Understanding emotional problems and their healthy alternatives in tabular form

This chapter presents in tabular form the information REB coaches tend to use in assessing coachees’ emotional problems and when formulating healthy alternatives to these problems. ¹ In consulting Tables 6.1–6.8, please bear the following points in mind.

The terms used in these tables for unhealthy negative emotions (UNEs) and particularly for their healthy alternatives (HNEs) are suggestive rather than prescriptive. Coaches, in discussing these terms with their coachees, encourage them to use personally meaningful terms.

The meaning of ‘personal domain’ used in Tables 6.1 and 6.2 is “a kind of psychological space that contains anything that the person deems to be personally valuable” (Dryden, 2011a: 25). The term was originated by Aaron T. Beck (1976), who founded Cognitive Therapy.

Bear in mind that REBC advocates encouraging coachees to accept temporarily that what they consider as the adversities (at ‘A’) are true. So, the healthy emotional, behavioural and cognitive consequences (at ‘C’) outlined in Tables 6.1–6.8 are always in response to the adversities listed. Having helped coachees to deal with these adversities healthily, they can then be helped to stand back and examine, when they are in a healthier state of mind, whether they have made any cognitive distortions of ‘A’. In that case, they can be helped to correct them at this point.