REBT is a relatively straightforward model for analyzing and remedying self-defeating emotional and behavioral responses to adversity. People quickly learn the language of REBT, which is a strength, but it can also hinder the effective implementation of this powerful system of ideas. People often say REBT teaches that there are healthy negative emotions and will claim they are merely annoyed, disappointed, or appropriately concerned. They then think there is nothing to work on using REBT. Not so fast!
A person cannot use REBT to address their emotional problems unless they know when to stop and do self-therapy. One must be honest and acknowledge that they are disturbing themselves about a matter at hand, a situation that has passed, or one that may someday occur. Self-defeating attitudes can undermine our ability to be honest with ourselves. A sample of such attitudes are:
- I (absolutely) should not be upsetting myself.
- I am lesser of a person for disturbing myself.
- It is too threatening to acknowledge I am upset and to address this problem.
- It is too hard to work on my self-defeating emotional reaction.
What then happens is that the person does not take the time to do a careful ABC analysis of their emotional disturbance and sweeps the problem under the rug, so to speak. The suppression of unhealthy emotions is not the best solution. These unhealthy emotions continue to impact you in unfavorable ways.
A tip to remember when deciding if you are upset or merely experiencing a healthy negative emotion is to look at both your overt behaviors and your urges to act. Often, you may be inclined to rationalize and say that you are merely concerned (a healthy negative emotion) rather than anxious, shameful, guilty, or unhealthily angry. You may be able to suppress your overt behavior. Don’t go so fast and assume you are not experiencing an unhealthy negative emotion. Take a moment also to identify urges that only you could know existed. These can be a window into your unhealthy reactions and help you decide it is time to do REBT self-therapy. Are you holding in your unhealthy anger and feeling the urge to strangle the person who has “made you angry”? Are you trying to convince yourself something is not a threat, but you won’t take the time to think about the possibility of it occurring? Are you ashamed about something in your life and wish to keep it hidden away from others knowing about it? Due to anxiety, do you have the urge not to think about unhealthy behavior that will catch up with you in the long run? Urges to act that accompany your unhealthy negative emotions can help you precisely identify which of REBT’s nine unhealthy negative emotions you are experiencing and make you aware if you are disturbing yourself rather than merely experiencing a healthy negative emotion.
Let us examine ways of addressing the above four self-defeating attitudes that prevent you from acknowledging your emotional disturbance. Modifying these attitudes would free you to apply the ABC framework of REBT so that you could begin seeking a healthy resolution to the issue you are disturbing yourself about.
I (absolutely) should not be upsetting myself.
People have various reasons for not wanting to upset themselves. Psychotherapists may think that because they study REBT, they have to implement it perfectly well. None of us wish to feel pain, and one way of trying to feel better is to pretend that the emotional pain we feel does not exist. Denying your emotional pain is not the solution. Unfortunately, hoping a problem does not exist or denying it does not magically make it disappear.
REBT argues that therapists are humans first and professionals second. Likewise, parents, teachers, and all other people are humans first and play their roles in life as humans. REBT theorizes that humans upset themselves because upsetting ourselves is, in part, what it means to be human. It is our nature to be disturbable. Thankfully, it is our nature to be beings who can step back and think about and modify our thinking. Maintain a healthy wish not to disturb yourself about any adversity, but choose to accept yourself unconditionally when you are emotionally disturbing yourself about anything. Nature intended you to be both disturbable and able to remedy that disturbance. Allow yourself to take advantage of both of these biologically based inclinations.
Accepting your human fallibility does not mean it is prudent to avoid addressing your disturbance. Aside from needlessly suffering, you remain responsible for the behavior that is associated with your emotional disturbance. You will face the consequences of the laws you break, the damage you do to your health, and the relationships you undermine due to your emotional disturbance. The sooner you acknowledge your disturbance, the sooner you will start to address it effectively, thereby increasing the chances you will not make life more difficult than it needs to be. Try holding the attitude, “It would be better if I were not upsetting myself, but my urges to act in self-defeating ways and my overt behavior belies that I am, in fact, disturbing myself about this matter. Let me think about how I am doing that using the ABC framework and work on relinquishing the rigid and extreme attitudes producing this emotional disturbance.”
I am lesser of a person for disturbing myself.
Humans use their senses to observe and navigate the world. REBT suggests you stick to observable data and avoid going up the ladder of abstraction of thought and defining yourself as lesser of a person or, worse still, an inadequate or worthless person. Stick with the facts. Given that you yelled at the other person, it is safe to conclude you were angry. Once you were angry, you had the urge to cut them out of your life or hurt them and escape your emotional pain. Your self-defeating emotional response and associated dysfunctional behavior is evidence you are a fallible. It is not evidence you are lesser of a human or an inadequate human.
Stick with empiricism and do not resort to arbitrary definitions of human value. You do not have the time to go back over and consider all your self-defeating and effective behaviors and objectively score your human worth. Even if you did have the time to do such an immense inventory, the future awaits, and you will have the opportunity to do well and poorly some more. Stay with more objective statements and stop there. Below are two examples of constructive self-talk that sticks with the facts and avoids overgeneralizations:
I hurt him, and that isn’t good. How can I stop this?
I performed well today, but tomorrow, I could do poorly. Let me develop one performance at a time.
I tend not to push myself, which hurts my achievement, but sometimes, I develop creative solutions that help me get things done. My good and bad deeds do not determine my human value. They prove I am a living being who does good and bad things throughout my existence; I will strive to do better, but sadly, I cannot perfect myself.
Stay with the facts and carefully climb the abstraction ladder. Generalize, but do not overgeneralize if you wish to experience healthy emotional reactions to good, effective, and not-so-good behaviors!”
It is too threatening to acknowledge I am upset and to address this problem.
It is the nature of a human to avoid pain and gravitate to pleasure and meaning. We also tend to evaluate adversity and the associated discomfort we feel in extreme ways. REBT shows you how to make non-extreme evaluations of the bad events and internal states of discomfort you face. It also shows you how to tolerate the negative aspects of ourselves, others, and life. Humans gravitate towards intolerance quite quickly, especially in important matters. Humans demand that things be as we want them to be, which sets us up to evaluate bad events and internal states of discomfort in extreme ways. Extreme ratings tend to produce unhealthy emotions, undermining effective action to bring about change where possible.
Question your extreme ratings. Is it too threatening or, strictly speaking, hard but not too threatening to acknowledge the unhealthy negative feelings you are trying to suppress? Would you want your child to avoid addressing a problem they had? If not, why would you not want a child to avoid addressing a problem they had? Work on cultivating non-extreme attitudes about yourself, others, life, and the issues you face in each domain. Reflect on how you could adopt and implement the below non-extreme attitudes:
My problem is bad, or even very bad, but worse problems could exist in my life. I will acknowledge its existence and accept that, for the time being, it is a part of my life. Addressing the problem and my internal discomfort associated with it is hard but not unbearable and worth doing. Denial of a problem takes effort and often grows worse when left unaddressed. I will accept myself with my problem and never define myself as lesser for having this and other problems. Life is addressing issues and challenges of all sorts, from the cradle to the grave.
It is too hard to work on my self-defeating emotional reaction.
Humans gravitate towards inertia and comfort. We often find it challenging to get started doing something new while resting. Once engaged, we may find it hard to stop doing what we do. We prefer being comfortable, maintaining our comfort, and restoring it when lost. Similarly, we like to take the easy path over the more arduous one even when we know the easy path has an apparent downside. REBT helps us reorient and do what is best in the long run, even when this is hard and uncomfortable. REBT acknowledges that it is easy for humans to disturb themselves and often seems like we are going against the grain not to disturb ourselves over matters close to the heart. We often quickly disturb ourselves about our disturbance, retraumatize ourselves, and avoid the hard work required to stop this self-defeating response pattern.
I urge you to leverage your past successful efforts. Reflect on your past efforts and see that you can work hard in the short run to have less pain and more pleasure in the long run. Work on regularly thinking to yourself explicitly and firmly, “It is hard to work on my self-defeating emotional reaction, but not too hard. It is worth doing because I am defeating myself, reacting with unhealthy emotions to the challenges I face. I can bear the hard work and commit to doing so. I am worth the effort to discipline my mind and react with healthy negative emotions which will motivate me to change, what is important to me and could be changeable, persist at this effort, and have some happiness while I labor to make things better!”
Closing Thoughts
Remember that you are a fallible human first and a parent, teacher, and professional second. REBT teaches it is our nature to upset ourselves, and therefore, there is no shame in admitting to yourself you are disturbing yourself when you are in the throes of an episode of disturbance. Accepting yourself unconditionally while taking responsibility for your emotional disturbance and the hurtful actions that flow from it is the first step to overcoming a problem or a problematic response to adversity. Then, set your sights on the rigid and extreme attitudes responsible for your disturbance. See that it is also your nature to think flexibly and non-extremely, adapting and flourishing in the face of adversity. Still, this healthier response is more challenging to evoke. Do what is challenging rather than take the easy path. In the end, you have less pain and more pleasure and meaning if you follow REBT’s prescription. You can stubbornly refuse to be miserable about anything, yes, anything!