by Shannon O’Neill, M.A.
Many critics of REBT believe we assist clients in ridding their negative emotions. In other words, rather than continuing to experience the emotion generated, some mistakenly believe that REBT therapists strive to eliminate the emotional response completely. This could not be further from the truth. REBT therapists do work to show clients that their emotional reaction(s) may be viewed as unhealthy or dysfunctional. However, we equally validate whatever emotion our clients are experiencing, unhealthy or not. The point is that we can experience a healthier, more functional, but still negative reaction in the face of adversity through more efficient ways of thinking.
Oftentimes individuals strongly dislike their unhealthy negative emotions (i.e., depression, anxiety, hurt, shame, unhealthy anger) and hope to drastically replace them with sometimes unrealistic emotions (e.g., replacing depression with happiness). However, this attempted shift in emotions does not logically match the event or adversity experienced. For example, if an individual experiences depression after a break-up, it would not be helpful to disregard this emotion and swap it for happiness. Rather, replacing the debilitating emotion of depression with sadness might be more fruitful as a starting point.
The shift in emotions may seem minute and technical; however, it is well known that emotions have the ability to influence our behaviors. Consider some of the behavioral responses that follow an individual experiencing depression (unhealthy negative emotion) versus sadness (healthy negative emotion). Our goal using REBT is to help our clients to think in ways that are more conducive to a healthy emotional response that generates more functional behavior.
