Albert Ellis

• Albert Ellis

  Psychologist who developed Rational-Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT)
• Rational-Emotive Behavioural Therapy (REBT)

  • Developed as a response to the limitations of psychoanalytic and behaviourist models
  • Marks a shift from the introspective psychoanalytic approach and the external focus of behaviourism
• REBT

  • Core principle that emotional distress is not caused by events themselves but by irrational beliefs about these events
  • Combines Stoicism, existentialism, and humanism
  • Introduces the importance of cognitive processes in understanding emotional and behavioural responses
• REBT paved the way for the development of further Cognitive Behavioural Therapies (CBT), emphasising the interplay between thoughts, emotions, and behaviours
• Irrational ideas from childhood

  • "Because pain is so bad, I can't stand the feeling" - leads to low tolerance for discomfort and catastrophising
  • "I should be doing better than I am doing and I am bad because I am not doing better" - leads to demands placed on the self and internalisation of standards
• Effects of parents

  • Inadvertently pass their emotional and cognitive biases to their children
  • Children are gullible and believe parents' BS
  • Children are taught to expect a world that is inherently fair and just, which isn't the case
  • Children interpret language literally, associating words like "naughty" directly with being inherently bad
  • Language and parental feedback can foster feelings of guilt, leading to deeper shame
• Freedom

  • Emphasises the inherent free will in behavioural choices
  • Acknowledge the challenges of decision-making
  • Highlight the importance of realising choice availability in difficult situations to avoid feelings of entrapment
  • Stress psychological health through accepting responsibility for one's emotions and actions
  • Employ cost-benefit analysis to evaluate the pros and cons of decisions
• Hedonism

  • Goal is happiness
  • Need to appropriately balance short- and long-term goals
• Enlightened Self-Interest

  • Prioritise personal needs as essential to psychological health, arguing this is not selfish but necessary for well-being
  • Recognise and manage the trade-offs involved in being overly agreeable, which can sometimes conflict with meeting one's own needs
• Human Nature

  • Ellis viewed each person as inherently good and with a capacity for rational thought
  • Highlighted separation between actions and self-worth, teaching that mistakes do not define one's value and helping reduce feelings of shame
  • All people, even psychologists/therapists, make bad decisions in some areas of their lives
  • Approach promoted transforming irrational beliefs with rational thought, underscoring the possibility for positive change and therapeutic success
• Self-Talk

  • Internal dialogue that narrates or comments on our experiences
  • Our reality is shaped by how we interpret events through self-talk
  • Self-talk is a near-automatic process
  • The language used in self-talk critically affects our emotional responses
• Ego Disturbance

  • Upset to the self-image, resulting from holding demands about one's 'self', followed by negative self-evaluations
  • Leads to "ego anxiety" (fear of ego disturbance in the future), neediness for acceptance, and unassertive behaviour
• Discomfort Disturbance

  • Emotional upset caused by current discomforts, based on beliefs like "The world owes me contentment and happiness" and "I must be able to feel comfortable all of the time"
  • Discomfort anxiety focuses on the anticipation or fear of future discomforts
  • Avoidance of events and circumstances that are seen as 'too difficult' to overcome
• Core Irrational Beliefs

  • Demands about the self, demands about others, and demands about the world
  • Demands about the self lead to ego disturbance, demands about others and the world lead to discomfort disturbance
• ABC[DEF]

  Active disputation - asking questions in Socratic Style to challenge irrational thinking (Why...)
• Cognitive therapies involve challenging maladaptive thoughts, e.g. "musterbation" about the self, others and the world
• Cognitive-behavioural therapies can utilise both behavioural (e.g. reinforcement and conditioning), social learning (e.g. modelling) and cognitive (e.g. schemas/self-beliefs) approaches to bring about changes in cognition and behaviour
• ABC[DEF]

  • A = Adversity
  • B = Beliefs about adversity
  • C = Emotional consequences
  • D = Disputations to challenge B
  • E = Effective new rational beliefs
  • F = New Feelings