Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, often simply referred to as REBT, is a form of psychotherapy that can help you to identify self-defeating thoughts and emotions. From there, you are able to challenge the unreasonable and unproductive feelings in order to replace them with more healthier and fruitful beliefs.
REBT was created in the mid-1950s by a psychologist named Albert Ellis. This form of psychotherapy focuses on the present moment so you can understand how any unhealthy thoughts and beliefs you hold can trigger emotional distress. As a result of this emotional distress, unhealthy actions and behaviors can occur which can interfere with your goals and overall life.
The REBT approach will encourage you to dispute your irrational thinking so you can develop healthy emotional self-regulation skills to manage your anxiety.
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with mental health therapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, and couples with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, life transitions, and more. Anchor Therapy is accepting new clients and is now providing in-person sessions and teletherapy sessions to residents of New Jersey, New York, Florida, North Carolina, and Utah.
What is REBT therapy?
Rational Emotive Behavior Counseling is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, also known as CBT. CBT is an evidence-based mental health treatment that allows you to pinpoint, comprehend, and change thinking and behavior patterns. To learn more about CBT for anxiety, read our blog “How You Can Treat Your Anxiety Using CBT.” Similar to CBT, REBT is an action-oriented approach that can help you deal with irrational beliefs and learn how to manage your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors in a more healthy manner.
The main premise of REBT is that your emotional responses stem from your beliefs, not your external circumstances. If your inner beliefs are not rational and are self-defeating, you may suffer more emotional disturbances, such as anger, anxiety, or shame. In REBT mental health counseling, you and your REBT therapist will work together to identify, battle, and replace any and all of your irrational beliefs.
How does REBT mental health counseling work?
In accordance with the REBT therapeutic method, your thinking, feelings, and behavioral patterns are all interconnected. You must take a look at your beliefs and the emotions that arise from your beliefs to comprehend the impact that certain events and situations have on your life.
The primary objective of REBT is to assist people to rationally respond to situations, especially when they may trigger stress, anxiety, depression, or other negative emotions. Now, after experiencing REBT therapy, when you experience a similar type of situation, your emotionally healthy response is to recognize that success is not the outcome of every endeavor. For instance, you may change your perspective to learn from the situation and proceed with life as usual.
What mental health conditions can REBT help with?
There is data to support that REBT can help with the following mental health conditions:
Anxiety and distress
Disruptive behavior in children
Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) (Check out our blog “6 Helpful Tips for Living with Social Anxiety” for support)
Sleep problems (If you struggle with your sleep, our blog “How CBT Can Help With Your Insomnia“ can be helpful)
What are the main beliefs of REBT?
Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy operates under a few main beliefs.
Here are the three main beliefs of REBT therapy:
You are worthy of self-acceptance regardless of previous struggles and/or mistakes. You do not have to hold shame or guilt with you for your entire life.
Other people are also worthy of embrace, even if their behavior does not always match your wishes.
Negative things will inevitably happen in your and everyone’s life. Life is not always positive and, rationally, there is no reason to expect life to be positive 100% of the time.
What are the ABCs of REBT?
In order to understand how irrational thinking leads to emotional reactions, Albert Ellis created an A-B-C model.
The A-B-C model stands for…
A - Activating event (A challenging situation)
B - Beliefs (Your thoughts and evaluations regarding the challenging situation)
C - Consequences (Emotions and/or behavior)
In everyday life, we are very quick to move from A to C without trying to understand the middle ground, also known as B. For example, if you have a big meeting coming up at work, your “A” factor, it may make you feel anxious, your “C” factor. What you may fail to realize is that it is your interpretation of the events that cause “C”, not the events themselves.
An Example of The REBT ABC Model
Now that you know about the ABC model, you may be able to start drawing some conclusions about your own life and the anxieties you are experiencing.
While your REBT therapist will discuss this with you in counseling, to further help you in this journey, take a look at the following example:
Activating event - You have to give a major presentation at work despite your phobia of public speaking
Belief (irrational) - You are going to mess up the presentation, and embarrass yourself in front of your colleagues and boss
Consequence - You feel anxious
In this specific example, you may be tempted to say that the major presentation you must give is what is triggering your anxiety; however, that is not true. You only feel anxious because of what you are telling yourself- “I am a terrible public speaker.”
How can REBT help me lessen my irrational fears surrounding my anxiety?
The irrational beliefs that you hold are all variations of the pressure you place on yourself on a daily basis. These can also be demands you place on other people or the world in general. One of the most important steps of the REBT process is recognizing your underlying beliefs. In most cases, an irrational fear or thought manifests as absolutes. So, think of language such as “I must”, “I should”, “I cannot”, and so on.
Some examples of common irrational fears include:
I must do well for myself because, if I do not, I will be worthless.
If people do not act how I want them to act, they must be punished because that behavior is unacceptable.
I must get exactly what I want because I cannot stand not getting my wishes fulfilled.
If I avoid life’s difficulties or challenges, I will be happier.
My happiness is controlled by external forces as I do not have control over it.
When you hold underlying beliefs like the above examples, it is impossible to respond to an activating event in a healthy way.
When you hold strong expectations of yourself and you are unable to be flexible, it can lead to:
Disappointment
Complaints
Regret
Anxiety
A REBT Exercise to Lessen Anxiety
In order to identify, fight, or replace any irrational beliefs, there are some questions you may find helpful to ask yourself.
Try to answer the following questions when you are feeling anxious:
What is the activated event that triggered an anxious response in you?
What are the results? What are your emotions?
What is your internal dialogue that is contributing to making yourself feel that specific way? What demands are you making of yourself?
What is the evidence that your inner belief is true? Can you prove it? If you continue to make it true, what effects are you creating?
What do you want, but not need, in order to feel okay?
You may even find it helpful to write down the answers to your questions so you can organize your thoughts and evaluate them more clearly. When doing this, you can integrate your self-talk to move towards a place of rational thinking. While it may take time, you are able to learn how to control your responses to situations you view as unpleasant through consistent practice. For more information, check out our blog “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Negative Self-Talk.”
Does Anchor Therapy offer REBT counseling?
Yes! At Anchor Therapy, we have REBT therapists who have training and experience in the world of behavioral therapy. Our REBT counselors offer in-person counseling in our downtown Hoboken, New Jersey location and virtual sessions to residents of Bergen County, New Jersey; Montclair, New Jersey; and Jersey City, New Jersey. We also have male and female REBT therapists who are licensed to help residents of New York, North Carolina, Utah, and Florida.
What REBT techniques do Anchor Therapy’s therapists use?
Our REBT therapists use different techniques in their mental health counseling sessions.
One of the main techniques that REBT therapists use is disputation. Disputation refers to the process of changing your beliefs. The disputation process teaches you life-long skills which can assist you in managing your emotional response and mental health as a whole.
When undergoing this technique, your REBT mental health counselor will challenge your irrational beliefs using relatively direct means. For example, they may ask you questions about your beliefs head-on. This can cause you to rethink about them. Or, perhaps your behavioral therapist asks you to imagine a point of view that you have not heard of or thought of before.
Each therapist has a unique approach to behavioral counseling, but the main point of disputation is challenging your beliefs. In REBT counseling, your therapist will be compassionate, but they also will take an honest and logical approach to push you towards altering your thoughts and behavioral patterns.
A second popular therapeutic technique amongst our therapists at Anchor Therapy is targeting emotional responses. One of the pillars of REBT therapy is learning how to replace your irrational thoughts with more logical, healthier ones. The process of doing this can feel daunting, and it is normal to feel discomfort when first beginning this mental health journey towards a more positive mindset.
REBT uses cognitive strategies, but emotions and behaviors are a part of this form of psychotherapy as well. Your REBT therapist will not only help you identify and fight irrational beliefs, but your counselor will also work closely with you to hone in on your emotional responses that occur alongside troublesome thoughts.
Some techniques that you can use to target your emotional responses are:
Journaling
Guided imagery
Meditation (Read our previous blog “How Meditation Can Lead to Stress Reduction”)
What are the benefits of REBT mental health counseling?
REBT offers an action-oriented approach to psychotherapy. In other words, you are actively working to manage your emotions, cognitions, and behaviors.
Research has proven time and time again that REBT is effective in reducing irrational beliefs and altering behavioral patterns.
REBT has many mental health benefits, such as:
Reduce feelings of anger, anxiety, depression, and distress
Improve health and overall quality of life
Enhanced school and work performance
Better social skills
How can REBT specifically help with my anxiety?
REBT can be helpful in reducing symptoms for people struggling with anxiety. With REBT therapy, the positive consequences of counseling continue even after you end REBT therapy sessions.
REBT shows positive results for adults experiencing anxiety. This can be due to REBT’s emphasis on some of the following techniques:
Pinpointing cognitive mistakes
Challenging irrational thoughts
Separating yourself as a human being from your thoughts
Practicing radical self-acceptance
How can I get started with Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy?
If you are struggling with your mental health and you think that REBT could be a good fit for you, we encourage you to reach out to us here at Anchor Therapy today! You can do so by completing the Contact Form on our website. From there, our Intake Coordinator, Victoria, will respond to your inquiry by matching you with a REBT therapist on our team who suits your needs and is the best fit for you from a clinical standpoint.
During your first intake session with your REBT counselor, you and your therapist will discuss:
What approach they will use in REBT counseling and how they can assist you with your specific concerns
What their therapeutic process is
How often you will meet for sessions (e.g., twice a week, weekly basis, biweekly basis, and so on)
Your timeline for treatment
Overall, a skilled REBT therapist will help you see the links between the activating event in your life, and your beliefs and the ultimate consequences. The awareness you gain from REBT mental health counseling can help you understand your irrational beliefs and thoughts. This can lead to better and more positive reactions and outcomes.
Victoria Scala
is the Social Media Manager, Intake Coordinator, and Office Manager at Anchor Therapy in Hoboken, New Jersey. She is a graduate of the Honors College of Rutgers University-Newark. In her roles, Victoria is committed to managing the office’s social media presence and prioritizing clients' needs.
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