Albert Ellis is a pioneering therapist who developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. In this model, people are easily distressed when adversity (A) interferes with their goals and they don’t get what they want or do get what they don’t want. They have a choice of reacting to A with healthy negative feelings, such as sorrow, regret and frustration, or reacting with unhealthy negative feelings such as panic, depression and rage. Largely, though not completely, they make this choice based on (B), heir belief system. When they choose rational or self-helping beliefs, they often react (C) with healthy feelings and actions; when they choose irrational or unhealthy beliefs, they are more likely to react with unhealthy feelings and actions.
The beliefs Ellis is talking about are those upon which we model our internal and external world. They are either rigid or flexible, and it’s the rigid beliefs that typically cause unhealthy reactions and feelings. And further more that the motivation behind those beliefs will impact how one reacts and feels.
There are three core areas of concern where our beliefs impact us the most.
1. I must achieve outstandingly well in one or more important respects or I am an inadequate person
2. Other people must treat me fairly and well or they are bad people
3. Conditions must be favorable or else my life is rotten and I can’t stand it
One of the first steps of REBT is to dispute those beliefs and soften them from demands to preferences. By doing so, you can experience healthier emotions, the Cs in the ABC model, when an adversity interferes with one of your goals. This is accomplished by recognizing the demands you place on yourself and then disputing them. So if you believe that must achieve outstandingly well, you challenge that belief. Is that true? What would happen if you didn’t? What is the worst that would happen if you didn’t? Then recognize that while it is preferable to perform well, it isn’t necessary.
The next step is what he calls Unconditional Self Acceptance, or USA. Here you recognize that you are not your behavior. To make yourself a bad person, it would mean that every single aspect of who you are, and have been, has been 100% bad since the beginning of your existence. Ridiculous when you think about it, isn’t it? Yet for many of us in our upbringing, we were admonished as “bad boy” or “bad girl” when we did something that didn’t please our parents. Once you recognize this in yourself, you then begin to practice Unconditional Other Acceptance, as you learn that just as you cannot not possible to be a “bad person”, nor can anyone else. Judgement begins to melt away and you become more peaceful, your blood pressure goes down, and your overall health improves.