ABSTRACT
To complicate matters further, some Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) therapists use what appear to be disputing questions but are really questions designed to help them do inference chaining. Thus, instead of asking traditional inference chaining type questions such: 'What is particularly upsetting to one about his girlfriend prying into his affairs; they ask 'Why must one's girlfriend not pry into his affairs; When they receive the answer 'Because his freedom is being curtailed', they ask another question which again seems to be a disputing question, but is really an inference chaining enquiry such as 'Why must one's freedom not be curtailed'. This use of inference chaining questions, which at first sight appear to be disputing questions, is particularly confusing for novice therapists. They think that therapists are disputing clients' irrational beliefs, but really they are assessing their clients' chains of inferences.
