A Look at REBT Interventions
If you’re wondering how REBT is put into practice with clients, this section is for you. There are tons of resources out there for practitioners or those interested in trying the techniques for themselves.
Check out the activities, exercises, and worksheets listed below.
3 REBT activities and exercises
Imagine the Worst
Catastrophizing involves “worst-case” thinking and can be an extremely common cognitive distortion. Frequently, we fear the uncertainty of potential negative events, even despite a lack of objective facts to support their occurrence (Quartana, Campbell, & Edwards, 2009).
Imagine the Worst… can be used when a client is attempting to avoid thinking about worst possible scenarios for fear of becoming even more anxious. In this exercise, they face that fear by envisioning it.
This can help them realize that:
- The worst-case scenario is unrealistic and thus unlikely to occur.
- Even if it did occur, the worst-case scenario will probably still be tolerable.
- In the event that it happens, they would still be able to manage the outcome and prevent it from becoming catastrophic.
Blown Out of All Proportion
This technique involves both imagery and humor, combining two of the cognitive restructuring techniques for maximum effectiveness. It builds on “worst-case imagery” for reasons that will become obvious.
In a session, the therapist would ask the client to imagine that the thing they fear happening the most actually happened. However, instead of allowing the client to visualize it realistically, the therapist will guide them in visualizing it to an extreme, blow entirely out of proportion (Froggatt, 2005).
When things are this exaggerated, they become funny. Laughing at their blown-up fears will help the client get control over them. This exercise isn’t right for every fear, but it can be extremely useful in many cases.
You’ll find this intervention, with examples, in the Imagine The Worst PDF above.
Disputing Irrational Beliefs (DIBS) Handout
One of the most popular cognitive restructuring techniques is called disputing irrational beliefs (DIBS) or simply disputing (Ellis, n.d.). The point of DIBS is to question yourself on some of your limiting or harmful beliefs and essentially “logic” them out of existence.
Here are the questions to ask yourself, outlined in our Disputing Irrational Beliefs Handout:
- What is the self-defeating irrational belief I would like to dispute and reduce?
- Am I able to support this belief with objective facts?
- What proof is there that this belief is false?
- Is there any proof that this belief is true?
- What is the worst possible outcome that could occur if I fail to get what I believe I must? What’s the worst possible outcome if I do get what I believe I mustn’t? What other negative things could happen to me?
- What positive things could I cause to happen if my undesirable scenarios pan out?
Although this technique can be highly effective for irrational beliefs, it will not always work for your deepest or long-held beliefs. These are harder to dispute but not impossible; Ellis recommends recording your irrational belief and several disputes to the belief, then listening to it repeatedly and even allowing your therapist, therapy group, or loved ones to listen to it with you.
This technique has been adapted from Techniques for Disputing Irrational Beliefs by the Albert Ellis Institute into a client handout (Ellis, n.d.). For a more detailed exercise, check out our Challenging Questions Worksheet below.
What our readers think
The cognitive distortions mentioned in this article are typical of CBT rather than REBT. The latter has only four dysfunctional beliefs: demandingness, awfulizing, frustration intolerance and global negative rating of self, others, life, the world, and some add psychological processes.
Hi Steve,
Yes, that is absolutely right!
Thank you for your feedback.
Kind regards,
Julia | Community Manager
I thoroughly enjoyed the read. I made more sense to me and helping me to finish my course with ease. This article was very helpful
Joy
It’s always pleasure
I love the content as a psychology student
I have been using this technique for 20 years in later life(I’m a pensioner) after a sad childhood. It helps with major life-long depression, even tho it gets tedious at times. It is well worth the slog!
Is there anything about Emotional Control Card?
Hi Mika,
While we do not discuss the Emotional Control Card technique here, this is highly relevant and useful as a ‘homework’ component of REBT.
For anyone wondering, the practice was put forward by Sklare, Taylor, and Hyland (1985). They encouraged their clients/research participants to carry a wallet-sized card around with them which listed negative emotions in two columns: intense and mild.
When feeling overwhelmed by an intense emotion like ‘abandoned’ or ‘furious’, people were encouraged to engage in rational self-talk to change their emotional state to the corresponding mild version of that emotion (e.g., abandoned –> a bit unimportant; furious –> agitated).
It’s a useful technique that’s still used today. 🙂
– Nicole | Community Manager
From where can we download pdf of REBT worksheet ?
Hi Shrushti,
The PDF of the REBT Worksheet is available to members of the Positive Psychology Toolkit. You can learn more about this toolkit here.
Thank you.
– Nicole | Community Manager
that was great.
it was usfull to me.
problem solving techniques really help me,thank you so much