ABSTRACT
As an Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) therapist, you will make liberal use of questions during the therapeutic process. Questions are used both to gain information about clients during a detailed assessment of their problems, and to encourage them to identify, challenge and change their irrational beliefs. Since questions form such a central part of the therapeutic armamentarium, you need to use them with care and it is important for you to avoid the following errors when making use of questions. When using questions as part of gaining an overall understanding of your clients, avoid asking irrelevant questions. When you assess the ABCs of your clients' problems, you need to ask questions which encourage the clients to focus on specific aspects of the activating events and their disturbed feelings and behaviours. It is important that you ascertain whether or not your clients readily respond to Socratic questioning. It is also important that you distinguish between open-ended questions and theory-derived questions.
