Walter J. Matweychuk, Ph.D. The key to coping well with life’s adversities is to question your rigid and extreme beliefs. Rigidity and extreme beliefs lead to unhealthy negative emotions. The unhealthy negative emotions and their healthy counterparts are listed below: 1. anxiety (vs. healthy concern) 2. depression (vs. healthy sadness, sorrow) 3. shame (vs. healthy disappointment) 4. guilt … Read more
Coping with Distasteful Behavior in Others 3/9/2015 Realize that other people really do not make you upset. We make ourselves upset over what others do, fail to do, or how they disappoint us. This is the emotionally liberating message of REBT. Our rigid and extreme beliefs about what people do are really what ‘hurts’ us. […]
1. I make myself upset. Others only give me the opportunity to make myself upset. 2. Rigid beliefs lead to emotional upset. 3. When I am upset I am more likely to say and do things I later regret. 4. I have the capacity to be more flexible by adopting flexible beliefs. 5. A rigid … Read more
15 REBT Based Things to Remember When Having Problems With Your Partner 2/26/2015 1. I make myself upset. Others only give me the opportunity to make myself upset. 2. Rigid beliefs lead to emotional upset. 3. When I am upset I am more likely to say and do things I later regret. 4. I have […]
If you are looking to overcome procrastination keep in mind a few basic ideas. If you must do something perfectly well or demand to even know how to do it perfectly well before you start doing a task you will avoid the task. Often people have beliefs like: 1. It is too hard… 2. It … Read more
REBT’s psychological fitness is like physical fitness. You need to maintain your psychological flexibility, your non-extreme thinking, and your self-acceptance for those inevitable times you mess up. Here are four good beliefs to call to mind each day: 1. I want what I want, but I never absolutely have to have what I want. … Read more
First Control What You Really Can Control 1/2/2015 In Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) we emphasize controlling what an individual can control. Often patients request help in responding to other people. Patients report that the other person in their life is unfairly criticizing, mistreating, disrespecting, insulting, or hurting them in some way. The patient then […]
Each day think of the ABC model of emotion. Remind yourself that your beliefs at point B play a very important role in how you react at point C when things go against you at point A. Control your beliefs. You can control this one thing. You cannot control other people, you cannot control what … Read more
Anger is a terribly self-defeating emotion. In my sessions with patients I do my best to show them how to give up their unhealthy feelings of anger. People have great difficulty letting go of anger but it never helps them cope with their problems or a problematic relationship. Sometimes people get angry at themselves. … Read more
“When confronted with a situation which we cannot change, we are then challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Viktor Frankl survived a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps. His book Man’s Search For Meaning describes his ordeal and how his own beliefs and internal coping capacities allowed him to carry … Read more
