The ABC model of REBT is not about blaming the client for their misfortune. The REBT therapist has a responsibility
to empathise with the client; and to teach the client how they can reduce their upset emotions in the future, not to blame
them for having "upset themselves" in the past.
The client does not "upset themselves" with their
beliefs. They are upset by the 'activating event' (or 'A'), but the intensity of their emotional consequence (or 'C')
is a function of their belief system (at point ('B').
The REBT therapist's role is to skilfully educate the
client regarding how to moderate their emotional disturbances in the future. And that cannot be done by asking "Socratic
questions". It has to involve didactic inputs, combined with skillful questions.
As I said, my student had misunderstood the implications of the A>B>C model. When Albert
Ellis and other REBT therapists ask: "What are you telling yourself to make yourself angry?", they
are referring back to a number of basic statements within REBT, including
these:
1. If you tell yourself something 'rational'
- which means desiring or preferential - about an adversity that you have experienced, you will get a reasonable upset, such
as concern, irritation, sadness, etc.
2. If you tell yourself
something 'irrational' - which means demanding or awfulizing - about an adversity that you have experienced,
you will get an overly upset emotion, such as anxiety, anger, depression, etc.
3. If you actively set out to change your self-talk about adversities that affect you, and you are successful,
then you will tend to become much less disturbable.
4. If two people have
the same objective 'A' - or activating event - but they each have a different responsive
attitude to it, (or belief about it), then they will produce different emotions at point 'C' in the
A>B>C model.
However, ideally, an REBT
therapist should never ask 'disputing' or 'debating' questions of a client - like 'What are you telling yourself...?' - before
first ensuring that the client fully understands the REBT model.
Otherwise, the client is bound to misunderstand what is going on; to be mystified; or to feel that they are being made wrong
- blamed for their emotional response. And REBT therapists should never blame the
client for their misfortunes. The first task of the therapist is to empathise with the client.
This is how I raised this issue with my student:
Of course, if the only thing I did was to empathize
with my clients, then I would not be an REBT therapist, but rather a Rogerian, person-centred counsellor.
So here is how I move on to educate the client into an understanding of the link between the 'B' and the 'C'.
VIDEO OF PART 2...
So the client can be helped to see that, if an individual
holds a very strong, rhetorical view of their difficulties in life, then they will have churned up emotional results.
While, on the other hand, if they can think calmly and realistically/reasonably about their difficulties, they will produce
calm, reasonable emotional responses. The reason that this is so is that, originally, infants and young children are
feeling beings. They live their lives from their sensations and feelings. But they have to live in a culture,
and over a period of time, the language of that culture comes to dominate their minds. Their languaging comes to be
intertwined with their feelings, producing what we call emotions, which Sarbin describes as "narrative emplotments".
Emotions are a product of feelings and self-talk. Change the self-talk (persistently and successfully
enough) and you (can, eventually) change the emotions.
Here then is the third video clip
in this series. When I began it, I still thought I had the ability to jump back and forth between being an REBT therapist,
in the full-blooded Ellisian format, and being the archetypal CENT therapist. But something happened during the making
of this video clip that seems to have broken that bridge for all time, as far as I can tell at this moment in time.
Take a look at the view clip and see what you think:
VIDEO CLIP NUMBER 3...
Well, that was quite a shock - to see how much I have moved
on from the simple A>B>C model, and how inadequate that famous Epictetus quote now seems to me to be. And I now
have the additional task of going back to the Epictetus's pamphlet - (Epictetus [1991] Enchiridion,
New York: Prometheus Books. Translated by George Long) - to examine the original context of that statement.
This is how the section opens - Section V, page 14 - "Men are disturbed not by the things which happen, but
by the opinions about the things..." In ABC language, this would mean, People are not disturbed by the A, but by
the B about the A; or A x B = C. This fits with my view that people are disturbed (C) by the
A that happens and their attitude (B) towards it; and the intensity of the C is a function of the strength of the B.
Epictetus goes on to say "When, then, we are impeded or disturbed or grieved, let us never
blame others, but ourselves, that is, our opinions". This statement involves too much resignation, too soon.
Because it omits to consider whether we can change the A. If we can change the A of another person's unacceptable behaviour,
then we have the assertive right to do so in a reasonable manner. Or if we can change a non-human environmental A, we
have a right to do so. We do not have to resign ourselves to our fate, like helpless babies. We must, logically,
accept those As which cannot be changed, or else suffer the pain of constant resistance to reality. However, blaming
myself for my Cs is going too far (because I am a product of a culture, and my Bs and Cs are common currency
within my culture). Understanding how my Cs relate to my Bs, and then attempting to change my Bs would be an altogether
better strategy.
Section V continues: "It is the act of an ill-instructed (wo)man
to blame others for his/her own bad conditions; it is the act of one who has begun to be instructed, to lay the blame on him/her-self...".
Well that would only be true if others had played no part in bringing about my own bad conditions. It is not inconceivable
that others could have contributed to bringing about my own bad conditions, and therefore it is far too resigned to say "I
will blame myself for this!" Also, I have the option of asking others to change their behaviours, including compensating
me for any harm they have inflicted upon me, accidentally or deliberately. However, if others have not
contributed to my bad conditions, then it would be immoral as well as crazy to say "They are responsible for this!"
The final statement in section V is this "...and (it is the act of) one whose instruction is completed neither
to blame another, nor himself". Sounds very enlightened. But sometimes it is important
to apportion blame, or at least responsibility, to myself or others. So, sorry Epictetus, but here is where
we part company (at least from quoting your very simple quote about what causes human disturbances). It was nice (and
simple) for a while, but CENT cannot swallow your philosophy whole!
But now back to section IV
of the Enchiridion. Here, which is the context in which section V occurs, Epictetus is talking about how to mentally
prepare oneself for an event, such as visiting the public baths (in ancient Rome - which is how people bathed
in those days; not individually at home). He warns that it is not going to be a pleasant experience, with people pushing,
shoving, abusing each other, stealing, etc. and he advises that you remind yourself of these facts before attending for a
bath. Epictetus argues that you should mentally prepare yourself for this unpleasant reality, and concludes
"...thus with more safety you will undertake the matter, if you say to yourself, I now intend to bathe, and to maintain
my will in a manner conformable to nature. And so you will do in every act: for thus if any hindrance to bathing
shall happen, let this thought be ready; it is not this only that I intended, but I intended also to maintain my will in
a way conformable to nature; but I shall not maintain it so, if I am vexed at what happens". (Pages 13-14).
This element of Epictetus, which is part of the context of the 'famous quote', seems altogether more usable as an
approach to therapy, and seems to fit with the approach I was advocating above. With regard to the young man who was
physically and sexually abused, and who witnessed the murder of one family member by another, we can say the following:
1. He is upset about those experiences (As); and the intensity of his emotions (at C) is determined by the nature
of his beliefs/attitudes (at B).
2. His past history is stored in his nonconscious mind, and so
he cannot step away from it, or sling it into the nearest river. He is stuck with it.
3.
Although his disturbance comes from the past, his therapeutic needs relate to this moment, and all future moments.
4. He is most likely to feel distressed when he (later today, or tomorrow) recalls images from the past, or recalls
sensations from the past.
5. Well, just like Epictetus preparing himself for the indignities of
the bath house, our young man needs to prepare himself for the difficulties of those memories.
6.
He needs to have new ways of framingthose experiences, when they come up in recollection later today, and
tomorrow, and next week. And REBT/CBT/CENT therapies have ways of helping him to re-frame those experiences.
7. He needs to learn those ways of reframing his experiences.
8. He also needs to say
to himself: "My very bad memories of my childhood will keep returning, and I need to be prepared for that...I need to
practice ways of re-framing my experience, from REBT/CBT/CENT (such as learning to distinguish rational and irrational beliefs,
and cognitive distortions, and rewriting my 'story' in line with these ways of thinking). Thus prepared I can with more
safety undertake the matter of recalling those cruel memories, if I say to myself: 'I now intend to confront those memories,
to complete my experience of them, and to maintain my consciousness in a manner conformable to reason. That means
avoiding self-rhetoric and exaggeration, denial of reality, exaggeration of the degree of badness, and black and white thinking,
and so on'. And this I will do in every act of recollection of those distressing memories: for if very distressing images
come up, let this thought be ready: 'It is not this only that I intended, but I intended also to maintain my consciousness
in a manner conformable to reason', which means avoiding irrational beliefs and cognitive distortions; but I shall not
maintain it so, if I allow myself to become overly upset by these very unfortunate memories".
Thus
Epictetus and I are facing in the same direction: towards the future, and not towards the past. It is a mistake to look
back at what the client has been telling themselves, for there lies the path to blaming the victim for their victim-hood.
Better to look to the future, and to help the client to see that they can moderate their emotions to some extent, if they
will teach themselves new ways of framing their experiences. Not that they have to. Not that they are wrong to
see it the way they currently do. They were, after all, wired up by their culture to see things the way they see them.
This is not some kind of individual perversity! People are largely non-conscious grow-bots, who are wired by their family
and their wider culture to act (largely non-consciously) in accordance with that wiring. If we are to help them, we
have to begin where they are - as cultural entities; relational beings; in need of a gentle education into a new set of possibilities.
That's partly the ABCs of REBT, and partly the ABCs of CENT. We are somewhere on that bridge. I am not
sure how far over the bridge we are at this point. But I feel compelled - if only by the very disappointing way in which
Al's life ended - to continue across that bridge to a better future.
That's all at the moment
on the ABCs of REBT (and CENT).
Postscript on indexicality: Let's tidy up my point about the context
of statements giving them their meaning and validity. In the Enchiridion, in section IV, Epictetus has taught
the reader to prepare themselves mentally before going to the public baths. Do not go
to the public baths with false expectations of having a nice time. If then the individual reader (in section V)
reports that they are upset about their bathing experience, then, Epictetus is entitled to tell them: "This is a
function of your attitude. I already told you, in section IV, to be more realistic about what to expect
at the baths, therefore, if you are upset about your bathing experience this has more to do with your unwillingness to change
your expectations than it has to do with how bathers behave in the public baths". Indexicality. When
we rip that quote out of its original context, and walk up to a woman who has fallen on her face in the street, smashing the
chocolate eggs she had been lovingly carrying home for her grandson, and we ignore the blood on her knee, and we say: You
are not upset about the fall, the blood or the broken eggs; you are more accurately disturbed because of your irrational beliefs;
we deserve the whack with her umbrella that she is most likely to deliver! If we had previously been asked to coach
her about how to avoid such disturbances, and we had taught her the entire REBT philosophy, and she then fell in the street
and started to whine, we would be more justified (if a little mean) in telling her: 'You are not
upset so much by the fall etc, as you are by your tenacious resistance to giving up you irrational belief that "Nothing
bad should ever happen to me!" ' Indexicality! Indexicality! Indexicality! (Indexical meaning
is context dependent).
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and a little idea about the A>B>C model is potentially misleading.
It is important to question our beliefs about the A>B>Cs in order to ensure that we are not misleading ourselves, and
others. REBT/CBT/CENT will be strengthened by this process, and weakened by uncritical repetition of the past.
Jim Byrne