Tag: REBT

Rational Radio

Dr. Albert Ellis
Dr. Albert Ellis

REBT ( Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy ) was one of the first types of cognitive therapy to be invented. It was created by Dr. Albert Ellis in the 1950s. At the time, Dr. Ellis was practicing traditional Freudian psychotherapy. Dr. Ellis noticed that his clients who changed the way they thought about their problems got better much more quickly. He created REBT from that single observation, that what a person feels is driven very much by what they think and what they believe.

Dr. Ellis noticed that it isn’t always easy for a person to change how s/he thinks. He believed that behavior and emotion reenforced beliefs. The ‘E’ and ‘B’ in REBT is about a person changing their behavior and associating strong emotions with new rational beliefs to reenforce new ways of thinking about things.

Below is a set of recordings called “Rational Radio” created by psychotherapist Micah Perkins who was gracious enough to give me permission to make his work freely available ( not for resale ). These recordings give an introduction to using REBT for self help in a plain language.

For those interested in learning more about REBT A Brief Introduction To Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy by Wayne Froggatt is probably the singles best piece of introductory writing on REBT. Those wishing to go even further will also find Dr. Ellis’ classic Guide To Rational Living very useful. That book has many significantly different editions. Make sure you get the latest.

You can listen to the recordings below by clicking on the links to invoke the MP3 player linked to your browser or you can download the MP3 files by right clicking each link and choosing the “Save Link As” option from the pop-up menu.

  1. Intro To Rational Radio
  2. The 3 Insights Of REBT
  3. Types Of Irrational Beliefs
  4. The ABCs Of REBT
  5. What It Means To Be Rational
  6. Disputing Part1
  7. Disputing Part 2
  8. Irrational Beliefs In Relationships

Perspective: 13 Questions

The questions below are from “cogntive therapy”. Cognitive therapy is a type of psychotherapy based on the belief that are feelings are the results of our thoughts.

If you think you won the lottery, you feel great. If you think you just lost a chunk of your retirement savings, you feel bad.

There is the belief in cognitive therapy that people can be happier by replacing their irrational thoughts with more rational and realistic thinking.

Cognitive therapy has been clinically proven to be as effective, if not more effective than drugs for many psychological issues. The questions below are a standard set of cognitive therapy questions to be asked by a person who feels disturbed. When feeling disturbed the person would write down the thoughts that automatically come to them. Then s/he would go through them one by one asking themselves these questions about those thoughts. The process is to be repeated over days, weeks, etc until some of the issues are settled.

I got this list of questions from a book on a holistic program for insomnia, all verified by research, written by a researcher associated with Harvard.

  1. Is this thought really true?
  2. Am I overemphasizing a negative aspect of this situation?
  3. What is the worst thing that will happen?
  4. Is there anything that might be positive about this situation?
  5. Am I jumping to conclusions and assuming a negative outcome?
  6. How do I know the situation will turn out this way?
  7. Is there another way to look at this situation?
  8. What difference will this make next week, next month, or next year?
  9. If I had one month to live, how important would this be?
  10. Am I “awfulizing”, that is, am I using words like “never”,
    “worst”, “terrible”, or “horrible” that are making the situation seem worse than it is?
  11. Am I investing my emotions in expectations that may not turn out as I expect them to? Am I using words like “should”, “must”, …etc ?
  12. Has anything like this happened to me before? How did it turn out? Did things work out eventually?
  13. What would I say to and think of a friend in the same situation? Am I being harder on myself or more unrealistic for myself?
( 10 of these are from “Say Goodnight To Insomnia”. Page 162 ISBN: 0805055487 )