ABSTRACT
Albert Ellis had expressed a certain degree of regret that he kept the word 'rational' as the lead term in the name of the therapy that he founded. Many people think that the term rational means devoid of emotion. They think that the model of psychological health advocated by Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is epitomized by Mr Spock in Star Trek, or the android, Data, in Star Trek: The Next Generation, who were both incapable of experiencing human emotion. The term rational in REBT means experiencing healthy emotions, i.e. emotions which aid and abet you as you strive to pursue your basic constructive goals and purposes. This chapter helps you identify your unhealthy negative emotions about negative activating events as a prelude to identifying your irrational beliefs which are deemed to underpin these emotions. It helps you to challenge and change these irrational beliefs so that you can think rationally about these events and feel healthily negative about them.
