Describe How The Cognitive Approach Has Been Applied To Rational Emotive Therapy”

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The cognitive approach believes that the way we perceive ourselves and the environment influences how we behave (Irrational thoughts lead to irrational behaviour). Albert Ellis developed Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) believing that changing the ways in which we think will help change our feelings, attitudes and behaviour as he felt it more effective to focus on their current thinking patterns. REBT has been applied to alcoholism, offering a constructive way of dealing with the thoughts and emotions associated with addictive drinking. Ellis used the A(Activating Event) B(Beliefs) C(Consequences) model that when an activating event occurs, such as getting dumped by a boyfriend, thoughts are generated that lead to emotion, arousal and behavioural consequences, such as depression, largely because they elicit irrational beliefs, I guess I deserved it, about these events. Some people will endlessly 'damn' themselves, seeing themselves as no good in every situation, REBT encourages clients to develop an unconditional acceptance of themselves, and recognise that everybody makes mistakes. It is the task of cognitive therapies to directly challenge the negative assumptions, clients are encouraged to monitor and challenge their negative automatic thoughts and to accept more rational explanations of their experience and behaviour, because therapists using REBT are attempting to change thinking patterns, they tend to be more argumentative and confrontational they do this by encouraging the patient to dispute these believes, Logical Disputing-self defeating beliefs do not follow logically from the information available, Empirical Disputing- self defeating beliefs may not be consistent with reality and Pragmatic Disputing- the lack of usefulness of self defeating beliefs. Effective disputing changes self-defeating beliefs into more rational ones. The

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