rsonal growth. The premise for Rational-Emotive-Behavior-Therapy is that a person’s difficulties are the result of his or her faulty expectations and irrational beliefs (REBT facts 2). In order to restore emotional heath to the life of the individual one must utilize REBT. The therapy itself does not eliminate emotion; in fact, it emphasizes emotional involvement in every aspect of our thinking and our actions (Metalsky 24). The therapy requires the patient to look at his situation and evaluate the emotion this situation evokes. When human emotion becomes too intense, as it often does, the person this emotion belongs to becomes unhappy. The quality of his or her life begins to deteriorate. It is at these times, the logical region of human thought changes and the individual begins to take things over-personally, blow things out of perspective, condemn others for wrongful deeds, and become less tolerant of life’s little hassles (REBT facts 2). By logically reasoning emotion, one will begin to realize that emotion is the consequence of rational thought; however, the opposite is true as well, irrational belief is the preceding consequence of self-indulgent emotion. Identifying the core irrational beliefs a person has is the most important step in REBT (Hockenbury and Hockenbury 523). Such beliefs often reflect certain “Musts” or “Shoulds” people place upon themselves; for example, many people hold the cognitive distortion of “I must be loved and accepted by virtually every one in order to be happy and deemed to have worth (Hockenbury and Hockenbury 524).” To state it simply, this external attempt to define one’s value and place in society will eventually lead its owner to disappointment because he or she is identifying importance by that which the individual cannot control, the judgment and reaction of another. By understanding the basics of Rational-Emotive-Behavior-Therapy, an individ...
