Ellis's ABC model

• Ellis (1962) suggested that good mental health is the result of rational thinking 🤔, allowing someone to think in away that allows them to be happy. Conditions like depression (poor mental health) leads to irrational thoughts 💭, this interfere with an individual being happy and free from pain
• Ellis used his ABC model to explain how irrational thoughts affect our behaviour and emotional state:

  • A - activating event
  • B - beliefs
  • C - consequences
• A - activating event 


  Events where irrational thoughts are triggered. The experience of negative events triggers irrational beliefs

  E.g. failing a test
• B - beliefs

  The irrational beliefs

  • The idea we must always succeed/be perfect = musturbation
  • Anything that goes wrong is a disaster 😭= I can't stand-it-itis
  • Utopianism = the beliefs life is always meant to be fair e.g. "they deliberately made the exam difficult so I'd fail"
• Consequences

  When an activating event triggers irrational beliefs there are emotional and behavioural consequences. If you believe you must always succeed and you fail, this can trigger depression

  "There's not point trying, I will always fail exams"
• Musturbatory thinking


  The source of irrational beliefs lies in musturbatory thinking; thinking that certain things must be true for an individual to feel happy.

  Ellis identified the 3 key irrational beliefs:

  • I just be approved of or accepted by people I find important
  • I must do well, or I'm worthless
  • The world must give me happiness or I will die
• An individual who holds irrational thoughts like these likely feels depressed as they cannot meet their criteria.

  E.g. if they fail an exam, they are not depressed because they failed, but because they had to irrational belief "I must pass the exam or I'm stupid"