Grief An Loss

15 Pages 3702 Words

rs-especially Dr. Robert A. Harper, Dr. H.Jon Geis, Edward Garcia, Dr. William Knause, Dr. John M. Gullo, Dr. Paul Hauck, Dr. Donald R. Meichenbaum, Dr. Janet L. Wolf, Dr. Arnold A. Lazarus, Dr. Aaron T. Beck, and (most notably) Dr. Maxie C. Maultsbie Jr. It has taken on other names than Ret-such as Rational Therapy (RT), semantic therapy, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), and (quite popularly) rational behavior training (RBT)…(pg.202) Based on the strongest tenets of cognitive and behavioral therapy, REBT helps individuals to challenge the cause and effect relationships they believe exist between external events and their own emotional states. Ellis writes: RET employs an A-B-C method of viewing human personality and disturbance. When trying to help a person, the therapist usually begins with C-the upsetting emotional Consequence that he [sic] has recently experienced. Typically he has been rejected by someone (this rejection can be called A, the Activating Experience) and then feels anxious, worthless or depressed at C. He wrongly believes that A, his being rejected has caused C, his feelings …; and he may even overtly voice this belief by saying something like, "She rejected me and that made me depressed." The individual can be shown that A does not and cannot really cause C- that an Activating Event in the outside world cannot possibly create any feeling or emotional consequence in his head and gut. For if this were true virtually everyone who gets rejected would have to feel just as depressed as he does; and this is obviously not the case. C, then is really caused by some intervening variable, or by B; and B is the individuals belief system. So there is the simplicity of Ellis and RET; the knowledge that the individual chooses to believe and behave in a way that causes the distress. The confrontational and often playful style of Ellis's REBT helps people to recognize and change parts of their thinking that are insensible, inacc...