Issue #27: Challenging Your Beliefs
Learn about reshaping negative thoughts with 'Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy'
Dear mental health advocate,
I can’t believe the first month of 2023 is already almost over. Sometimes it feels like time is going faster than I can keep up, but guess that is just the way it works. I am still trying to keep my resolutions going, although it can be challenging in certain moments. Hope yours are still going strong if you made any!
As two weeks went by, here’s a new free edition of The Present Psychologist Paper. In this issue I will discuss how you can challenge your negative beliefs about yourself with ‘Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy’ (REBT) which was created by psychotherapist Albert Ellis. Hope you find this insightful!
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Challenging Your Negative Beliefs
The interesting part about psychology is that there are various kinds of therapy available to help with all sorts of mental struggles. No therapy is the same, they all use their own version of techniques and are based on a certain school of thought. A lot of research is being done on the effectivity of therapies and also which one would work best for a specific disorder or issue. Psychologists have worked hard to theorize and build therapies to help others. Not each therapy is useful for a particular problem, and the same is true based on someone’s personality and wishes. What is effective for one person is not necessary effective for another.
One very popular type of treatment is psychotherapy. A famous psychologist named Albert Ellis created a specific type of psychotherapy called ‘Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy’. The reason why I want to discuss this is because the reasoning behind REBT and the used techniques are very interesting. They are based on our belief system and how our emotions are tied to it. Ellis claimed that not our experiences lead to an emotional reaction, but instead your personal belief system causes your reaction. He saw in his patients a lot of irrational thinking and he theorized that those thoughts were responsible for emotional problems.
How irrational thinking hurts us more than we think
As a human being we are able to think logically. But a very common misconception is that because we can do so, we believe we behave rationally most of the time. Unfortunately, our brain is also wired to give priority towards negative thoughts in many cases, as this had an evolutionary advantage. If something bad happened or was about to occur, we had to pay attention as our survival chances would increase. Maybe you have experienced the same: if ten good things happen but one really bad thing, it is likely that you keep thinking about the negative one. This is a good fail-safe mechanism, but it can also stand in our way.
The reason why: it can sometimes promote irrational or extreme thought patterns and responses. How logical we sometimes think, we all suffer from illogical or untrue thoughts. We all can deal at times with the tendency to come up with extreme conclusions. Think about the following example: if you are insecure and you fail at something important, like a graduation exam, you might feel worthless and think: I will never be good enough. While it is pretty normal to have such thoughts, it can be a problem. Ellis saw such beliefs as irrational, damaging and a clear example of self-sabotaging behavior as the consequences emotionally could be quite severe.
On the other hand, Albert Ellis strongly believed that rational thinking was the magic concept here. If you think logically and based in reality, then it means that you automatically are more tolerant towards yourself. It also means that when bad things happen or when you feel upset, you are able to deal with it and put your situation into perspective without assuming the worst. An important side note here is that rational thinking still takes negative feelings and outcomes into account, but then in a way that is more based on what is reasonable to expect. For example, yes, you did fail the exam and maybe it was partially your fault, but it does not mean you are worthless and will fail next time too.
Using REBT to challenge your negative beliefs
According to Ellis, many of us are conditioned in the sense that our responses to our environment and experiences feel so automatic, that we often believe our reaction is caused by the event. Ellis his goal was to convince people and teach them that while an experience can influence a feeling or reaction, it does not necessarily cause it. He created ‘Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy’ (REBT) to help with this. In this treatment, an individual will look at both the emotional response, the belief system and their behavior. Ideally, they will recognize their irrational beliefs and will replace these with more rational ones.
Initially, REBT will start off with the therapist asking the client to share which beliefs they have about themselves. Then, they will look for the reason behind these beliefs. How come these have been rationalized? Sometimes, our previous experiences have a lot of influence on our belief systems. If your trust has been broken several times, it could well be possible that you believe ‘you are not worthy of trust’ or ‘no one cares about me, I must be worthless’. The issue here is that irrational thinking and such negative beliefs can be so very strong, that they likely will be hard to challenge. REBT then tries to work hard on ‘bending’ these beliefs into more rational, useful ones.
During REBT, you will look at several patterns in your thinking, behavior and feelings. Below is an example of what happens:
Adverse event takes place. You failed your graduation exams and it caused you a lot of distress. Now you are suffering.
Belief system is triggered. You believe that you are worthless and will never be able to graduate. These are your initial thoughts about the adverse event.
Feeling the consequences. Your irrational belief system based on the adverse event will cause you to feel sad, depressed and angry.
Disputing your beliefs. The idea then is to focus on challenging your initial beliefs. For example, thinking ‘No, it is not true I am worthless!’
The healing effect. Ultimately, reshaping your beliefs will give you the opportunity to think differently like ‘Next time I will be more prepared to actually pass my exams, I’m sure I can do this!’.
REBT is based on the notion that although we are influenced by our upbringing, eduction and genes, we ultimately are responsible ourselves for what we think about ourselves. With enough training, it then could be possible to change our negative perceptions about ourselves. Nowadays, CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) is very popular, which has found its roots in REBT.
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My name is Alf Lokkertsen and I am a psychologist and writer, creating mental health content for you. My passion is to raise awareness about topics related to psychology, as it has helped me greatly in my personal life. I strongly believe that many problems could be avoided or dealt with better if everyone had some in-depth psychology knowledge.
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The big forgiveness issue has been forgiving me . . for things I should have done then. What seems to be helping is the realization that I did the best I could at the time - sure there were better options, sure mistakes were made, but given who I was and what I knew at the time - it was my best effort.