, depression, rage, and guilt are replaced by keenly felt concern, disappointment, annoyance, or regret. If you think you can’t do this, you are only fooling yourself. Everyone can change a feeling, if only for a few moments.
- Having contacted the stressful feeling and pushed it, however briefly, into a healthier negative emotion, you can examine how you did it. What happened inside your head that altered your original depression, anxiety, or rage? Clearly, you told yourself something different about yourself, or others, or the situation.
- Instead of saying “I can’t handle this. this will drive me crazy,” you might now be saying “I’ve dealt successfully with situations like this before.” You have changed your beliefs and your interpretations of experience. Once you know how you changed the stressful emotion to a healthier negative emotion, you can substitute the new, adaptive beliefs any time you want. Become deeply aware of how the new beliefs lead you away from stress and produce more bearable emotions.
Three levels of insight are necessary for change to take place. What are they?
- Knowing you have a problem and awareness of some of the events that may have caused the problem
- Seeing clearly that the irrational ideas you acquired early in life are creating the emotional climate you live in now, and that consciously or unconsciously you work fairly hard to perpetuate those irrational ideas.
- Believing strongly that after recognizing the validity of these two prior insights, you will still find no way to eliminate the problem other than working to change your irrational ideas, steadily, persistently, and vigorously.
