LovePrevails Posted April 22, 2014 Posted April 22, 2014 Hey has anyone got any experience with REBT? What are your experiences? How would you rate it as a form of therapy?
Sal9000 Posted April 22, 2014 Posted April 22, 2014 I think it has a lot of merits. I read some books by Ellis and they are pretty convincing. However, since then new therapeutic approaches have come up that include methods on how to deal with stress more effectively (ACT is one example).Here you can find Ellis' approach in a nutshell. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKby0E_U_F4 I can recommend 'A guide to rational living' by Ellis when you are interested in books.
LovePrevails Posted April 22, 2014 Author Posted April 22, 2014 Thanks I heard that video a year or two ago and enjoyed it very much as well! I just wondering sometimes if REBT is just encouraging dissociation. Trying to think away emotions is what most people do anyway, isn't it? They try to rationalize them away by changing their thoughts Does it really work?
GYre0ePJhZ Posted April 22, 2014 Posted April 22, 2014 I read Edelstein's Three Minute Therapy last summer who practices Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy. It's been a while, so I don't claim what I write here as definitive. I hope I don't misrepresent it, so if anyone think I do, please let me know. What I found valuable with the approach was that it encourages discussion between the different parts of yourself with a rational arbitrator to evaluate what your parts are saying (Example: What is your evidence for this statement you are thinking about this person/yourself/situation?. I don't think that it goes deep enough though, in that I got the impression that if a utterance is not deemed rational as per your arbitrator, it is to be brushed aside. I think, to the contrary, that it is worthwhile to dig deeper in what that part of you really is communicating. At some point in your life this statement was 100 % rational as a tool for surviving in your environment, and it fundamentally wants to help you survive. I also think there is a risk of ending up in an exhausting war against your emotions with this approach. "I feel angry because of this and that" -> "You have no reason to be, what is your proof for this and that?" -> "But I still feel angry and now I also feel frustrated because you don't empathize with me" -> *Repression*. Rinse and repeat and you go from this holier than thou Roark-type elevated above your emotions to a bitter and entitled Toohey-caricature of rationalizations and far-fetched abstractions over your inner life in no-time. Conclusion: It is valuable to an extent, there are some risks to watch out for, and I don't think it goes deep enough.
LovePrevails Posted April 29, 2014 Author Posted April 29, 2014 here is Albert Ellis treating Gloria I don't think his style compares to Carl Rogers , but he gets better after 18 minutes
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