ABSTRACT
One of the most fundamental principles that Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) therapists can teach clients is that of emotional responsibility. This principle is at the heart of the ABC model of emotional disturbance, and states that it is our beliefs about the events in our lives that are centrally implicated in our emotional and behavioural responses to them. The principle is a simple one which your clients may have enormous difficulty in grasping fully. You can usefully refer to the 'emotional responsibility' principle at important junctures in the therapeutic process since this will serve as a helpful reminder for clients to look at B-C connections rather than A-C connections. Encouraging your clients to look for the rigid beliefs, awfulizing beliefs, discomfort intolerance beliefs and depreciation beliefs in their own and other people's thinking, serves to reinforce the emotional responsibility principle.
