Rebt Therapy In Falling Down

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REBT Analysis of Falling Down According to Rational-Emotive-Behavioral Therapy (REBT) theory, our problems (behavioral, emotional, and psychological) follow from the thoughts and perceptions we have about the events we encounter in our lives, and not the events themselves. More specifically, reacting with irrational thoughts to these events creates emotional disturbance and maladaptive behavior that can prevent people from attaining maximum happiness. In the film Falling Down, the protagonist Bill Foster holds irrational beliefs that emerge as unrealistic demands about how he, others, and the world must function in order to suit his needs. As a result of his irrational belief system, when things do not go according to his plan and his expectations are unmet, Bill engages in a cycle of unhealthy, negative emotions that ultimately lead to destructive behavior. Bill’s behavior reflects the belief that he must act a certain way, that he must be perfect, which according to REBT, occurs when interpreting events with an irrational belief system (Thompson & Henderson, 2007, p. 212). Bill expresses these irrational beliefs through various cognitive distortions. He uses absolutes as a form of irrational thinking in which he escalates his desire to attend his daughter Adele’s birthday party to a “must” situation once his expectation to do so is threatened by delayed traffic. He catastrophizes, a form of irrational thinking in which mistakes are exaggerated (p. 216), the traffic, along with the broken air conditioning, the surrounding noise, and the prospect of being late to the party; feeling overwhelmed, he uses emotional reasoning to guide his decision to abandon his car on the highway and seek another route on foot. Despite his ex-wife Beth’s admonishment that he not attend the party, her insistence that she and Adele are better off without him, and the restraining order
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