ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) to those who are not familiar with it and will do so by outlining REBT’s views about psychological disturbance and health. It presents REBT’s ABC model that Albert Ellis first introduced over 65 years ago. REBT argues that there are four healthy basic attitudes which have the following five major characteristics: flexible or non-extreme, conducive to mental health, helpful to the client as they strive towards their goals, true and logical. The chapter discusses the four healthy basic attitudes put forward by REBT theory: flexible attitude, non-awfulising attitude, bearability attitude and unconditional acceptance attitude. A non-awfulising attitude has two components. The first component is the ‘evaluation of badness’ component. The second component is called the ‘non-awfulising’ component. When the client holds a set of flexible and non-extreme attitudes towards an adversity, their emotional will be negative but healthy.
