Rational Emotive Therapy
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Albert Ellis (1953) created Rational Emotional Therapy. RET is a school
of psychotherapy that teaches people to recognize their
negative/irrational/self-defeating thoughts and the effect that these
thoughts have on their emotions.
Tenets Of RET:
- you are responsible for your own emotions and behaviors
- your harmful emotions and unhealthy behaviors are a product of your irrational thoughts
- you can learn more realistic views with practice and let them become a part of you
- you’ll experience a deeper acceptance of yourself and an improved quality of life
Some common “automatic negative thoughts” include:
- it
is necessary (and possible) to please most of the people most of the
time (and have unfailing approval/love/positive attention)
- it is necessary (and possible) to be unfailingly competent and nearly perfect
- it is intolerably horrible when things don’t go our way
- the past determines the future
- happiness can be achieved with inactivity, passivity and leisure
- we are helpless and cannot control or change the way we feel
- it is necessary to be more focused on others’ needs than one’s own
- when people disapprove of you it means you are unworthy, wrong or bad
- there is such a thing as a perfect person and a perfect relationship
- your worth as a person is measured by how much you achieve or produce
- anger is always bad and destructive
- others should be able to know what we need/want without us telling them
- I
should/can wait to start a new behavior until I have the motivation
(instead of realizing that often motivation follows behavior)
- Life is supposed to be (“fair,” “easy,” “fun”). All the time spent otherwise it is terrible all the time.