Reason to Change

A Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy Workbook 2nd edition

Windy Dryden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000409697
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is an approach to counselling and psychotherapy in which great emphasis is placed on how attitudes are at the root of emotional problems and their solution. The first edition of Reason to Change was written as a one-of-a-kind workbook teaching the practical skills of REBT.

In this updated edition, Windy Dryden teaches, in a very specific way, the skills needed to use this therapeutic approach in practice in a thorough and accessible way. Each skill is explained in detail, and examples are given of how each skill can be put into practice. These skills include:

• developing a problem list and setting goals
• choosing a target problem and assessing a specific example
• examining attitudes
• dealing with your doubts, reservations and objections
• taking action.

By using these skills in an active way, it can be possible to address effectively emotional problems such as anxiety, depression, shame, guilt, hurt, unhealthy anger, unhealthy jealousy and unhealthy envy. This book can be used by people on their own, and by those who are consulting an REBT therapist. It will also be of interest to therapists and counsellors.

Chapter 1

The REBT view of psychological problems

The importance of informed consent

When you consult a professionally trained therapist,¹ it is likely that they will belong to a recognised professional body and that body will have a code of ethics and practice by which your therapist is expected to abide. One of the principles in this code is known as the principle of informed consent. This principle states that it is a mark of ethical practice that you should give your informed consent to a therapeutic approach before your therapist proceeds to help you by using this approach with you. If we look at the principle of informed consent carefully, we will quickly see that, in order for you to give your consent to proceed with an approach to counselling/psychotherapy, you have to be informed about it.

When you consult a Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapist (henceforth known as an REB therapist), at some point early in the therapy process, they will explain to you something about REBT so that you can make an informed decision as to whether to proceed with this approach or whether to consult a therapist from a different therapeutic persuasion. Now, your REB therapist is unlikely to overwhelm you with too much information about REBT at the outset. Rather, they will tell you something about the REBT view of psychological problems and something about how the approach is practised.

As I mentioned in the Preface to this text, you may be using this workbook in conjunction with having consultations with an REB therapist or on your own as a self-help manual. Either way, in this chapter, I am going to explain the REBT view of psychological problems and, in the next chapter, I will discuss some of the fundamentals of REBT practice so that you have sufficient information about REBT to give your informed consent to proceed with this workbook or to seek a different kind of help if it transpires that REBT is not the approach to counselling or self-help that you are looking for.

There is a viewpoint in American social work that makes an important distinction between an ‘applicant’ and a ‘client’ that is very relevant here. This viewpoint states that when you seek help from a therapist, you have the status of an ‘applicant’. You become a ‘client’ when you give your informed consent to proceed with therapy. Thus, at the moment, you are an applicant. I hope that after you have read what I have had to say about the REBT view of psychological problems (in this chapter) and how REBT addresses these problems (in the next chapter), you will become a client. If not, and you decide to seek a different approach to counselling, I wish you well and suggest that you consult a book entitled The Which? Guide to Counselling and Therapy written by Shamil Wanigaratne and Mike Brookes (2013). This book will tell you something about different approaches to counselling and psychotherapy that are available.

The ‘Giving a Speech’ Model

Let me begin by inviting you to join me as a participant as I go over the ‘Giving a Speech’ Model. This model gets to the heart of REBT’s view of psychological problems.

There are four steps to this model.

Step 1

I want you to imagine that you have been asked by your boss to give a speech to a group of visiting dignitaries (the first half of which will be before their morning coffee break and the second half after it) and you hold the following basic attitude² towards the possibility of not giving a good speech (which is the adversity):

I want to give a good speech, but it isn’t absolutely necessary for me to do so. If I don’t give a good speech, it will be bad, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

How would you feel about the possibility of not giving a good speech while holding this attitude? If you think about it, you would probably feel concerned about the possibility of not giving a good speech, but you wouldn’t feel unduly anxious about it.

Step 2

Now, in this second step, I want you to imagine again that you have been asked by your boss to give a speech to a group of visiting dignitaries (the first half of which will be before their morning coffee break and the second half after it), but this time you hold the following different attitude towards the adversity (the possibility of not giving a good speech):

I want to give a good speech and therefore I absolutely must do so. If I don’t, it would not just be bad, it would be truly awful.

How would you feel this time about the possibility of not giving a good speech while holding this different attitude? If you think about it, you would probably feel very anxious about the possibility of not giving a good speech.

Now I want you to focus on one important point here:

While facing the same adversity – the possibility of not giving a good speech – your different feelings are determined by different attitudes.

Step 3

In the third step of the model, I want you to imagine that you still hold the attitude that you absolutely have to give a good speech and it would be terrible if you didn’t. You give the first half of your speech and at the end of it you conclude that it has gone down well. Now, how would you feel about that? You would probably feel relieved or pleased.

Step 4

But, suddenly, still holding the attitude that you have to give a good speech and it would be awful if you didn’t, you suddenly stop feeling relieved or pleased and become anxious again. What do you think you would be anxious about? That’s right, you would probably be anxious about the possibility that the second half of your speech wouldn’t be good.

Conclusion

The point of this model is the following:

That all humans, black or white, rich or poor, male or female, from whichever culture, make themselves emotionally disturbed when they don’t get what they rigidly demand they must get and are vulnerable to emotional disturbance when they do get what they rigidly demand because the situation may change and their rigid demands may no longer be met. However, if humans stayed with their preferences and realised that they don’t have to have these preferences met, then they would still experience negative feelings when their preferences weren’t met, but these negative feelings would be healthy and would motivate them to change what can be changed and adjust constructively to what can’t be changed.

Have you ever heard the famous dictum attributed to Epictetus, the Stoic philosopher: ‘People are disturbed not by things, but by their views of things’? The REBT view of psychological problems or disturbance is very nicely summarised by a re-formulation of this dictum, namely:

People are disturbed not by situations, nor by the adversities that feature in these problem-occurring situations, but by the rigid and extreme attitudes that they hold towards these adversities.

The REBT view of psychological health follows on from the above thus:

People respond healthily to the adversities that feature in their problem-occurring situations when they hold flexible and non-extreme attitudes towards these adversities.

REBT’s ‘Situational ABC’ models of psychological disturbance and health

The above two statements contain all that is needed for me to outline the way REBT makes sense of your psychological problems and how you can deal with these problems in healthy ways. Before I present these two models let me define each element of the models.

‘Situation’

The situation refers to a descriptive account of the context in which your problematic response or healthy response occurs.

‘A’

‘A’ stands for ‘adversity’ and represents what you respond problematically to or healthily to in the situation described above. ‘A’ remains the same whether you are responding problematically or healthily in the ‘situation’.

‘B’

‘B’ stands for the ‘basic attitudes’³ you hold towards the adversity. As will be shown these ‘basic attitudes’ will be rigid and extreme when you respond problematically to the adversity or flexible and non-extreme when you respond healthily to the adversity.

‘C’

‘C’ refers to the emotional, behavioural and thinking consequences of holding your attitudes at ‘B’ towards the adversity at ‘A’ in the situation. These consequences will be unhealthy and unconstructive or healthy and constructive depending on whether your attitudes at ‘B’ are rigid/extreme or flexible/non-extreme.

Figure 1.1 outlines REBT’s ‘Situational ABC’ models of psychological disturbance and health. You will notice from this figure that the ‘situation’ and the adversity at ‘A’ are common features in both psychological disturbance and psychological health. This is important. As made explicit in the statements on psychological disturbance and health presented above, the REBT model argues that since people disturb themselves about adversities that feature in problem-occurring situations, both the adversities and the situations in which they feature need to be present to remind people that psychological health is not about bypassing adversity but about fa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Prologue
• Chapter 1 The REBT view of psychological problems
• Chapter 2 The practice of REBT
• Chapter 3 Understanding psychological problems and developing a problem list
• Chapter 4 Setting goals
• Chapter 5 Nominating a problem and assessing a specific example
• Chapter 6 Setting goals with respect to the specific example
• Chapter 7 Examining your attitudes
• Chapter 8 Dealing with your doubts, reservations and objections
• Chapter 9 Taking action
• Chapter 10 Examining the adversity at ‘A’
• Chapter 11 Dealing with your core rigid/extreme attitudes
• Chapter 12 Strengthening your conviction in your core and specific flexible/non-extreme attitudes
• Chapter 13 Goal achievement and beyond
• Appendix 1: How to find an REB therapist
• Appendix 2: List of eight common unhealthy negative emotions with the equivalent healthy negative emotions, together with their adversity themes, basic attitudes, behaviours and forms of subsequent thinking
• Appendix 3: Blank Dryden REBT Form (DRF)
• Appendix 4: DRF completed by Charles
• Appendix 5: Unhealthy negative emotions: suggested reading
• Index