REBT IN ACTION!
This is an extract from my book, Breaking the Vicious Circle of Psychological Misery.
The diagram below, allied with detailed explanation has helped many, many clients and therapists understand a very complex series of symptoms that interplay on one another resulting from perception, demands, inaccurate definitions and memory. These are the driving forces in creating and perpetuating psychological misery.
Similar to many therapists, I could trace my symptoms to specific events and people. However, attributing those debilitating symptoms to the events that had happened or to other people was merely apportioning blame and creating self-pity which was addictive and destructive and was conveniently and ultimately avoiding taking responsibility for myself and keeping myself stuck. When I understood the effects of a labile nervous system due to prolonged stress then becoming fearful of the symptoms themselves, exacerbated by or living with an ongoing stressful situation, physical illness and/or misuse of alcohol/drugs were enough to create and perpetuate a fear-bewilderment-fear cycle. This alone would keep a person stuck in psychological and physical misery.
Focusing in and actively disputing a person’s irrational (non-self helping) beliefs, the prime movers in the creation of the above symptoms, was the goal of Dr Albert Ellis, originator of cognitive therapy and rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT).
It is fundamental in helping neuroses that the almost consistently presenting rigid perfectionist demands arising probably from the inbuilt human fear of failure, subsequent inevitable debilitating and consistently presenting guilt, certain life events, the aforementioned labile nervous system, symptoms, and resultant inaccurate definitions about self, others and the world are highlighted and helped towards resolution by the therapist.
It is too highly preferable that journeying into the non-sensical be avoided for the future well being of your client;
“Just as Sigmund Freud (according to my own theories, again) was a natural archaeologist and a brilliant fabricator of (and overgeneralizer) about theories of the “origins” of human personality and disturbance. And just as Carl Jung was a natural devotee of mythology (and of much religious and mystical claptrap that inherently seems to go with that kind of thing). So do I believe that I innately and inherently enjoy logico-empirical thinking (as well as ripping up of fanti- illogical and-empirical thinking). Therefore, I hypothesize my own involvement with rational scheming and planning for my own comfort nicely evolved, and therefore, my lifelong interest in rational emotive behavioural processes has continues…let us be eternally vigilant, always skeptical (as good scientists are) about all of them. Including REBT”.
Dr Ellis “All Out”
No doubt a pejorative metaphor will shortly be published in response!
If you preferred to have £10 and only had £9 when you checked your pocket you would probably be concerned, however if you demanded you must have £10 and only had £9 you would feel anxious.
Choice is the key word here; to borrow an Ericksonian metaphor, If there was a plank of wood a foot wide stretching from this wall to the other and I offered you a £1000 to walk across it you would probably say “no problem”, but if I said what if there was a pit of snakes underneath it, you would probably become extremely doubtful and fearful. This proves nothing other than your focus of attention has moved from the plank of wood to the pit of snakes and so have your beliefs!
Metaphors and breathing techniques (helpful for keeping carbon dioxide levels high in blood stream) are not blanket panaceas.
Actively proving the existence, then disputing and challenging the negative automatic thoughts (NATS) and irrational beliefs (IB’s) in a pro-active educational way will do more to help the person maintain peace of mind long term and walk across the plank of wood! The use of hypnotherapy thereafter allows the client to comfortably become more self-aware and adept at spotting the said NATS and IB’s and initiating mutually agreed more self helping ones.
The breaking of psychological misery with knowledge, understanding and common sense is indeed a very philosophical substantial approach that consistently has proven to work.