Behavioral approaches are considered highly effective in addiction therapy programs, and rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) is no exception. This version of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) was developed by a psychologist named Albert Ellis in 1955. Ellis called REBT an action-oriented CBT. An REBT program can be highly effective in helping people begin and move forward with their recovery.
Apex Recovery offers rational emotive behavior therapy in Nashville for people struggling with all addictions and co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (SUDs). To learn how REBT can help you recover, contact us today online or by calling 615.703.4639. We can discuss the benefits of REBT and how this therapy can fit into your individualized treatment plan.
The Principles of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Like cognitive-behavioral therapy and other forms of behavioral treatment, REBT focuses on helping people eliminate damaging and false beliefs that directly affect their emotions and thoughts and thus lead to harmful behaviors. By handling negative thought patterns, people in recovery can create significant shifts in their ability to manage their emotions and control their behaviors.
People’s emotions often trigger how they think about and act in response to situations. By learning to understand their own emotions and the irrational beliefs that underlie them, they find that they no longer react to conditions in damaging or harmful ways.
Instead of reacting with stress, fear, anger, sadness, depression, anxiety, panic, or other reactive emotions, they can respond more calmly and rationally to those events.
Essential Tenets of REBT
To get rid of beliefs that are rigid, extreme, illogical, unrealistic, and absolutist, rational emotive behavior therapy focuses on a specific set of ideas:
- You deserve your self-respect and acceptance, even when you make mistakes.
- Other people also have the right to be accepted for who they are, regardless of their feelings about what they do.
- Harmful and unwanted things happen sometimes, and it is not logical to expect otherwise.
REBT also depends on a particular approach called the ABC model. Based on this model, you learn that while blaming your unhappiness on what happens outside of you is expected, the events themselves are innocent. How you interpret those events causes you pain, sadness, and distress.
ABC Model Approach of REBT
The ABC model looks at three things:
- Activating events – What has happened in your world?
- Beliefs you have about that event or situation – What characterizes them?
- Consequences of those beliefs – How do you respond?
The actions you take during REBT focus on two things. First is disputation, when your therapist goes after your beliefs through questioning, logic, or imagining other options. The other is when you actively work to replace unhealthy thoughts with healthy ones.