Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)

Rational emotive behavior therapy (often called REBT) is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy
(CBT). In fact, most forms of CBT are based on REBT.

REBT focuses on helping you learn to correct inaccurate or irrational thoughts that may be
affecting your feelings. REBT is often described as action-oriented, which means that it focuses
on making concrete changes in your thinking and/or behavior.

REBT is sometimes combined with CBT in practice, but it can also be used as a stand-alone
treatment.

What can Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy help with?

REBT is generally helpful for anyone who wants to change specific problematic patterns of
thoughts or behavior.

It may be particularly helpful for people dealing with the following mental health concerns:

Anxiety

Depression

Eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa

Addictions

Stress

Imposter syndrome

How does Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy work?

Like CBT, REBT is based on the idea that your thoughts play a big role in how you feel. The
idea is to learn to interrupt and correct inaccurate or unhelpful thoughts that might be causing
negative feelings.

More specifically, REBT uses the following “ABCDE” structure to help you learn this new skill:
Activating Events: First, you identify what kinds of situations or events are upsetting or
challenging for you when it comes to feeling and behaving the way you want to.

Beliefs: Next, you look at the core beliefs that you tend to attach to activating events. For
example, if your activating event is a friend turning down an invitation from you, the
corresponding belief might be: “No one wants to spend time with me because I’m such a loser.”

Consequences: Then, you identify the consequences of combining that event and that belief.
This is usually a negative emotional experience.

Disputes: With your therapist’s help, you’ll learn to argue against the core belief that creates a
negative experience. For example, going with the above situation, you might ask yourself: “What
about all the good times I’ve had with friends in the past?”

New Effects: Over time, going through the above process helps you build new, more positive
reactions that can interrupt the cycle of activating events and core beliefs.

How are Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy sessions structured?

REBT is not a rigidly structured form of therapy. The structure of your sessions will depend on
your needs and your therapist’s methods.

That said, REBT often follows these basic phases:

1. Building rapport with your therapist. 

2. Learning and implementing new strategies. 
3. Continued practice. 
What happens in a typical Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy session?
In REBT, your therapist will guide you through a number of different techniques and exercises
as you learn the overall ABCDE process outlined above. Some common activities include:

 Reframing experiences: REBT often includes looking at your life experiences to find

alternative explanations for them. For example, you might find that you tend to blame
yourself for things that are actually out of your control.
 Identifying cognitive distortions: This is also called “reality testing.” The idea is that you
look at your thoughts for places where you’re being illogical or inaccurate. Some common
 cognitive distortions include believing you know what other people think, believing that one
bad event means that other bad events will follow, and believing that only perfection is
acceptable.
 Mindfulness practices: REBT sessions often include breathing exercises, meditation,
visualization, and stress reduction techniques.
 Worksheets and/or ratings scales: REBT often includes written tools to help you map out
the process of learning to change your thoughts and emotions. For example, your therapist
might use a rating system to evaluate the intensity of your feelings in response to a given
situation.
 Going over homework: Because at-home practice (such as trying out new behaviors in real-
life situations) is such a key part of REBT, it’s common to spend some time in sessions
discussing how this practice is going.
What Techniques Does REBT Use?

Many techniques fall within the realm of REBT, but there are three main types of techniques that
clients will learn:

Problem-solving techniques

 Problem-solving skills
 Assertiveness
 Social skills
 Decision-making skills
 Conflict resolution skills

Cognitive restructuring techniques

Techniques include:

 Logical or rationalizing techniques

 Guided imagery and visualization
 Reframing
 Using humor and irony
  Exposing yourself to whatever you fear
 Disputing irrational beliefs

Coping techniques (Raypole, 2018)

Each category of technique corresponds to part of the ABC model, giving clients techniques to
use at each step.

 Relaxation
 Hypnosis
 Meditation
 Mindfulness
 Breathing exercises

A Look at REBT Interventions

magine the Worst

Catastrophizing involves “worst-case” thinking and can be an extremely common cognitive

distortion. Frequently, we fear the uncertainty of potential negative events, even despite a lack of
objective facts to support their occurrence (Quartana, Campbell, & Edwards, 2009).

Imagine the Worst… can be used when a client is attempting to avoid thinking about worst
possible scenarios for fear of becoming even more anxious. In this exercise, they face that fear
by envisioning it.

This can help them realize that:

 The worst-case scenario is unrealistic and thus unlikely to occur.

 Even if it did occur, the worst-case scenario will probably still be tolerable.

 In the event that it happens, they would still be able to manage the outcome and prevent it
from becoming catastrophic.

Blown Out of All Proportion

This technique involves both imagery and humor, combining two of the cognitive restructuring
techniques for maximum effectiveness. It builds on “worst-case imagery” for reasons that will
become obvious.

In a session, the therapist would ask the client to imagine that the thing they fear happening the
most actually happened. However, instead of allowing the client to visualize it realistically, the
therapist will guide them in visualizing it to an extreme, blow entirely out of proportion
(Froggatt, 2005).

When things are this exaggerated, they become funny. Laughing at their blown-up fears will help
the client get control over them. This exercise isn’t right for every fear, but it can be extremely
useful in many cases.

You’ll find this intervention, with examples, in the Imagine The Worst PDF above.

Disputing Irrational Beliefs (DIBS) Handout

One of the most popular cognitive restructuring techniques is called disputing irrational beliefs
(DIBS) or simply disputing (Ellis, n.d.). The point of DIBS is to question yourself on some of
your limiting or harmful beliefs and essentially “logic” them out of existence.

Here are the questions to ask yourself, outlined in our Disputing Irrational Beliefs Handout:

1. What is the self-defeating irrational belief I would like to dispute and reduce?

2. Am I able to support this belief with objective facts?

3. What proof is there that this belief is false?

4. Is there any proof that this belief is true?

5. What is the worst possible outcome that could occur if I fail to get what I believe I must?
What’s the worst possible outcome if I do get what I believe I mustn’t? What other
negative things could happen to me?

6. What positive things could I cause to happen if my undesirable scenarios pan out?

Although this technique can be highly effective for irrational beliefs, it will not always work for
your deepest or long-held beliefs. These are harder to dispute but not impossible; Ellis
recommends recording your irrational belief and several disputes to the belief, then listening to it
repeatedly and even allowing your therapist, therapy group, or loved ones to listen to it with you.

This technique has been adapted from Techniques for Disputing Irrational Beliefs by the Albert
Ellis Institute into a client handout (Ellis, n.d.). For a more detailed exercise, check out
our Challenging Questions Worksheet below.

3 REBT Worksheets (incl. PDF)

Worksheets can make a great addition to REBT for clients or a satisfactory substitute for therapy
in people with milder issues.

Check out these three worksheets on REBT techniques below.

1. Increasing awareness of cognitive distortions

Although it’s not necessarily an REBT-exclusive technique, this worksheet can fit in nicely with
an REBT focus. It guides the user through identifying the cognitive distortions (irrational beliefs)
that they hold.

First, the worksheet lists 11 of the most common cognitive distortions:

 All-or-nothing thinking

 Overgeneralizing

 Discounting the positive

 Jumping to conclusions

 Mind reading

 Fortune telling

 Magnifying (catastrophizing) or minimizing

 Emotional reasoning

 Should statements

 Labeling and mislabeling

  Personalization

Once the user reads through the common cognitive distortions and some examples, they can
move on to the worksheet. It’s split into three columns with instructions for each:

1. Feelings – Write down what feelings you are experiencing; these can include emotions
and physical sensations.

2. Thoughts – Notice what thoughts are associated with your feelings and write those down
here.

3. Cognitive distortions – Analyze your thoughts; is there a cognitive distortion there, or are
your thoughts rational?

Take a few minutes each day to complete a row in this worksheet for at least one week, and you
will improve your ability to identify your irrational beliefs, which is the first step toward
correcting them. You can find the Increasing Awareness of Cognitive Distortions worksheet in
the Positive Psychology Toolkit©.

2. Leaving the Comfort Zone

This worksheet will help educate the user on the four zones and motivate them to step outside of
the comfort zone.

First, it defines the four zones:

1. Comfort zone: the space in which we feel safe and in control; things are easy, and we
know what to do.

2. Fear zone: an uncomfortable space marked by uncertainty; we don’t know what to expect
or what to do.

3. Learning zone: another uncomfortable space, but not as bad as the fear zone; we begin to
acquire new skills and expand our comfort zone.

4. Growth zone: when we stay in the learning zone long enough, it becomes the growth
zone, where we become comfortable with our new skills and experience.
Next, it directs the user to identify a comfort zone situation. It should be something coming up
that will require the user to step out of the comfort zone and into the fear zone.

Once the user has identified a situation, they are instructed to identify their personal signs of fear
or symptoms of their experience with fear.

In addition to noting the signs of fear, the user should identify what they would lose out on by
not stepping into the fear zone. What opportunities or new potential benefits would they miss out
on?

Further, the user should note the long-term possibilities of staying in the learning zone. How
might they transform as a person? What could they gain from being in this zone over time?

Finally, the user finishes the worksheet by reflecting on how they would feel about themselves if
they stuck it out in the growth zone, and how it would affect their relationships with others.

This worksheet can help users reframe their thoughts about their fears and face them. You can
find it in the Positive Psychology Toolkit©.

3. Challenging questions worksheet

This worksheet can help the user question their irrational beliefs and stop them in their tracks.

First, it lists 10 common irrational beliefs that users may recognize in themselves:

1. I am only as good as what I achieve.

2. If they don’t love me, then I’m worthless.

3. Other people should follow the rules I know to be right.

4. It’s not okay to have this feeling. I should just be happy.

5. The problems in this relationship are all my fault/their fault.

6. This situation is hopeless; nothing will ever improve.

7. If this person doesn’t like me, then other people must feel the same way.

8. I must be able to do it all; if I can’t, then there’s something wrong with me.

9. My life is too hard. Life shouldn’t be this difficult and frustrating.

 10. Anger is not safe; I must not let myself get angry about this.

Then, it lists 12 challenging questions the user can use to confront their irrational belief:

1. What is the evidence for or against this idea?

2. Am I confusing habit with a fact?

3. Are my interpretations of the situation too far removed from reality to be accurate?

4. Am I thinking in all-or-nothing terms?

5. Am I using words or phrases that are extreme or exaggerated

like always, forever, never, need, should, must, can’t, and every time?

6. Am I taking selected examples out of context?

7. Am I making excuses? I’m not afraid; I just don’t want to go out. The other people
expect me to be perfect. I don’t want to make the call because I don’t have time.

8. Is the source of information reliable?

9. Am I thinking in terms of certainties instead of probabilities?

10. Am I confusing a low probability with a high probability?

11. Are my judgments based on feelings rather than facts?

12. Am I focusing on irrelevant factors?

The worksheet leaves space for the user to pick one belief and four challenging questions to
answer with a new, healthier perspective on the irrational belief.