Walter J. Matweychuk, Ph.D.

Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one. – Bruce Lee REBT is a tough-minded approach to life’s challenges. When patients discuss their greatest fears and disappointments with me, some of these may seem unlikely to occur. As an REBT psychotherapist, I will initially not point out … Read more

The road to personal growth is through calculated risk-taking and discomfort. In Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, I teach you attitudes that help you bear discomfort and take calculated risks. REBT works because it focuses on getting people out of their comfort zone and encourages them to accept that change does not come easily. Personal growth … Read more

This Saturday, August 7th, marks the first anniversary of the Saturday Rational Emotive Behavioral Conversation Hour on Zoom. The purpose of this hour is to share with the world the lessons, ideas, strategies, and philosophy of Dr. Albert Ellis and his REBT theory. Ellis trained me, and over the thirty-one years of my career as a psychologist, I … Read more

Dr. Albert Ellis, the originator of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), changed the psychotherapy paradigm. In 1956 at the American Psychological Association in Chicago, he gave a presentation where he argued the most efficient and thorough way of helping people in psychotherapy was to offer them a choice in how they think about things. This … Read more

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) aims to free people from unhealthy emotional reactions humans all too easily experience. As fallible humans, we tend to demand perfection in ourselves, others, and even of the conditions of life. REBT is a leading psychotherapeutic approach for overcoming perfectionism because it targets the rigid and extreme attitudes which are … Read more

Albert Ellis argued that one way of thinking about emotional disturbance was to see it as extreme thinking. He taught that fallible humans, all humans, are prone to taking themselves, others, and life too seriously or not seriously enough. He often attempted to use humor to help people give up the three general ideas they … Read more

Fallible humans anger themselves. We all have done it. When we do, we undermine our efforts to solve problems creatively. We quit on the task. Once under the dysfunctional spell of anger, we experience biased thinking and may see future efforts as futile. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) teaches that at the base of this … Read more

Note: On Saturdays, I hold a free Zoom conversation hour where I take a volunteer and discuss one of their problems. If you have an emotional problem you would like to discuss with me, perhaps you will volunteer and I will show you how to think in a more effective way about your problem. I will … Read more

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is a philosophy of acceptance. It encourages you to apply flexible and non-extreme thinking to the cultivation of unconditional self, other, and life acceptance. This full acceptance of life and other people have some applicability to virtually all of life’s many problems. From birth to death, loss, failure, and disappointment are part of … Read more

Let us be honest with each other. Mother Nature screwed up when she made human beings. She probably meant to create saints but failed miserably. Because she did, humans needed to develop ethical standards, laws, and other codes of conduct. If our nature were not to err in our interpersonal affairs, there would be no … Read more