ABSTRACT
Whenever you are disputing your clients’ irrational beliefs, distinguish between questions designed to encourage the clients to rethink these beliefs and questions designed to help you assess more carefully the inferential part of the A. For example, consider a client who has the following irrational belief; ‘My girlfriend must not pry into my affairs.’ If you were to use a disputing question, you might ask ‘Where is the evidence that your girlfriend must not pry into your affairs?’ An assessment question might be ‘Why do you think your girlfriend must not pry into your affairs?’ which encourages your client to go more deeply into the reasons why he finds his girlfriend’s intrusion personally distressing. To this enquiry, the client may reply ‘Because my freedom is being curtailed.’ Again, you can ask a disputing question at this point such as ‘Why must your freedom not be curtailed?’ Again, you might ask another assessment question such as ‘Why is it so important that your freedom must not be curtailed?’ This question encourages the client to explore more deeply increasingly relevant aspects of the A.
