REBT stands for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Developed and published by Dr. Albert Ellis during the 1950s, REBT was the first formal, modern psychotherapy to focus on the ways we think about ourselves and our circumstances as being one of the primary causes of psychological disorders.
We have the tendency to see our emotional and behavioral responses as having a direct cause-and-effect relationship to specific events. We say we got mad because we were cut off in traffic, or that we’re nervous because we have a meeting with a supervisor.
REBT proposes that the real reason we feel and act the way we do about something has to do with the way in which we interpret the event. If we are angry because someone cuts us off, REBT says that the meaning you gave to being cut off was the deciding factor. It maintains that if someone cuts you off and you interpret that to mean they are taking advantage of you, you’re going to have a different emotional and behavioral reaction than if you take it to mean that you’re being cut off because the driver is having a medical emergency and needs to get to the hospital.
REBT does not deny that there are other conditions that have to do with how we function psychologically. For instance, it is definitely true that biologically we are all wired differently, and some of us are more or less vulnerable to some conditions than others. We also have different histories, and some of us have been exposed to a lot more pain than others. Nevertheless, the ways in which we have learned to navigate these conditions and the attitudes we have created toward them have a decisive role to play in how well they serve our ultimate goals. If you were born with a strong tendency toward depression and you have come to believe that nothing can be done about this, your choices as to how to best live with it will be severely constrained. On the other hand, an attitude that recognizes depression as a condition that can be managed more or less effectively depending on the effort you put into it will broaden your options. Similarly, a developmental history from which you have formed the belief that you must be perfect in everything you do, and that if you don’t, you are a total failure, will have very different consequences than an attitude founded on the idea that human beings are fallible creatures and that mistakes are a part of the learning process.
REBT causes change by helping us identify irrational and destructive basic attitudes that lead to psychological malfunctioning and replacing them with healthier, more realistic alternatives. It is goal oriented, focuses on specific situations and involves the client as a partner in all stages of the change process. It maintains that change is hard but definitely possible. It is considered short term and has even developed a single session model.
In addition to its success in the treatment of many psychological disorders, the principles of REBT have also been used to help children and adults realize their full psychological potential. Several schools have enacted REBT-based programs to help children make the most of their psychological abilities.
To summarize, REBT is one of the most well-researched and widely practiced therapies in the world. Its fundamental idea that the effectiveness of our psychological functioning is ultimately dependent on the ways in which we have learned to interpret our experiences—and the attitudes we bring toward them—has resulted in significant strides, both in successfully managing psychological disorders and in developing our full psychological potential.