After a very interesting psychology lecture today on the cognitive approach we were taught about rational emotive therapy which I will now refer to as (RET) as I really cannot be bothered to type out... Seriously.. No.
As somebody who has real issues with coping with emotion I found this extremely helpful so I thought I would share this with you even though I'm not entirely sure if it will make any sense, so here we go..
The main aim of RET is to replace irrational thinking with rational thinking, for example..
A person feels as if they must do well to be happy, if this person then doesn't do as well as the expectation that they set for them self then they will feel upset and this can lead to depression.
The therapist will attempt to replace the irrational thought of "I must do well in order to be happy" with a thought more rational such as "I didn't do too well, but I can't expect to succeed every time"
Although this may not completely remove these irrational thoughts it almost always decreased the frequency at which these thoughts occur (very helpful).
The fact is that it is not events that cause us to be unhappy but the beliefs we have of ourselves after an event then we have an emotional reaction to that belief causing the feeling of depression, this can be shown as a simple ABC model.
A - Event
B - Belief.
C - Consequence
A - Event takes place.
B - You form a belief based on the event.
C - As a result you have an emotional reaction to the belief.
A - Your boyfriend/girlfriend breaks up with you.
B - You then form a belief that it was your fault.
C - Your emotional reaction to this belief causes you to think of yourself in a negative way.
A therapist will ask you what you MUST achieve in order to be happy, for example "I must do well in everything in order to be happy." Then the therapist will say "Well why must you do well in order to be happy? Only you expect this of yourself." This is the basic procedure to change irrational thinking, the patient will then question their own beliefs and realise that they are irrational. The therapist will then help the patient think rational thoughts preventing them from having a negative emotional reaction.
My main point is that...
Life doesn't always work out the way you want it to..
Life doesn't HAVE to go your way..
And although life may suck at times and you may feel like ending it, life is almost always bearable and will start to look up eventually.
Keltan
