Michael Neenan

Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is a system of psychotherapy which teaches individuals how their belief systems largely determine how they feel about and act towards events in their lives.  For example, three people working for the same firm lose their jobs at the same time.  The first person is angry because she believes she should have been promoted and not sacked; the second person is depressed because she believes that without a job she is worthless; and the third person is happy to have lost her job because she always found it boring.  The important lesson to learn from this story is that though the loss of the job contributes to the various emotional reactions, it does not cause them: how each individual perceives being made redundant is the key factor in determining these emotional reactions.

REBT's emphasis on the way thought influences feeling places it within the cognitive-behavioural school of therapy of which it is a founding member.

Further information about this therapeutic approach written by the author can be found in "Introduction to Counselling and Psychotherapy: The Essential Guide", edited by Professor Stephen Palmer and published by Sage, London.  Price £18.99.

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