ABSTRACT
If therapists explain to clients the Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) view that irrational beliefs are at the core of emotional disturbance and these need to be changed if clients are to be truly helped, then some of them will think they are being dogmatic and question if REBT is only concerned with changing beliefs. REBT therapists are primarily concerned with helping their clients to pursue their basic goals and purposes. To facilitate this process, the author encourages therapists to experience healthy rather than unhealthy negative emotions about negative As and to act functionally in the face of these negative events. REBT therapists hold the view that a central way of helping our clients to achieve all this is to encourage them to change their irrational beliefs, but this is not their sole goal. They are interested in helping clients to change their beliefs, their feelings, their behaviour, their images, their interpersonal relationships and the aversive events in their lives.
