New Directions in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

Windy Dryden, Windy Dryden

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000452495
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Psicopatologia

New Directions in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy brings together leading figures from the world of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), both as a testament to the work of Albert Ellis and as a reminder of the vibrancy and vigour of the approach.

The chapters in this book, taken together, show that REB therapists are open to broader developments in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy in general and can also contribute to these developments. The book introduces REBT to readers who are more familiar with CBT and locates REBT within the broader fields of CBT and modern psychotherapy.

The book will interest REBT and CBT therapists and more broadly it will interest those in the helping professions wishing to explore what REBT can currently offer them and how this approach can be practiced.

Part I

Roots and branches

Chapter 1

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

A comprehensive introduction

Windy Dryden

DOI: 10.4324/9781003081593-2

In this chapter, I will begin by considering the evolution of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and show how Albert Ellis developed this approach to CBT partly as a result of what he made of his developmental experiences, partly from his interests in philosophy and partly due to his disenchantment with the extant approaches to therapy. I will then outline its distinctive theoretical and practical features. Next, I will briefly consider the research that has been done on the relationship between rigid and extreme attitudes (previously known as irrational beliefs)¹ and psychological disturbance and on the effectiveness of REBT. Finally, I will discuss how REBT has been disseminated to both professionals and the public.

The evolution of REBT

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) was founded in the mid-1950s by Albert Ellis, with the first publications appearing in 1957 (Ellis, 1957a, 1957b; see also Ellis, 1997). It thus lays claim to be the first formal approach within what is now known as the cognitive-behavioural therapies. In this section, I will consider some of the professional and personal reasons why Ellis developed REBT and some of the influences on his thought. However, first, let me highlight significant name changes to the therapy, which will help the reader understand the historical development of REBT.

From RT to RET to REBT

Originally, in the mid-1950s, Ellis called his approach ‘Rational Therapy’ (RT) to indicate that it was quite different from the dominant approaches at that time. Thus, he emphasized the cognitive–philosophical aspects of his therapy to indicate its differences from the approaches in the psychoanalytic and humanistic therapy traditions. Because of his keenness to emphasize the role of cognition in people’s problems and their remediation, rational therapy was accused by its critics of neglecting clients’ emotions. To make it clear that this was not the case, Ellis (1962) changed the name of his approach to Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET). This name stood until 1993 when, at the prompting of Raymond Corsini, he again changed the name of the approach to Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) in reply to critics who argued that RET neglected clients’ behaviours (Ellis, 1993). However, as Ellis (1999) said in a later paper, REBT (and its predecessors) always advocated and incorporated the use of active behavioural methods to encourage clients to practise newly acquired therapeutic insights in their life situation.

As I have said, Ellis originated the first manifestation of REBT, which he called ‘Rational Therapy’ to emphasize its rational or cognitive features. While working initially as a marriage counsellor (in the early to mid-1940s) and then as a clinical psychologist (in the late 1940s and early 1950s), he became increasingly disenchanted with the traditional humanistic and psychoanalytic therapies of the day, largely because he considered them too passive, ineffective and because they neglected the cognitive modality of human experience. This disenchantment encouraged Ellis to experiment with a variety of other approaches that existed at the time (Ellis, 1955) in a quest to find more effective and efficient therapeutic methods. This search did not bear much fruit.

Philosophical influences

What was more successful was when Ellis went back to his long-standing interest in philosophy and saw the value and relevance of this discipline to the development of effective and efficient therapy that had cognition at its core. In this regard, Ellis was particularly influenced by the writings of Stoic philosophers, such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The oft-quoted phrase of Epictetus, ‘People are disturbed not by things but by their view of things’, crystallized Ellis’s stance that philosophical factors were more important than psychoanalytic and psychodynamic factors in accounting for psychological disturbance. An up-to-date version of this famous saying, ‘People disturb themselves by the rigid and extreme attitudes that they hold towards things’, shows the central role given to rigid and extreme attitudes in REBT theory in understanding the roots of psychopathology (Dryden, 2015, 2016).

In addition to the influence of the Stoics, the impact of other philosophers can be discovered in Ellis’s writings. Thus, Ellis (1981) was influenced very early on in his career by Kant’s writings on both the power and the limitations of cognition and ideation, particularly The Critique of Pure Reason. Ellis has argued that REBT is founded upon the logico-empirical methods of science, and in this respect he credited the writings of Popper (1959, 1963) and Reichenbach (1953) as being particularly influential on his efforts to make these philosophical ideas core features of RT, RET and latterly REBT (see below).

REBT is closely identified with the principles of ethical humanism (Russell, 1930, 1965) and also has distinct existential roots. In the latter respect, Ellis (1962) said that he was particularly influenced by the ideas of Paul Tillich (1953). Like other existentialists (e.g., Heidegger, 1949), REBT theorists agree that humans are ‘at the centre of their universe (but not of the universe) and have the power of choice (but not of unlimited choice) with regard to their emotional realm’ (Dryden & Ellis, 1986: 130). Ellis (1973) wrote on REBT’s humanistic foundations and claimed (Ellis, 1984: 23) that it is doubly humanistic in its outlook, in that it: a) helps people maximize their individuality, freedom, self-interest and self-control; and b) helps them live in an involved, committed and selectively loving manner. It thereby strives to facilitate individual and social interest.

The influence of Horney and Adler

Although Ellis claimed that the creation of RT owed more to the work of philosophers than to (pre-1959) psychologists and psychotherapists, he was particularly influenced by the writings of two of the latter. When Ellis originally trained in psychoanalytic methods, he was analysed by a training analyst of the Karen Horney school and the influence of Horney’s (1950) ideas on the ‘tyranny of the shoulds’ influenced Ellis as he developed the central idea in REBT – that rigid attitudes are at the core of psychological disturbance.

Ellis (1973) stated that REBT owes a particular debt to the ideas of Alfred Adler (1927), who held that a person’s behaviour springs from their ideas. Adler’s concept of the vital role played by feelings of inferiority in psychological disturbance pre-dates Ellis’s view that self-esteem problems, based on a global negative evaluation of self, constitute a fundamental human disturbance. REBT also emphasizes the role of social interest in determining psychological health, as did Adler (1964). Other Adlerian influences on REBT are the importance that humans attribute to goals, purposes, values and meanings; the emphasis on active-directive teaching; the employment of a cognitive-persuasive form of therapy; and the teaching method of holding live demonstrations of therapy sessions before an audience.

The influence of general semantics

Ellis’s ideas (circa the mid-1970s) were influenced by the work of the general semanticists, who argued that our psychological processes are, to a great extent, determined by our overgeneralizations and by the careless language we employ. Like Korzybski (1933), Ellis held that modification of the errors in our thinking and our language have a marked effect on our emotions and actions. One particular way that Ellis implemented the influence of general semanticists was through the use of e-prime (Bourland, 1965/1966). E-prime is an approach to language that excludes all forms of the verb ‘to be’ since when this verb is used, we tend to overgeneralize. Thus, if I were to say, ‘I am a psychologist,’ I tend to identify myself in my mind with this role. However, were I to say, ‘I work as a psychologist,’ I tend not to make this error. Thus, use of forms of the verb ‘to be’ oversimplify human beings and are the breeding ground for self-devaluation (e.g. ‘I am a failure’ rather than ‘I failed’). In the mid-1970s, Ellis wrote five books in e-prime, including the bestselling A New Guide to Rational Living (Ellis & Harper, 1975), but dropped it soon after because it was too cumbersome. E-prime no longer influences modern REBT

Personal experiences and factors²

Having outlined the intellectual roots of Ellis’s creation of rational therapy, let me now outline some of the personal influences of its development. It is crucial, in this respect, to realize that the founders of therapy approaches bring themselves as people and their personal experiences to the approaches that they develop. Thus, it is difficult to imagine Albert Ellis developing what is now known as person-centred therapy and difficult to imagine Carl Rogers developing REBT! Ellis dealt with several personal problems and adversities by means of early versions of concepts that appeared later in REBT.

Ellis was the eldest of three children and grew up in a family with a rather self-absorbed mother and absent father. He became self-sufficient quite early on, a characteristic that helped him when he was hospitalized several times between the ages of five and seven. He coped with being in hospital and the paucity of family visits by accepting the reality of the situation and by solving problems in his head.

Ellis was anxious about public speaking and approaching women, but dealt with these issues in ways consistent with later REBT theory and practice. With the former, he resolved to speak in public, but the first time he did so he tripped on the way up to the rostrum to the mirth of his audience. However, he saw that while this was uncomfortable, it was not horrible, and he went on to become one of the best public speakers in the therapy field. He decided to deal with the latter problem by approaching 100 women in the nearby Bronx Botanical Gardens, engaging them in conversation and asking as many as would speak to him on a date. While only one woman agreed to meet him (although she never turned up), Ellis overcame his...