Cognitive Behavior Therapy:

Its Philosophy, Principles, Irrational Beliefs & Techniques

“There is no evidence that men are more rational than women”

Dr. Albert Ellis

Summary of Cognitive Behavior Therapy:

Dr Ellis was born on September 27, 1913. Pittsburg, PA.

Rational Emotive Behavior therapy was founded in the mid-1950s

Dr. Ellis believed that the role of the therapist was to help the client understand and act on the understanding that his/her personal philosophy contains beliefs that leads to his/her emotional pain.

He focused on working to get the client to change their self-defeating beliefs and behaviors by demonstrating their irrationality and rigidity.

The A- B- C Theory:

· The activating event or the adversity a person faces

· Represents the evaluation (Cognitive-effective-behavioral) of the activating event.

· The emotional consequences and self-defeating behaviors

The Key to REBT thought is the evaluation of the event, not the activating event itself that causes the emotional consequence. We are largely responsible for creating our emotional disturbances through beliefs we associate with the events in our lives. By altering a more rational evaluation of ourselves others and the world, we are more likely to behave and emote in a more life-serving and adaptive way.

ABC Theory Constructs:

· Men are not disturbed by things but by the view they make of them (Epictetus)

· How we interpret events is important.

· Purpose helps clients straighten out crooked and irrational thinking.

· A- Activating Event

· B- Thoughts and Beliefs about A

· C- Behavioral and emotional consequences

Dr. Ellis believed that it is our irrational beliefs and self-statements about B which result in emotional and behavioral problems at C.

REBT principles and values:

· A psychoeducational approach to therapy

· A self-fulfilling, creative, and emotionally satisfying life can be attained through disciplined thinking.

· Reasoning obstructs self-defeating, inappropriate, and disorganized thinking.

· Rewriting your personal history: Undue influence of past experiences commits you to logical errors of overgeneralization.

Rational Thinking:

· Based on objective facts rather than subjective opinions

· If acted upon would promote the preservation of life and limb rather than premature death or injury.

· If acted upon produces your personally defined goals most quickly.

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· If acted upon prevents undesirable personal and environmental conflicts.

· It also minimizes your inner conflict and turmoil.

REBT Techniques:

· Allowing yourself to remain too strongly influenced by past events you cease to look for alternate solutions.

· Many aspects of behavior that were appropriate in the past can become ineffective in the future.

· If your past experiences shape your present then you will inappropriately become a victim of what is called transference effects; this carries over feeling about past objects into present relations.

· If you persist without consideration to perform in a certain way because you have done so in the past, you fail to gain any new experiences that might well prove exceptionally enjoyable.

· Unquestioningly accepting the influences of the past renders, you unrealistic, since the present does not remain the past and differs significantly from it.

· The past has its degree of influence to impinge on present patterns, but we have the power to limit the degree to which it is repeated by changing our paradigms and regulating our thoughts towards different activities and patterns.

· Accept the fact of the influence of the past but you can change your tomorrow by thinking and acting differently

· Objectively acknowledge your past errors rather than self-condemnation. Question your misdeeds, review habits and customs, and choose appropriately.

· Fight past influences on the verbal and action levels by identifying their irrationality and acting accordingly.

· Use Rational Emotive Imagery: Imagine each day an event or idea that is discomforting. Conjure up feelings of anxiety or shame then change them to feelings of concern rather than the fantasized dangerous situation.

· Above all the past has passed and it has no magical automatic effect on the present or future

REBT on Perfection:

· A self-defeating philosophy because humans are not angels; events don’t occur with certainty and decisions don’t turn out correctly at all sometimes. Nothing in life is static. Life equals change and we have to accept the reality of the way it occurs as highly imperfect and filled with fallible human beings.

Failure does not have anything to do with your intrinsic value

REBT: Irrational Beliefs:

· I have the love and approval of others, I must avoid disapproval at all costs.

· I must be perfect and successful in all that I do.

· I must not make any mistakes.

· People must always do the right thing when they do not, they must be punished.

· Things must be the way that I want them to be otherwise life will be intolerable.

· My happiness/unhappiness is caused by external events. I have no control over my happiness/ unhappiness.

· I will be happier if I can avoid life difficulties, unpleasantries, or responsibilities.

· I am weak and need to be dependent on those who are stronger than me.

· Events in the past have strongly influenced me and they must continue to see me.

· I must become upset when others have problems and sad when others are.

“People are disturbed not by things but by their view of things. Crystallized Ellis's view that philosophical factors are more important than psychoanalytic and psychodynamic factors in accounting for psychological disturbances” (Dryden & Ellis, 2001)

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