How to apply REBT on the spot?

It's a common experience that although one knows the REBT principles, it is sometimes difficult to apply them in the middle of a situation. This generally happens when one is interacting with others and there is little time to think about the REBT principles. We asked two famous followers of Dr. Albert Ellis and practitioners of REBT, Gayle Rosellini and Will Ross about this. Both of them have been closely associated with Dr. Albert Ellis. Here are their answers:

Gayle Rosellini writes:

Our goal is to replace our habitual irrational beliefs with habitual rational ones. At the same time, we work on accepting ourselves as fallible beings who will fall back on old habits. One of the major tenets of REBT is that when we make a mistake, we can correct it. If we fall back into old habits, we do not have to stay there.

I don't think following REBT is easy, especially not at first. But it is like any other skill; it becomes easier as we practice it. At first our skill level is poor, but with time and practice, REBT habits become second nature. It's difficult for us to eliminate our iBs completely. That is why it is important to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE until rational beliefs, thoughts, feelings and behaviors become habitual with you.

One of the books of Albert Ellis, "How to stubbornly refuse to make yourself miserable about anything-yes, anything!" is especially helpful in this respect. This book gives lots of REBT exercises. The best way to do the exercises is to do them slowly, over and over again. In that way, our rational thinking becomes habitual.

It is important to first practice our REBT and ABC skills on small issues in calm times. All that practice gives us a list of rational statements that we can then automatically pull out during times of stress. One can do the ABC exercises on some event that arose in the day. Often it is over something trivial that had caused one to annoy oneself, e.g. getting stuck in traffic, someone behaving in a way one doesn't like, dropping papers.

Practicing on trivial annoyances helps when one faces larger, life-changing problems. That helps increase the frustration tolerance. One can also used the ABCs to increase tolerance of physical and emotional discomfort.

With practice, most of the time, iBs are not apparent, but there are times when one feels under stress, that the iBs come thundering to the surface. It's easy for us to fall into old habits, especially when we are sick or worried or stressed out by events. When that happens, you have to work hard on recognizing them as iBs and then ABCing them away.

The big problem we fallible human beings have is that we sometimes don't recognize an iB when it is hitting us. But PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE makes it more likely that we will realize when we are in the grips of irrational beliefs.

Will Ross writes:

It is possible that one is being perfectionist. The goal of REBT is not to eliminate all Unhealthy Negative Emotions (UNEs). That would be impossible. Rather the goal is to reduce (1) the frequency of UNEs, (2) the duration of UNEs, and (3) the intensity of UNEs.

Human beings are incurably irrational, we can minimize our tendencies to think irrationally, but we can't eliminate it entirely. Michael Edelestein, in his book, "The three minutes therapy," compares REBT to brushing your teeth, and irrational beliefs to plaque:

"Compare this with brushing your teeth. Suppose you brush and floss your teeth conscientiously twice a day for a year and visit the dentist and she exclaims, "No cavities!" Do you abandon brushing your teeth? Clearly not. You know full well that if you do, the plaque and bacteria will slowly creep back in and start their dirty work. That's because humans naturally and effortlessly manufacture plaque and bacteria as a never-ending process.
It's the same with your "musts." As a human you're a "must"- and "should"-creating animal. You find it easy to take those preferences that rate as important to you and make "musts" out of them. Its in your genes as well as in your upbringing. You don't have to be taught either to build plaque or to invent "musts." True, you can make the plaque build-up worse by eating junk food, and you can make the "must" build-up worse by practicing and reinforcing your "musty" thoughts. On the other hand, you can halt and reverse the build-up of plaque or "musts' by brushing and flossing, or disputing and questioning, regularly."

But to answer the question: The easiest way to ensure that you can use REBT principles in situations where you have relatively little time to think about them is to be well versed in them. That is, you make sure that you put the principles into action regularly on those occasions when you do have time to think about them.

The more often you practice using REBT principles, the more easily they will come to you, and the more automatically you will apply them.

In other words, you don't have to just "know REBT principles well;" you have to apply them over and over and over until they are automatic.

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