ABSTRACT
All approaches to psychological treatment also specify, either explicitly or implicitly, the factors that explain psychological health. If rigidity is deemed to be at the core of psychological disturbance in REBT, it follows that ¯exibility is deemed to be at the core of psychological health. The appropriate dictum might be: ``People react healthily to events when they hold ¯exible views of (or more accurately, beliefs about) these events''. This dictum speci®es the type of cognitions that are at the core of psychological health, namely ¯exible beliefs. Flexibility builds upon the basic human fact that we form preferences about things and takes the form of non-dogmatic preferences, desires, wishes, wants, among others. Flexible beliefs have two components. In the ®rst component (which I call the ``asserted preference'' component), we assert our preferences about what we want to happen or not happen. In the second component (which I call the ``negated demand'' component) we acknowledge that we do not have to get what we want. As with musts, these non-dogmatic preferences have three foci: self, others and life, as in:
· ``I want X to happen (or not happen) . . . but, I don't have to get my desire met . . . .''
