ABSTRACT
Unhealthy and healthy negative emotions share the characteristic that they are both negative in tone. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) teaches that unhealthy negative emotions stemming from rigid and extreme attitudes are dysfunctional because they co-occur with behaviour that tends to be self-defeating. The rigid and extreme attitudes that spawn unhealthy negative emotions may also produce negative cognitive consequences. Cognitive distortions like jumping to conclusions, mind reading and overgeneralization, among others, are more likely to co-occur when a client is holding a rigid and/or extreme attitude. Dryden noted the limited word choices in English for negative emotions and proposed eight different labels for the unhealthy and healthy negative emotions. REBT, unlike other cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) models, posits that rigid attitudes are at the core of emotional disturbance and subsequent dysfunctional behaviour and cognitive processing. REBT therefore takes aim at rigid and extreme attitudes hoping to facilitate the development of flexible and non-extreme attitudes.
