ABSTRACT
REBT specializes in using new, creative ways of looking at old problems, making it distinctly different from any other helping model. In its application to family relationships, it cuts off different slices of family interactions and alternative ways to look at them providing enlightenment and emotional relief to family members. REBT maintains that nature, rather than family nurture or lack of same is the birthplace of emotional disturbance. No one, regardless of how they were brought up, is exempt from emotional problems; these problem tendencies are fostered by irrational ideas and con trolled by more rational notions. What occurs in families at point "A" (adversity or activating event), i .e. , one member harshly criti cizing another, doesn't cause "c" (emotional consequences or feel ings), i .e . , anger, hurt, or betrayal. Rather, it is what the accused member concludes at "B" (beliefs) that either regulates the emo tional response or escalates it. For example, "I wish my fellow family member would not criticize me" ; an idea that will curtail the negative "C's," or "My family member has no right to criticize and therefore must not" ; a belief that will bring on unwanted "C 's" listed above. Each chapter will contain rational ideas and messages that can assist members to get along better. When families don't work it's because their human members often do what comes natu rally through personalization and overreaction: "What's wrong with me that others in my family treat me so harshly? How awful, horrid, and catastrophic that they do so. " Perhaps the best way to influence the family unit is to upset yourself less and accept your self more, in spite of unsatisfactory experiences within that context.
