Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

References

Ice Breaker

40 Icebreakers for Small Groups. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://insight.typepad.co.uk/40_icebreakers_for_small_groups.pdf

Corey, G. (2008). Theory & Practice of Group Counseling (7th ed.). Belmon, California: Thomson Brooks/Cole

Plum Tree. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.theplumtree.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Progressive-Muscle-Relaxation.pdf

You are stranded on a desert island...

One book

One luxury item

One other item of your choosing

The "Me Shield"

Quadrant 1: What I do WELL in school

Quadrant 2: What I LIKE to do

Quadrant 3: What makes me HAPPY

Quadrant 4: What makes me feel SAFE

Quadrant 5: My superhero name

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

Group Counseling

Session

Applications

for School

Coping skills are crucial at the middle school developmental level.

REBT techniques are effective for teaching healthy coping skills and overcoming negative beliefs about self and others.

REBT works well in a group setting and can be successful with minimal sessions.

Applying REBT

REBT skills, once learned, can be used by the individual to overcome other faulty beliefs

Provide group members with tools for reducing or eliminating unhealthy emotions

Additional Counseling Goals

Demonstrate to clients that their beliefs and self-talk are keeping them disturbed

Teach clients how to check and modify their values and attitudes about themselves and others

Teach clients how self-destructive beliefs can be countered by sensible coping statements

Applying REBT

REBT works well in short-term, group settings

Goals of REBT Group Work

Rational Emotive

Behavior Therapy

Group Counseling Session

Nancy Root

SCHC/554

November 19, 2015

Kim Spease

Key Features of REBT

People tend rate their acts and behaviors as “good” or “bad,” “worthy” or “unworthy” but also to rate themselves as a total person on the basis of those performances.

This self-rating process—“If I fail at something, I’m a failure in life”—constitutes one of the main sources of our emotional disturbances.

• REBT emphasizes therapist's ability to challenge, confront, probe, and convince the client to practice activities that will lead to constructive changes in thinking and behaving.

• The most efficient way to bring about lasting emotional and behavioral change is for clients to change their way of thinking.

One of the first cognitive behavior therapies, remains a major cognitive behavioral approach

Instead of sticking to any one modality, effective counselors are flexible and creative in their use of methods, making sure to tailor the techniques to the unique needs of each client

REBT Assumes: We are not disturbed solely by our early or later environments but that we have strong inclinations to disturb ourselves consciously and unconsciously

How: By changing our goals and values into "shoulds," "oughts," and "musts"

REBT Therapists: Employ active/directive techniques (teaching, suggestion, persuasion, and homework assignments) and challenge clients to substitute a rational belief system for an irrational one

Key Concepts of REBT

1. Thinking, feeling, and behaving continually interact with and influence one another.

2. Emotional disturbances are caused or contributed to by biological and environmental factors.

3. We are affected by the people and the things around us.

4. When unfortunate events occur, we tend to create irrational beliefs about these events.

5. Unfortunate events by themselves do not cause emotional disturbance; rather, irrational beliefs about these events.

6. Most of us have a tendency to make and keep ourselves emotionally disturbed.

7. Once irrational beliefs are discovered, they can then be countered.

8. By actively and persistently disputing our irrational beliefs, we can create a new philosophy to help us feel better, get better, and stay better.

9. If we hope to change, we need to (1) acknowledge responsibility, (2) examine how we think, feel, and behave when we are needlessly disturbing ourselves, and (3) push ourselves to the hard work that it will take to change.