REBT’s position on the origin and maintenance of psychological problems

We have seen that one of the key theoretical principles of REBT is that summarized in the maxim that: ‘People are disturbed not by adversities, but by the rigid and extreme attitudes that they hold towards adversities.’ This means that while adversities contribute to the development of psychological disturbance, particularly when these events are highly aversive, disturbance occurs when people bring their tendencies to think in rigid and extreme ways to these events.