Know Your ABCs to Do Effective Self-Therapy

Many people who try to use REBT do not accurately know what each letter stands for in the ABC framework. When this happens, they cannot effectively do self-therapy and achieve healthy negative emotions and self-helping behavior, two explicit goals of REBT self-therapy. REBT will not be effective until you clearly understand what each letter of the ABC model of emotion stands for and the components of the therapeutic self-help process, represented by the letters DEF.

Resistance to Using REBT Worksheets 

REBT therapists encourage people to use the various self-help worksheets to guide them in their self-therapy efforts. This email links to my self-help sheet (see a brown button to download). People too often refuse to use such worksheets. Most people try to challenge their rigid and extreme attitudes in their heads rather than use the self-help worksheet. Not using the worksheet is a mistake and an easy path that generally does not lead to good therapeutic results. I don’t have an accurate understanding of why this resistance occurs. Low discomfort tolerance (laziness) or perfectionism probably explains why people make this self-therapeutic effort in their heads rather than on paper. Although I have used REBT on myself for over 35 years, I still occasionally use my worksheet when I am upset to gain insight into how I am disturbing myself and how I can change my attitude to suffer less and respond more effectively to life’s losses, frustrations, and disappointments.

A Simpler Alternative to a REBT Worksheet

If you do not wish to use the worksheet, rather than doing the self-therapy in your head, you could take a piece of paper and write the letters ABCDEF down the left-hand side of the page. Although you may not initially agree, analyzing your emotional upset and how the different components interact to produce your disturbance will be easier if you write things down. Many people like to do what is called journaling. I am describing what could be termed REBT journaling, which is more focused and aims to alleviate the suffering you are experiencing.

Whether you take my advice and use my worksheet or a plain piece of white paper or try to do this all in your head, I will delineate and explain what each letter stands for and what constitutes each component of the ABC framework with the added components represented by the letters DEF. You must know which part of your emotional episode goes where to solve your self-defeating emotional problem and achieve a good result through REBT self-therapy.

What Each Letter Represents

A = Adversity

B = Basic Attitude

C = Emotional consequences and Behavioral consequences

D = Disputing

E = Effective new philosophy

F = Functional new behavior

Adversity at Point A of the ABC Model

REBT defines Adversity as a negative state of affairs. You need to distinguish the Situational Adversity from the Critical Adversity.

What is referred to as the Situational Adversity is an objective description of the situation or Adversity you find yourself facing. The Situational Adversity can be one that occurred in the past, one occurring in the present, or one that may unfold in the future. Examples include:

1. You remember discussing future career paths with your parents at the kitchen table. (Objective description of a past situation where a conversation took place)
2. You are requesting a date with someone you like and awaiting their answer. (Objective description of a present situation).
3. You have a job interview scheduled for tomorrow at 2 pm. (Objective description of a future situation)

The Critical Adversity

You must go beyond an objective description of the Situational Adversary and identify what REBT refers to as the Critical Adversity. The Critical Adversity is the critical element of the situation that you find most distressing. Identifying this critical element helps to bring into focus the self-defeating thinking you hold. It is often a negatively tinged hunch of what has occurred, what is occurring, or what will unfold. Furthermore, you know you have identified your Critical Adversity if you were to magically have that distressing element removed from the situation and your emotional upset were to disappear immediately. Here are examples of Critical Adversities that correspond to the above-stated Situation

Critical Adversities (Inferences)

1. My parents were disappointed by my chosen career path (inference about the past)
2. She may reject me (present inference at the moment you make the overture for a date)
3. I will probably not perform well during tomorrow’s interview (inference about future performance).

Basic Attitudes at Point B of the ABC Model

B stands for your Basic Attitude. Identifying your Basic Attitude is essential because, in REBT theory, your rigid attitudes lie at the base of your emotional disturbance and are primary contributors to your emotional upset. From these rigid attitudes derive extreme attitudes which contribute to your emotional disturbance and self-defeating behavior. The best way to give voice to your rigid attitudes is to attempt to state your demand with the critical A in mind. Examples include:

1. I absolutely should have chosen the career path my parents wanted to take. (Rigid attitude)
2. I am a failure for not taking the better path (extreme derivate attitude)
3. She must not reject my request for a date. (Rigid attitude)
4. It would be unbearable to hear her say no. (Extreme attitude)
5. Life should not have such significant challenges. (Rigid attitude)
6. It would be awful not to be offered the job. (Extreme attitude)

Emotional and Behavioral Consequences at Point C

C stands for Emotional and Behavioral Consequences. Given that you are doing an ABC analysis of an emotional episode, you are probably experiencing an unhealthy emotion at point C or displaying self-defeating behavior. This self-analysis aims to transform this unhealthy negative emotion into a healthy negative emotion and curtail self-defeating behavioral responses by disputing your rigid and extreme attitudes, as discussed below.

Disputing Rigid and Extreme Attitudes at Point D

D stands for Disputing. Disputing is where you think about and question the rigid and extreme attitudes you identified in section B (Basic Attitudes) above. I emphasize three different lines of questioning or disputing.

1. The Teach a Child dispute is where you evaluate the rigid and extreme attitudes identified above from the perspective of whether you would encourage a child to hold these attitudes. Generally, people with rigid and extreme attitudes quickly see they would not teach these attitudes to a child, which helps them relinquish these self-defeating attitudes. However, do not just acknowledge this as the case. Think through exactly why you would not want a child to hold the very attitudes you hold.
2. In the Functional dispute, you evaluate how your rigid and extreme attitudes impact your functioning. Given your goals to optimally function, change what you can change, persist, and live happily with the unchangeable, does your rigid and extreme attitudes help you function in a way that will enable you to achieve your goals? However, do not just acknowledge that your attitudes undermine your functioning. Think through exactly how your rigid and extreme attitudes undermine your goals of optimally functioning, changing what you can change, persisting at changing what may be changeable, and living happily with the unchangeable. Reveal to yourself the functional impairment that follows from your current rigid and extreme attitudes.
3. The Search for evidence dispute is where you examine the available evidence that either supports or refutes your rigid and extreme attitudes. If you think carefully, you will see that the evidence does not support your rigid and extreme attitudes. However, do not just acknowledge this as the case. Consider precisely how the evidence does not support your rigid and extreme views. Reveal how the evidence supports your preferences but does not support your absolutistic and extreme attitudes.

Creating Effective New Philosophical Attitudes at Point E

E stands for Effective New Philosophical Attitudes. After challenging your rigid and extreme attitudes, you must construct healthy, flexible, and nonextreme attitudes to replace the self-defeating ones you wish to relinquish. Remember, express your healthy, flexible attitudes as I wish, I prefer, I want, hope for, I desire, but do not have to fulfill my wishes, hopes, and desires. Also, add that it is bad, not awful, when your wishes go unfulfilled, that it might be hard to accept or do something, but not unbearable, and that you, other people, and life itself are not totally bad even when parts of each are bad.

Identify Functional New Behavior at Point F 

F represents Functional New Behavior that follows your new healthy, flexible, and nonextreme attitudes. Once you have created new healthy attitudes for the Adversity you have addressed in this analysis, you need to identify what healthy behavior would affirm your conviction in this new attitude. For example, if you are annoyed by something a friend did, you will assert yourself but not cut them out of your life as your first move in dealing with their behavior. If you are concerned but not anxious about a problem you wish to address, functional behavior will be reflected in working on the solution to the problem rather than avoiding it. Considering what healthy new behavior would reflect optimal functioning in the face of the Adversity is essential. You did this analysis to transform unhealthy negative emotions into healthy negative feelings and then act in a self-helping way that allows you to change what you can. These healthy negative emotions will help you persist in changing things when they are worth doing and enable you to live happily with the unchangeable. In REBT, we want you to go beyond giving lip service to your healthy attitude. We want you to talk the rational talk and then walk the rational walk. REBT is an action-oriented approach. Live in harmony with your new healthy attitudes, and deep conviction in these philosophical attitudes will occur. REBT aims to help you make a profound philosophical change, which will happen when you regularly dispute your self-defeating attitudes, create healthier alternatives, and act according to them. Push yourself. REBT works when you keep at it.