WHY RATIONAL-EMOTIVE THERAPY WORKS.

Abstract

While preparing my new book, You Are Not Alone (3), examined works of Albert Ellis, especially, Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy (2), attended his workshops and snidied his taped therapy sessions. Then, tried his approach on nine heterogeneous patients. found that rational-emotive therapy works (at least for me) more quickly and effectively than other techniques (Rogerian, analytic orientations) had been taught to use. There are at least 8 reasons why. (a) The patient receives some useful direction, even in the first session, so leaves his hour with more hope and less confusion. (b) Ellis' approach is highly compatible with the Pavlovian doctrines on the role of language in determining behavior. By getting at the irrationalities of the patient in terms of what he is telling himself in the present sit~iation, the individual learns to change himself and his language. (c) Homework given che patient between sessions affords an opportunity to learn and practice what is experienced in therapy. (d) Although childhood experiences have their emotional consequences on the later course of development, these only affect the individual in the present as he continues to tell himself certain irrational ideas that have persisced from childhood, e.g., I'm no good, I am a failure, Sexual fantasies are shameful, etc. (e) Ellis self-help books, especially How to Live With a Neurotic ( 1 ) , as required reading for patients help reinforce the lessons learned in therapy. (f) The approach of rational-emotive therapy is present- and future-oriented and avoids much of the speculative interpretations of childhood that can mislead patients. (g) Cynical, impulsive, impatient clients who have had a taste of more passive and more silent psychiatric and counseling therapists often find it easier to relate to a directive and activist approach. (h) Patients learn to believe they can solve their own problems as they learn to examine their own thinking and irrational feelings. Therefore, dependence on the therapist does not get out of hand.