Transcript Cognitive Therapy - Understanding Marriage, Family, and

Cognitive Therapy
Chapter 13
Rational Emotive Therapy - Albert Ellis
Cognitive Therapy - Aaron Beck
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Albert Ellis ABC Theory
 Men are disturbed not by things, but the view they take
of things. (Epictetus)
 How we interpret events is important
 Purpose – help clients straighten out crooked irrational
thinking
 A - Activating Event
 B - Thoughts/Belief about A
 C - Behavioral and Emotional Consequences
 Ellis believes it is our irrational beliefs and selfstatements at B which result in emotional and
behavioral problems at C.
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Irrational beliefs cause problems – must
convince clients beliefs are irrational
• I must be loved and approved by everyone
• I must be thoroughly adequate and competent in
•
•
•
•
every respect
It is awful when things don’t work out the way that
I want them to
People need to be dependent on someone stronger
than themselves
One should be upset over other people’s problems
There is always a perfect solution to human
problems.
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Albert Ellis - Rational Emotive Therapy
•
Ellis devised an A-B-C Theory.
A
Activating
Event
Break up in
relationship.

B

Belief about A
(Thoughts)
C
Emotional and
Behavioral
Consequences
“This is awful, I can’t
Feels depressed, cries,
stand it.” (self
unable to work.
statements)
“This is unfortunate. I am Normal emotions.
sad, but it’s not the end of Continues to work.
the world.”
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Situation
(Activating Event)
Not getting into
graduate school
Having to participate in
class discussion
Negative Self
Statement
“I’m really dumb. I will
never amount to anything.”
“Everyone else knows more
than I do, so what’s the use
of saying anything. I’m so
stupid.”
Positive Self
Statement
“I’ll reapply next year.
There are other programs
I can apply to. It’s
unbelievably
competitive.”
“I have as much to say
as anyone else and my
ideas are valid. It’s OK
to be nervous.”
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Rational Emotive Therapy
• Ellis confronts people with their irrational beliefs and
teaches them to (D) dispute these beliefs which will
result in different feelings/behavior
• Encourages them to make positive self statements
• Gives homework assignments so they can practice
positive self statements and rational responding
• Practice, practice, practice
• Reinforce success.
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Beck’s Cognitive Therapy
 Beck uses the term cognitive distortions
 These are illogical errors in thinking
 Examples of cognitive distortions are: (also see
casebook p. 173)
Arbitrary inference
Selective abstraction
Overgeneralization
Polarized thinking.
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Cognitive Distortions
• Arbitrary Inference - reaching conclusions
without sufficient and relevant evidence
• Example: You make the assumption that
other people are looking down on you and
you are so convinced that you don’t bother
to check it out.
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• Selective abstraction - forming a conclusion
based on an isolated detail. You pick out a
negative detail in a situation and dwell on it
exclusively
• Example: A student after a test thinks
exclusively about the questions he missed and
concludes he will flunk out of college. He got
83 out of 100 correct and made a B.
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 Overgeneralization - holding extreme beliefs
on the basis of a single incident and applying
this belief inappropriately to other situations
 The pain of rejection may be due to
overgeneralization
 Example: A shy person asks someone for a date
but is turned down. He concludes he will never
get a date and will be lonely and miserable
forever.
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 Polarized thinking - thinking in all-ornothing terms or either/or extremes
 Often forms the basis for perfectionism
 Example: A straight A student who
receives a B says that now he is a total
failure.
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 Therapeutic Collaboration - the client and
therapist work together to frame the client’s
conclusions in the form of a testable hypothesis
 This working together is called collaborative
empiricism
 Beck often asks questions such as “What is the
evidence for” or says “Let’s examine that”.
 Beck works with Richard
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