CENT PAPER NUMBER ONE (A):

RETHINKING THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MODELS UNDERPINNING RATIONAL EMOTIVE BEHAVIOUR THERAPY (REBT)

Copyright (c) Dr Jim Byrne, December 2009

1. Introductory Comments

Cognitive Emotive Narrative Therapy (CENT) arose out of my attempts to reconcile Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and certain other elements of therapy systems that I found useful: commencing with Transactional Analysis (TA), and Zen philosophy.  It was also shaped by my discovery of some limitations of certain aspects of REBT theory.  However, much of the foundations of REBT still serve as important elements of CENT.

Over the period 1999-2005 I was in correspondence with Dr Albert Ellis, the creator of REBT, concerning my thinking about various aspects of REBT theory and practice, and I was always totally open about those aspects that I found most helpful, and those aspects that caused me some concern.  For examples: I was not convinced that 'Socratic Questioning' was always a helpful process; I felt that REBT did not have an adequate 'theory of personality'; I had some ideas about how to scientifically investigate the effectiveness of REBT; and so on.

Before I tackle the substance of this paper, which is a defence of the core model of REBT from some unsupportable claims made by Bond and Dryden (1996), I would like to review my take on the strengths of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy.

The great strength of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is that it teaches a philosophy of life.  In a nutshell, this is it:

"If you will just give up ‘awfulizing', ‘demandingness', ‘low frustration tolerance', and ‘condemning and damning yourself, others and the world', then your life will become calmer and happier".

Let us now look at what is involved in implementing such a philosophy in your own life.

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