ABSTRACT
REBT’s view on acceptance is easily misundertood by clients. A very common question is as follows: ‘Doesn’t the REBT concept of acceptance encourage complacency or resignation?’
Here is how I (WD) respond to such a question: ‘The REBT concept of acceptance certainly gives rise to a lot of confusion in people’s minds. Some, like you, consider that it leads to complacency. Others think it means indifference. Yet others judge it to mean that we should condone negative events. Actually it means none of these things. Let me carefully spell out what REBT theory does mean by the term “acceptance”. The first point to stress is that acceptance means acknowledging the existence of an event, for example, and that all the conditions were in place for an event to occur. However, it does not mean that it is good that the event happened, nor that there is nothing one can do to rectify the situation.’
