ABSTRACT
Like all psychotherapists, the Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) therapist communicates his/her capacity to perceive accurately the emotional experience of the client. This chapter considers philosophical empathy as being a distinctive feature of REBT. The philosophical empathy relates to the therapist communicating his/her understanding of the client's attitudes, which underpin and lead to subsequent dysfunctional emotional and behavioural reactions. REBT therapists generally use more than one approach in order to thoroughly show how the client's rigid and extreme attitudes do not stand up to careful scrutiny and can be replaced with attitudes which will lead to healthy negative emotions and more functional behaviour. The distinctive feature of the REBT therapeutic relationship is that the therapist adopts what is known as an active-directive therapeutic stance. Empirical disputing aims to show the client that a careful examination of the available data will reveal that their rigid and extreme attitudes do not conform to empirical reality.
