What is Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT)?
REBT, or Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, is the first of the modern cognitive behaviour therapies (CBT) that was developed in 1955 by Albert Ellis of New York. Since the introduction of REBT, its theory and practice continued to be modified and updated in accordance with the latest scientific findings.
Today REBT is used for a wide range of problems, from emotional disorders such as depression and anxiety to personality disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorders, addiction, couple relationship problems and more. Moreover, REBT's constructive philosophy of human life has been used in educating healthy individuals to achieve a higher level of life happiness and to define more fulfilling lifestyles for themselves.
REBT theory and practice
REBT theory assumes that human-beings tend to disturb themselves by holding irrational beliefs about themselves, about other people and about the world they are living in. This is different from other forms of psychotherapy, which assume that other people are the causes of human disturbances. It also assumes (based on scientific observation) that human emotional disturbances will drive individuals to behave in self-defeating ways.
It follows, therefore, that the role of the REBT psychotherapist is first to psycho-educate their clients about the psychological causes of their emotional and behavioural problems; and then to help them replace their irrational beliefs (i.e. causes of their emotional and behavioural disturbances) with rational ones, aiming to reconstruct emotional stability, self-helping behaviour and achieve a relative life long happiness. REBT psychotherapists will ask their clients to experiment between sessions with their new rational beliefs and modified behaviour to see if it is helping them to get better, not just merely feeling better. Moreover, clients will learn self-help skills to enable them to look after themselves independently and to prevent any future relapses.