Rational-Emotive Therapy

Many hard-driving, achievement-oriented individuals cognitively evaluate themselves overly harshly in terms of their performances.

Albert Ellis is one famous psychologist who proposed a clinical approach to dealing with emotional problems through changing thoughts. His psychotherapy is called rational-emotive, since the goal of therapy is to eliminate irrational thoughts and feelings by replacing them with more realistic cognitions.

This approach “contends that people do not absolutely need love or success and they have considerable ability to think about and change their self-defeating emotions.”

There are three basic tenets to rational-emotive therapy. The first tenet is that self-acceptance is a purely arbitrary matter. There are no absolute definitions. Whether people perceive themselves as saints or sinners, winners or losers, has a lot more to do with the ideas rattling around in their heads rather than with any objective guidelines.

Secondly, Albert Ellis introduces a novel concept. Maybe people do not have to judge themselves at all! Can you imagine a world where no one feels inadequate? Or even a single person who never feels incompetent or lacking in some way?

Finally, Dr. Ellis declares that virtually all mental illness is the result of what he calls “magical thinking.” In this sort of ratiocination, people set up “shoulds”, “oughts”, and “musts” in regard to their own or other people’s behaviors. The obsessive thougths that accompany these three words cause people to experience a great deal of emotional pain. Ellis believes that psychotherapy should encourage the individual to minimize the needless pain of anxiety and depression and to maximize the pleasures he or she experiences through loving relationships and creative work.

“It is an exceptionally clear-cut theory of personality disturbances – or human demandingness – that hypothesizes that people do not get upset but instead upset themselves by insisting that (a) they should be outstandingly loved and accomplished; (b) other people should be incredibly fair and giving; and (c) the world should be exceptionally easy and munificent.”

Ellis is a realist, however. He realizes that people will evaluate themselves. So, he tells them, do not judge yourself as an entire entity. Rather, rate your personality traits and behaviors. You can have a bad day (or play a poor game of basketball, even at the national championship level) without being a bad person or a loser.

One of my clients once told me, “Failure just means I haven’t succeeded yet.” He was a very severe chronic alcoholic, so depressed that he had scarred himself multiple times on his arms and chest with a knife. He now has a wife, a steady job, and a kid on the way. But even three years ago, when he first began treatment with me, he knew that he had the potential to succeed and would eventually do so.

I think “shoulds” and “oughts” have their place - - to motivate us to keep on striving to improve ourselves.

In my own life, I take a great deal of comfort from looking back to where I was ten years ago, and comparing that person to where I am now, professionally and personally. I take even more pleasure in realizing, that because growing and changing is such a high priority for me, I will continue to improve, in different ways, hopefully for the rest of my life.