Abstract
Considerable effort has been directed to explore the efficaciousness of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Numerous theoretical models and mechanisms are incorporated into this exploration. This work delves into my personal emerging counseling theory founded on Albert Elli’s approach, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT). The fundamental undertaking is to have a deep comprehension of how the application of REBT can be a technique to alter the insight of disjointed reasoning into affirmative ones by reflecting on the biblical worldview of a Christian client. Dynamics that influence distress, such as environmental, biological, and emotional aspects, are deeply elaborated in this paper. In addition to this, theory based therapy approaches that give a discourse to key underlying mechanisms for evocative client change and assimilation of a Christian worldview that comprises biblical concepts will be covered.
Keywords: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, Christian worldview, Cognitions, Behaviors, Emotions
Introduction
The ultimate goal of the counseling process is to increase the client’s self-determination, self-clarification, and self-knowledge. Many theories and mechanisms have been devised to help counselors create their working philosophy used during counseling. Though this course has many presented theoretical approaches, I personally like the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. REBT is a logical and instrumental approach that pays attention to the human element during therapy. According to Seligman (2014), REBT is set on deranging and later changing misconstrued thoughts. Successful execution of this process requires attention to and having a deep comprehension of the client’s perceptive and interactive abilities as well as emotions. The Background, Emotions, Thoughts, and Actions, which are classes of the BETA model, help in analyzing different formulated counseling theories. Though their point of view varies, similarities exist between the theories and within the classes. Having inclusive background knowledge of these aspects is significant to the reinstatement of the client’s emotional and physical well-being along with their spiritual righteousness. This signifies the importance of the therapist understanding the client’s worldview so as to execute their work effectively.
The approach that individual thoughts are the main origin of their problems is the basis where my personal counseling theory emerges. If people were in a position to overpower or to readapt their brains, then as a result, their behaviors and emotions would trail to match with the fresh conditioning of thought. From a biblical reflection, this perspective goes in line with the nature in which people’s thoughts direct their behaviors and Christ’s gospel to humans to toil to survive and conduct themselves in accordance with his will. As stated in Romans 12:2, reaching this point necessitates us casting away worldly things we need in life and striving to adjust our thoughts. Evangelical therapists and counselors have committed themselves to fulfilling their work of assisting people experiencing life troubles by ushering them via historical records and enabling them to have a better comprehension via the manner in which they construe those histories. These therapists and counselors are God’s servants, heavenly sent to hurt people during their healing process.
Factors Influencing Distress
Everyone has innate emotions. People think about different things and make their accounts within a certain duration. Though we are all created in God’s image, everyone is unique and has distinctive behaviors. The development of human personality at an early age is influenced by the other surrounding people like siblings, guardians, and parents. In this case, it is significant to comprehend the network of stressors that form the basis for the materialization of the client’s distress and their resolutions for healing.
Background
REBT chiefly emphasizes on present and downcasts extensive and detailed background historical accounts, deducing that current thoughts, irrespective of their source, are the basis for self-destructive behaviors and thoughts. They appear to be more evocative to individuals (Seligman, 2014). Nevertheless, this does not signify that the client’s past life and background do not fuel the materialization of their distress. Therapists who pay attention to background suppose that understanding the significance of unsettled issues and troubles existing in the client’s historical life eliminates developmental barriers that would otherwise retardate their progress, making them continue with their dysfunctional and dangerous patterns. According to Seligman (2014), successful healing of the current problems requires examination of the historical experiences, which are the basis for the client’s current concerns. For instance, neglected clients in their settings can be anxious to medical practitioners. The probability of such clients seeking medical attention is low if they had negative experiences when seeking assistance in the past. It is important to note that some stressors are affiliated with medical diagnoses, sickness, familial challenges, and social-cultural backgrounds. Clients who note these stressors in their past and recognize their existence may find it easy to help them recover. Thus, it is advisable to gather data on the background of the client to comprehend its contribution to particular reactions or diffidence that may influence healing.
In our existence, the nature of our background determines our level of happiness or sadness, which is determined by the relationship that exists between us and those near us, as well as access to basic needs. A background that has no peace or many challenges contributes to sadness. Clients who encounter such a life always have sad memories due to the negative experiences when growing up.
Emotions/Sensations
A key aspect of mental well-being incorporated in the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy model is the aptitude to admit blame for an individual emotional challenge (Seligman (2014). The technique needs to focus on changing emotions more straightforwardly. However, it concentrates on creating awareness of these emotions in the client and their effect in the anticipation that this will help to discover and reverse the irrational beliefs. According to Graham & Reynolds (2013), emotions are determined as a fundamental aspect of the nature in which a client experiences and understands himself or herself. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy explicitly distinguishes between unhealthy negative emotions like antagonism and healthy negative emotions like grief (Tan, 2011). On a different point, maladaptive emotions hamper the client’s aptitude to acclimatize to the surroundings, whereas adaptive emotions help the client understand their settings and offer a suitable response (Graham & Reynolds, 2013). Emotional distress may result from a physical symptom linked to a chronic condition in some clients. For instance, a hypertensive client may suffer from headaches and vertigo. This may create anxiety for the client due to his or her inability to carry out some activities, overdependence on friends and relatives, and financial challenges. Irrespective of emotions classification, they all play substantial activities in personal change and social acclimatization.
Thoughts
REBT centers on the perception that emotional challenges can be reduced by revolutionizing the elemental irrational beliefs. According to Turner (2016), REBT is among the numerous methodologies that consider cognitions and thoughts as the leading way of boosting emotional distress and realizing wanted behaviors. A client may frequently affiliate severe negative emotional responses to retrospections and trauma-allied stimuli. Extreme agony and contemplation with thoughts regarding the future and past happenings can be exhausting as one spends many hours every day reflecting on the issues, stimulating emotions of fear, anger, and anxiety (Johnson et al., 2000). In place of paying attention to historical happenings, which make an individual stranded by emphasizing impertinent thought, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy concentrates on transforming present thought to assist in controlling maladaptive behaviors and emotional responses.
Actions
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy views behaviors as a minor aspect of medical care. According to Seligman (2014), actions are normally discernible and quantifiable. They are directly fused with our emotions and thoughts in an invariable response sphere. Distinct from our thoughts and emotions, which can be secretive to others, actions are noticeable and explicit, making their influence very strong. This can contribute to distress for people who feel unable to cope with the repercussions of their deeds and thus shun from formulating decisions. Nevertheless, passivity is an action itself and is accompanied by its repercussions (Seligman, 2014). Surprisingly, clients are inclined to seek medical help in response to unwanted behaviors they have discerned or repetitive actions complained about by other people. Prevalent behavioral apprehensions may comprise intimate affiliations, overeating, and alcohol or drug abuse. Normally, clients will show these unattractive behaviors when they experience irresistible traumatic memories and depressing emotions. They frequently feel punished to depend on these prevention techniques as a means of surviving distress (Jin et al., 2022). Regrettably, extreme inaction or prevention sequentially impedes psychological healing from the impact of trauma.
Family/Cultural Systems
Likewise, to the client’s background and past encounters, cultural and familial frameworks can entail a powerful influence on emotions and what is determined irrational in comparison to rational or unacceptable in comparison to acceptable (Garzon, 2019). Considering a large number of familial and cultural systems, denouncements have resulted from held beliefs and attitudes concerning whether a disorder is imagined or real. According to Manson (2003), both cultural and family systems affect when, how, and even if individuals speak about their diagnostics and the ones they share with medics when seeking medical care. Affordability of treatment cost, access to medical facilities, available social support, and suitable coping ways are other aspects that may impact a client’s decision to report his or her illness to the clinician. Academic studies advocate that several attributes of family life can subsidize the development of psychological disorders or safeguard against their development (Manson, 2003). On another point, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy acknowledges that infancy traumas and stressors may entail an impact on an individual capacity to reason and act rationally (Seligman, 2014). Furthermore, numerous types of research substantiate that family settings engraved by sexual violence, neglect, domestic mistreatment, marital discord, and social disadvantage subject children to the danger of developing psychological disorders (Turner, 2016). In this case, a client should also reflect on his or her role within a cultural or family context from a personal perspective.
Theory-Based Treatment Strategies
The majority of victims suffering from mental illnesses contribute to their occurrence as well as particular diagnostics of those illnesses depending on the manner they construe situations and events (Seligman, 2014). There is a high level of interaction between behaviors, emotions, and cognitions, which entail correlative cause and impact associations. According to Turner (2016), thoughts principally originate from responses, interpretations, and evaluations of happenings in life as well as beliefs. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy pinpoints the significance of values, purposes, goals, and implications in the human way of life to aid the client in discerning, appraising, and adjust irrational thoughts. It is important to note that though environmental aspects can definitely have a negative influence on our existence, there is room for regulating the nature in which we respond and react to those aspects.
Key Underlying Mechanisms
Similar to other hypotheses, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy comprises major underlying techniques that can contribute to meaningful change in clients. Though the hypothesis stresses thoughts, it is verified and admitted that thoughts, behaviors, and emotions are associated and inextricable. In this viewpoint, maximizing effectiveness in healing requires addressing all three elements. Seligman (2014) presents numerous aspects of mental well-being that discuss these areas and which are evident in clients who react positively after treatment. Some of the presented dimensions comprise appreciation, acceptance of oneself, awareness, and many more. According to Loosemore (2020), appreciation, acceptance, and awareness are key underlying concepts of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy because emotional challenges are always traced in individuals who exercise conditional self-acceptance.
Flexibility, which is the aptitude to adjust to change and to admit some extent of ambiguity and uncertainty, is another underlying mechanism that contributes to meaningful change in clients. In cases of having many distinct clients, excluding the discussion stage and going straight to the submission of a rationale option may be a more useful approach (Mkangi, 2010). Additional attributes a client should have include the capacity to reason in an explicit, coherent, and rational manner, the capability to admit that full contentment is impractical and that aspirations normally differ, and being ready to take reasonable risks (Seligman, 2014). Though there are several underlying mechanisms covered in this section, readiness to admit liability for emotional problems is the most influential that contributes to change in clients.
Key Treatment Strategies and Indented Outcomes
The ABCDE model consists of the key concepts of REBT. In this model, A denotes activating an episode that stimulates a depressing reaction, B makes reference to beliefs the client may possess concerning the episode, and C denotes the consequences, which are always illogical reasoning that is contributed by irrational beliefs. D focuses on disputing illogical beliefs, whereas E aims to assist the client in mastering fresh beliefs effectively (Jin et al., 2022). The therapist, through the application of this model, focuses on the client’s activating stressor or event, which makes the client react by revealing to the therapist any useful info required for successful treatment. The activating process normally stimulates different emotions of fear, worry, or anger since a client has been keeping memories and feelings surrounding the episode secretive. This gives the therapist a chance to challenge illogical reasoning and subsequently help the client in replacing or reframing those memories with rational, healthy ones (Boduszek, 2014). Within the different phases of the ABCDE abstraction for REBT clients, numerous approaches may be executed fruitfully. Techniques that can aid in averting the contributors of the prevailing issue comprise applying social skills, dispute-settling skills, decision-making skills, and problem-solving skills. On another point, Cognitive Restructuring (CR) techniques, which can also be exploited, comprise of averse of senseless reasoning, irony, humor, restructuring, rationalizing tactics, apparition, and guided imagery. The concept backing the use of the ABCDE framework does not focus on changing the client’s setting but aims at making the client have varied views and reactions to their current setting (Boduszek, 2014). The framework aids clients in transforming their illogical reasoning and helps them comprehend the endless loop of the guilty conscience process, which fuels a modification in their counterproductive habits. The intended outcomes of applying the discussed strategies comprise lowering signs of anxiety and depression, decreasing maladaptive thoughts, and improving feelings of hope, self-acceptance, and self-esteem (Daniel et al., 2005).
Since not all client challenges can be settled permanently from a rational viewpoint, the ABCDE framework may necessitate a few changes. In scenarios where a therapist is assisting clients in coping with misery, adopting a normalizing or legitimizing strategy is preferred to help the client comprehend and deal with the grief (Boduszek, 2014). Therefore, emotive and developmental treatment techniques are normally used jointly with cognitive mechanisms highlighted earlier to boost the success of the healing process. These therapeutic mechanisms may comprise of utilization of humor, role playing, conciliating self-talk, practicing inscribed coherent coping utterances, journaling, and Rational Emotive Imagery (REI).
Integration of Christian Worldview
Similar to other non-religious hypotheses, REBT necessitates a few amendments to acclimatize to the Christian worldview. Prior to its adjustment, the theory had numerous ingrained positives like its capacity to provide a more rational mechanism compared to humanistic or traditional behavioral therapies in terms of free will and autonomy. Likewise, REBT has a few shortcomings like the inclination to lessen feelings being a result of maladaptive thoughts and pinpointing on procedure over therapeutic relationship (Garzon, 2019). Significant theoretical aspects are imprecise in the REBT like what or who orders the judiciousness of the belief and the practical way of ascertaining precision with respect to Christian’s perception of Christ as the personification of truth (Briere et al., 2010). This can be challenging for a born-again client who needs assistance with what he or she has established as an immoral act from a religious perspective, particularly if coupled with a non-religious therapist who may attempt to convince the client to view this reasoning as irrational. For religious believers, the conceptualization of grace and sin cannot be considered within a scientific, logical, or rational basis since they depend on an individual’s devotion to the subtle (Robb, 2002).
Putting into consideration the stated key points and drawing on previously outlined desired outcomes, I have formulated the below faith-founded working theory that adapts Rational Emotive Behavior Theory to a Christian worldview. Conferring to Carter and Narramore (2018), for religious activists, Christianity presents a worldview from which we comprehend the nature of both humanity and the world. The discussion inquiries about our identity, positions, challenges, and their solutions are mainly responses for the Christian from a comprehension of genesis, the fall, salvation, and revelation (Carter & Narramore, 2018). Thus, from a religious viewpoint, we can deduce that our thoughts are influential and powerful in directing our behaviors and emotions. God has granted everyone an opportunity to make choices. The resolutions we formulate occasionally go against God’s teachings, giving rise to immoral acts.
Holy Spirit enables us to be conscious of these infringements, as the spirit of God acts as our saintly sense for ascertaining what feelings, deeds, and thoughts are immoral and virtue in God’s observance. Concurrently, we can have faith that in our difficulties, God’s intervention will give us enough blessings that reinstate our Christian way of thinking, inflicting aspirations that allow us to rise and put effort directed to the attainment of perfection. As God’s judgment is based on deeds that are prompted by our thoughts and the thoughts themselves, it is significant for religious counselors to aid clients in comprehending that the outcomes of those conceptions guide our behaviors and feelings. If the held convictions match with God’s destiny for us, in that case, they can be determined logically. Mental ideas that are disagreement can thus be determined illogical. In this case, the objective is to pass on God’s mercy and healing power to mental health victims, enabling them to have a new mindset that can thwart the emotions of misery contributed by wrongdoing.
Biblical Principles of the Theory
It is noted that when studying Rational Emotive Behavior Theory and other cognitive therapies, several biblical themes that recount the nature we see thoughts as the causation of our behaviors and emotions always pop up in our mind. According to Tan (2011), this psychological course of transiting to be a believer of Christ certifies our ability to self-control and self-reflection. As followers, we are cautioned against complying with the world and commanded to change and replenish our minds. Romans 8: 5-6 instructs us that possessing a mind that the Holy Spirit governs brings peace and life, but to have a mind that is governed by flesh brings about death. In this case, God’s longing for people to have intellectual precision and the capacity to differentiate wrong from right, abstaining from the drawbacks of immoral acts. This underpins the intellect that our thoughts are at the core of regulating our behaviors and emotions.
As believers, we are commanded to act “as unto God,” which is in incongruity with the worldly self-centered element of secular Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Turner, 2016). The biblical teachings joined with our contribution from our encounters, develop a belief system on how we view God and the world. Since it is impossible to see God physically, our thoughts and convictions become strong entities influencing our aptitude to adhere to God dynamically. The evangelical relationship of behavior, emotions, beliefs, and thoughts substantiate biblically are usually a rudimentary element of any psychological health counseling theory or method. Romans 3:10 dictates that no matter the efforts we put in to have a promising life, we must have awareness and show recognition of the flawed nature of humans and acknowledge the actuality that no single human being is let off from encountering brokenness and grief.
On a different point, there is no ideal counseling theory that matches the Biblical perception of a Christian worldview. Religious therapists prefer the use of the REBT model when treating clients. Nevertheless, there are numerous matters that resurface for religious therapists when REBT and CBT are examined via a Biblical viewpoint. According to Tan (2011), both REBT and CBT embrace a perception that people are, in nature, impartial; they are either bad or good innately. The perception of human life is challenging from the viewpoint of a religion. Tan (2011) claimed that the realistic beliefs possessed by counselors establish unappreciated, inherent, and possibly insensible prejudice against doctrine in psychological theories and studies. Moreover, REBT assumes that the main objective for people is self-gratification, which goes against the word of God’s teaching concerning the existence of humans in the world, which is to praise God.
Addressing a Biblical Worldview Issue
The supposition that the teachings of God alone are enough to rectify our flawed thoughts and behavior is an issue that should be expounded in a biblical worldview of cognitive treatment. This raises an inquiry into the role a counselor will play in treatment. It is factual that individuals can change their behaviors and thoughts and correct themselves by studying and comprehending the word of God. Nevertheless, occasionally, clients have difficulty comprehending and, more notably, relating the ideas of the teachings to transform themselves from recurring patterns of negative reasoning. This can progressively become more challenging as maladaptive thought processes are frequently underpinned depending on individuals’ views of their interactions and experiences as they explore the world. Christians are directed to respect God’s teachings, comprehend them, and relate them to their daily lives.
Conclusion
In summation, Relational Emotive Behavior Therapy presents us with a strong basis on which to establish a vibrant cognitive working framework with a Christian worldview that focuses on beliefs and thoughts as the basis of individual behavioral and emotional challenges. The ABCDE framework presents a process of executing strategies to determine, deal with, and change maladaptive thoughts to useful ones. The concept is highly useful when seeking medical care when assimilated with approaches from other hypothetical viewpoints, especially the ones that are behavioral and emotive. Additional elements that should be put into consideration for effective healing and recovery include of client’s cultural and familial influences as well as his or her background since they can always create awareness of how and why the client developed convictions they presently hold.
The assimilation of the Christian worldview entails combining key concepts of REBT with a biblical view of what people reflect on as wrong/irrational versus right/rational. God’s teachings offer numerous instances that illustrate how our convictions are the basis and inspiration for our deeds. My last thoughts on my personal counseling theory, founded on my academic studies and biblical worldview, guided me to deduce that a variation in an individual’s thinking process is the leading way to transforming his or her behaviors and emotional responses.
References
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