MEBO RESEARCH Presentation Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)

Commonalities between all Cognitive Behavior Approaches Collaborative relationship between therapist & client Premise psychological distress is largely a function of disturbance in cognitive processes Focus on changing cognitions behaviors to produce desired changes

Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) Stresses thinking, judging, deciding, analyzing, and doing Teaches that our emotions stem mainly from our beliefs, evaluations, interpretations, and reactions to life situations Albert Ellis

Assumptions of REBT People contribute to their own psychological problems & symptoms by way they interpret events & situations Reorganization of one’s self-statements will result in reorganization of one’s behaviors Operant conditioning, modeling & behavioral rehearsal applied to thinking & internal dialogue

View of Human Nature We develop emotional & behavioral problems when we mistake simple preferences (love, approval, success) for dire needs We are born with a potential for both rational and irrational thinking We have the biological and cultural tendency for self- preservation and self- destruction We learn and invent disturbing beliefs and keep ourselves disturbed through our self-talk Humans are self-talking, self-evaluating & self- sustaining We have the capacity to change our cognitive, emotive, and behavioral processes

Emotional Disturbance We actively reinforce self- defeating beliefs by the processes of autosuggestion and self-repetition. To recover from neurosis (personality disorder) we need to stop blaming ourselves and others Blame is the core of emotional disturbance-so to recover stop blaming self & others We escalate desires & preferences into dogmatic & absolutist “shoulds, musts, oughts, demands, commands- which are irrational beliefs which need to be changed

Irrational Beliefs Irrational ideas lead to self-defeating behavior Some examples: “I must have love or approval from all the significant people in my life.” “I must perform important tasks competently and perfectly.” “If I don’t get what I want, it’s terrible, and I can’t stand it.”

Disputing Intervention Challenges irrational beliefs Use principles of logic to destroy unrealistic, unverifiable hypotheses Detect - detect the “shoulds”, “I musts” “awfulizing” “self-downing” Debate - learn to logically & empirically question beliefs-to argue self out of them Discriminate - irrational-self-defeating from rational-self-helping beliefs