Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy is a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy that can be extremely helpful for a person struggling with depression. Depression can be complex and have multiple layers to it. It is a common human experience and has been called the “common cold of mental illness.” I will explore what I call primary depression as well as secondary and tertiary depression. Secondary depression in REBT is often known as “depression about your depression.” Tertiary depression is depression that results from both one’s primary depression and their depression about their depression. I will demonstrate how the ABC model of REBT can help you address these multiple layers of depressions and how you can modify your attitudes to bring about constructive change at each level using my ABCDEF self-help worksheet.
When we are depressed, we tend to struggle with low energy and are inclined to withdraw from life. Our primary depression may be job-related. We might find our job to be an unrewarding, stressful burden. We might not like the work we do, see it as meaningless, and long for a more rewarding career. Unfortunately, we need an income, and we cannot immediately leave the present job, and we are unsure what direction to head to obtain a more rewarding career. We react with depression over this lousy predicament we are facing and conclude there is no escape.
Our depression hurts. We feel bad and then limit what we do to what is essential to avoid immediate negative consequences. For example, we may drag ourselves to work but come home and collapse and do nothing more. We gravitate towards sedentary and solitary activities which feel comfortable in the short run but maintain and worsen our depressed state in the middle and long run. We eat, drink, and watch television. We fail to keep up with friends. We know that this pattern will not help us feel better in the long run, but we believe it is “too hard” to do more than the essential tasks of life and do not have sufficient energy to help ourselves. As we fall into this pattern of inactivity, we then begin to rate ourselves in a negative way for our self-defeating response to our emotional state. We depress ourselves about our depression. We think, “I am not helping myself by how I am withdrawing from life in this way. I am a weak person.” In Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, we call this an attitude of self-rating. In this example, the individual is rating their behavior as bad and then going beyond that rating of their inactive behavior and concluding they are totally bad or weak as a person. Their depression worsens, making them more inclined to sit, withdraw, eat, drink, leading to an additional round of self-rating and self-downing. The person needs to find a way to break out of this cycle of inactivity of self-downing. It is a pattern of short-term comfort with long-term pain.
To end the pattern, the individual needs to accept themselves unconditionally, even if they are not helping themselves. Even if they are not changing the circumstances leading to their primary depression, a person helps themselves by accepting themselves. Even when they see that they are engaging in behavior that worsens the problem, the solution starts with self-acceptance—the individual needs to work on their depression about their depression. In REBT, we call this their secondary depression or their secondary emotional disturbance.
In earlier Intermittent Reinforcement email messages, I have stressed the importance of identifying your self-defeating attitudes and then having a debate with yourself to examine these attitudes and modify them to adopt healthier attitudes. I have also emphasized the importance of using the ABCDEF self-help worksheet to analyze your reactions and the underlying attitudes and then changing those self-defeating attitudes that are rigid and extreme. I have also pointed how that although doing self-help worksheets is essential, too many people fail to do them. I hope that by occasionally providing examples of completed worksheets for different emotional problems, people will be more inclined to try to do one independently. You can use my samples as a guide to doing one on your own. Remember, give up perfectionism. Acknowledge that you do not have to do the worksheet perfectly to derive emotional benefit from filling one out. Please try to do them when you can use a rational tune-up!
In this email message, I will demonstrate how you can use REBT to help yourself out of the type of cycle of depression I described earlier. Below you will find three ABCDEF self-help sheets. I have completed them from the standpoint of someone who is depressed. This imaginary person is depressed about their job (the primary problem), engaging in sedentary behavior by withdrawing when at home (the secondary problem). The person then sees they are not helping themselves by sitting around and puts themselves down for this withdrawal and failure to help themselves (their tertiary problem).
One worksheet aims to help them have a healthy reaction to their unfulfilling, stressful job (the primary problem). The second worksheet helps the person with their sedentary behavior, lack of self-care, and failure to engage in self-helping activities after work (their secondary problem). This second worksheet aims to help them get active, which they know will boost their mood and help them out of their depressive rut. The third worksheet seeks to modify the person’s self-rating and self-depreciation for not helping themselves. This third self-help sheet addresses a person’s tertiary depression, the third layer of their complex depression.
People who get better learn to think about their attitudes and do self-therapy on those attitudes. They use the ABCDEF self-help worksheet before, during, and after an instance of self-defeating emotions and behavior. They use the ABCDEF worksheet to attack all levels of their emotional disturbance. I think it is helpful to demonstrate how to use this worksheet for the multiple layers of emotional disturbance. Regardless of which emotion your struggle with, give my ABCDEF form a try. See for yourself how it can take you through a self-directed therapeutic process to change your attitudes, feelings, and, most importantly, your behavior! Give it a try!
primary_disturbance_-_disliked_job.pdf – Download File
secondary_disturbance_-_inertia.pdf – Download File
tertiary_disturbance_-_depression_about_depression.pdf – Download File
17a._abcdef_easy_self-help_worksheet.docx – Download File
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 show you the rigid and extreme attitudes that are leading to your self-defeating emotions and holding you back from achieving your goals.
This Zoom meeting place every Saturday at the following times:
Philadelphia (USA – Pennsylvania) Saturdays at 9:00:00 am EDT UTC-4 hours
London (United Kingdom – England) Saturdays at 2:00:00 pm BST UTC+1 hour
Paris (France – Île-de-France) Saturdays at 3:00:00 pm CEST UTC+2 hours
Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina) Saturdays at 3:00:00 pm CEST UTC+2 hours
Bucharest (Romania) Saturdays at 4:00:00 pm EEST UTC+3 hours
Moscow (Russia – Moscow) Saturdays at 4:00:00 pm MSK UTC+3 hours
Kabul (Afghanistan) Saturdays at 5:30:00 pm AFT UTC+4:30 hours
Karachi (Pakistan – Sindh) Saturdays at 6:00:00 pm PKT UTC+5 hours
New Delhi (India – Delhi) Saturdays at 6:30:00 pm IST UTC+5:30 hours
Tokyo (Japan) Saturdays at 10:00:00 pm JST UTC+9 hours
Sydney (Australia – New South Wales) Sundays at 12:00:00 midnight AEDT UTC+11 hours
Corresponding UTC (GMT) Saturdays at 13:00:00
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