Saturday, April 18, 2009

Kecacatan komunikasi manusia Oleh Suliati Asri suliati@hmetro.com.my

MASALAH gagap, sengau, mempunyai suara garau atau serak, pelat beberapa konsonan huruf dan nyaring yang melampau adalah sesuatu yang biasa andai ada orang terdekat mengalaminya.

Ada sesetengah orang dalam masyarakat kita terutama ibu bapa pasrah apabila anak mereka mengalami masalah seperti ini.

Walaupun ia dikatakan normal, sebenarnya ia sebaliknya. Ini kerana masalah ini adalah satu sindrom di panggil kecacatan komunikasi manusia dan ia boleh dirawat.

Kecacatan komunikasi manusia? Apakah yang dimaksudkan dengan kecacatan komunikasi ini? Pelik juga kerana dalam berkomunikasi juga ada kecacatan?

Pensyarah Kecacatan Komunikasi Manusia Universiti Manusia (UM), Abdul Rahim Mat Yassim, berkata kecacatan komunikasi manusia adalah perkara, penyakit atau fenomena yang mengganggu seseorang itu untuk komunikasi.

Menurutnya, ia berkaitan masalah bahasa dan pertuturan yang dihadapi penghidapnya berbentuk patologi yang berkait dengan penyakit bahasa.

"Kecacatan komunikasi manusia ini membabitkan alat pengeluaran bahasa pertuturan terutama dari saluran pertuturan iaitu daripada rongga hidung, mulut sehinggalah ke saluran suara serta otak.

"Apabila saluran itu mengalami kecederaan atau mempunyai kecacatan, ia akan menjejaskan bahasa dan pertuturan serta menggendalakan komunikasi. Itulah juga definisi kecacatan komunikasi manusia," katanya yang sudah berkecimpung dengan bidang ini selama 13 tahun.

Contoh terbaik adalah kecacatan artikulasi yang apabila seseorang bercakap dalam bahasa ibunda, dia tidak boleh menyebut dengan betul bersesuaian dengan peringkat umurnya seperti pelat.

"Mungkin dalam pelat itu, dia ada menggugurkan bunyi, penambahan bunyi, membuat pemesongan bunyi dan penggantian bunyi.

Justeru, apabila seseorang itu gagap, sengau, mempunyai suara garau atau serak dan nyaring yang melampau, ia dikategorikan sebagai mempunyai kecacatan komunikasi manusia.

Walaupun, ada sesetengah masyarakat menyifatkan ia sebagai kejadian semula jadi, sebenarnya ia boleh di betulkan dan perlu dikesan lebih awal.

Bagaimanapun, perkara ini perlu dikesan dengan segera kerana jika lambat, ia boleh mengakibatkan kanak-kanak itu akan mengalami masalah dalam berkomunikasi.

Selain itu juga, kelewatan ibu bapa mengesan masalah ini juga boleh menyebabkan rawatan yang bakal dijalani lebih panjang.

Menurutnya, paling awal perkara ini dapat dikesan adalah ketika kanak-kanak itu berusia dua tahun. Ini kerana pada ketika itu mereka sudah boleh bercakap walaupun hanya beberapa patah perkataan saja.

"Jadi, jika di usia ini, mereka masih tidak boleh bercakap, ibu bapa perlu mengambil tindakan bagi mengelak masalah ini berlarutan dan bukannya hanya menganggapnya sebagai normal.

"Selain itu, jika mereka sudah mencecah umur enam tahun dan bercakap seperti kanak-kanak berusia tiga atau empat tahun, itu bermakna si kecil itu ada sindrom ini," katanya.

Dengan keadaan anak yang seperti itu dan ibu bapa masih tidak mengambil tindakan, kanak-kanak berkenaan akan berdepan masalah apabila besar nanti.

"Contohnya, kanak-kanak yang gagap. Jika dia tetap gagap sehingga mencecah usia sembilan tahun, kemungkinan besar kanak-kanak itu akan mengalami gagap yang kekal dan sukar untuk dirawat.

"Semakin lambat kanak-kanak itu dikesan mengalami sindrom ini, semakin panjanglah tempoh rawatan yang mereka terpaksa terima," katanya.

Ada juga segelintir ibu bapa yang menyedari masalah ini tetapi tidak tahu ke mana seharusnya mereka merujuk.

Selain itu, mereka juga tidak ada masa untuk membuat kajian atau berjumpa dengan pakar dan kerana itu anak dibiarkan dalam keadaan sedemikian.

Menurut Rahim, ibu bapa sebenarnya ada banyak tempat untuk membuat rujukan atau memulihkan sindrom ini.

"Ibu bapa sebenarnya boleh merujuk kepada persatuan yang banyak ditubuhkan di negara kita termasuk persatuan orang pekak.

"Selain itu, mereka juga boleh merujuk kepada Pusat Perubatan UM (PPUM) Bahagian Klinik Telinga, Hidung dan Tekak," katanya.

Di klinik terbabit, kanak-kanak boleh dibantu dengan penilaian klinikal apabila kebiasaannya doktor akan memeriksa alat pertuturan mereka bagi menentukan kecacatan fizikal pada alat pertuturan berkenaan.

"Jika tidak ada kecacatan fizikal dikesan, doktor akan terus merujuk kepada jurupulih pertuturan klinikal yang menawarkan perkhidmatan seumpama itu di PPUM.

"Bagaimanapun, jika terdapat kecacatan fizikal, doktor akan membuat pembetulan di bahagian yang mengalami kecacatan itu," katanya.

Sementara itu, selain menyediakan klinik berkaitan masalah ini, UM juga menawarkan kursus berkenaan di Fakulti Bahasa dan Linguistik sejak 13 tahun lalu.

Bagaimanapun, kursus itu tidak dikenali ramai kerana kurang pendedahan dan kebanyakan berpendapatan kecacatan atau kelemahan dalam komunikasi itu berkait rapat dengan kelemahan seseorang menguasai bahasa kedua seperti bahasa Inggeris.

Biasanya apabila bercerita mengenai komunikasi, orang akan berpendapat mengenai bagaimana kita bertutur dalam bahasa lain tetapi bidang komunikasi ini sangat meluas dan ia mempunyai kecacatan yang kita tidak

tahu.

Rahim berkata, UM menawarkan kursus ini di peringkat sarjana muda dan sarjana yang akan mengkaji mengenai bahasa serta pertuturan kerana komponen itu penting dalam sesuatu komunikasi.

Kursus ini juga menggabungkan perubatan dan linguistik kerana ia memerlukan pengetahuan dalam bidang anatomi dan psikologi dalam pertuturan.

"Oleh itu, dengan ilmu ini, pelajar atau guru yang mengambil kursus berkenaan boleh membuat pengesahan awal terhadap kanak-kanak atau murid yang menghidap sindrom ini.

"Selain itu, pelajar juga terutama guru dapat memberi tumpuan kepada murid yang bermasalah supaya mereka tidak ketinggalan serta terpinggir," katanya.

Menurutnya, kanak-kanak yang ada masalah kecacatan komunikasi manusia ini bukanlah seorang yang bodoh atau lembap, namun dek sindrom ini mereka tidak dapat menerima pelajaran itu dengan baik.

"Jadi, saya berharap sangat agar masyarakat terutama ibu bapa dan guru lebih peka terhadap permasalahan ini supaya mereka tidak terabai," katanya.

Bagi mereka yang mempunyai anak mengalami sindrom ini dan ingin membuat rujukan, bolehlah menghubungi Abdul Rahim Mat Yassim di talian 03-79673108 atau e-mel: masrimie@gmail.com

Aku pun tingin nk jadik cmni...






KOTA BHARU: “Saya membaca al-Quran sejak berusia enam tahun dan berupaya menghafal semua 30 juzuk ketika berumur 14 tahun.

“Saya tiada rahsia kejayaan, sebaliknya hanya berserah kepada Allah supaya sentiasa memberi kekuatan,” kata Siti Nadhira Mohd Shafei, 16, selepas muncul sebagai Johan Menghafaz Al-Quran (1 hingga 30 juzuk) Peringkat Kebangsaan dalam kategori perempuan, di sini, semalam.

Pelajar Maahad Tahfiz Al-Ikhwan, Ampang, Selangor itu berkata, dia mendapat dorongan sepenuhnya daripada bapa, Mohd Shafei Mat Amin, 45, yang juga pengerusi sekolah berkenaan.

Katanya, kejayaan besar itu adalah kali kedua buatnya apabila turut bergelar Johan Hafazan kategori 1 hingga 15 juzuk dalam pertandingan sama, tahun lalu.

“Saya bersyukur kerana kejayaan itu memberi kegembiraan kepada ibu, Norliza Muhammad, 45, yang menempuh dugaan menjaga kakak yang sakit,” katanya.
Sementara itu, Johan Menghafaz Al-Quran (1-30 juzuk) kategori lelaki, Muhammad Ahmad Zahid, 14, pula berkata dia berlatih menghafal sejak tiga tahun lalu dengan membaca sekurang-kurangnya satu muka al-Quran setiap hari.

“Hanya dengan cara mengulang bacaan setiap hari, baru kita boleh menghafal dengan baik,” katanya yang menghafal semua 30 juzuk Al-Quran sejak berusia 10 tahun.

Hadiah disampaikan Sultan Kelantan, Tuanku Ismail Petra di Dewan Besar Balai Islam, Kompleks Islam Darul Naim, dekat sini, malam kelmarin.


(sumber : Kosmo, 2009)

Monday, April 6, 2009

Transactional Analysis by Eric Berne

Diagram of concepts in transactional analysis, based on cover of Eric Berne's 1964 book Games People Play.
Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. Integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, Humanist and Cognitive approaches. It was developed by Canadian-born US psychiatrist Eric Berne during the late 1950s.
History
TA is not only post-Freudian but according to its founder's wishes consciously extra-Freudian. That is to say that while it has its roots in psychoanalysis - since Berne was a psychoanalytic-trained psychiatrist - it was designed as a dissenting branch of psychoanalysis in that it put its emphasis on transactional, rather than "psycho-", analysis.
With its focus on transactions, TA shifted its attention from internal psychological dynamics to the dynamics contained in people's interactions. Rather than believing that increasing awareness of the contents of unconsciously held ideas was the therapeutic path, TA concentrated on the content of people's interactions with each other. Changing these interactions was TA's path to solving emotional problems.
In addition Berne believed in making a commitment to "curing" his patients rather than just understanding them. To that end he introduced one of the most important aspects of TA: the contract - an agreement entered into by both client and therapist to pursue specific changes that the client desires.
Revising Freud's concept of the human psyche as composed of the id, ego, and super-ego, Berne postulated in addition three "ego states" — the Parent, Adult, and Child states — which were largely shaped through childhood experiences. These three are all part of Freud's ego; none represented the id or the superego.
Unhealthy childhood experiences could damage the Adult or Parent ego states, which would bring discomfort to an individual and/or others in a variety of forms, including many types of mental illness...
Berne considered how individuals interact with one another, and how the ego states affected each set of transactions. Unproductive or counterproductive transactions were considered to be signs of ego state problems. Analysing these transactions, according to the person's individual developmental history, would enable the person to "get better". Berne thought that virtually everyone has something problematic about their ego states and that negative behaviour would not be addressed by "treating" only the problematic individual.
Berne identified a typology of common counterproductive social interactions, identifying these as "games".
Berne presented his theories in two popular books on transactional analysis: Games People Play (1964) and What Do You Say After You Say Hello? (1975). As a result of this popularity, TA came to be disdained in many[citation needed] mainstream mental health circles as an example of "pop psychology". I'm OK, You're OK (1969), written by Berne's longtime friend Thomas Anthony Harris, is probably the most popular TA book. Many TA therapists regard I'm OK, You're OK as an oversimplification or worse.[citation needed]
TA was also dismissed by the conventional psychoanalytic community[citation needed] because of its radical departures from Freudian theory. However, by the 1970s, because of its non-technical and non-threatening jargon and model of the human psyche, many of its terms and concepts were adopted by eclectic therapists as part of their individual approaches to psychotherapy. It also served well as a therapy model for groups of patients, or marital/family counselees, where interpersonal (rather than intrapersonal) disturbances were the focus of treatment. Critics[1] have charged that TA — especially as loosely interpreted by those outside the more formal TA community — is a pseudoscience; when it is in fact[citation needed] better understood as a philosophy which happens to meet all the criteria listed in the Wikipedia entry for belief system.
TA's popularity in the U.S. waned in the 1970s, but it retains some popularity elsewhere in the world.[1] The more dedicated TA purists banded together in 1964 with Berne to form a research and professional accrediting body, the International Transactional Analysis Association, or ITAA. The organization is still active as of 2008.


TA outline

TA is a theory of personality and a systematic psychotherapy for personal growth and personal change.
1. As a theory of personality, TA describes how people are structured psychologically. It uses what is perhaps its best known model, the ego-state (Parent-Adult-Child) model to do this. This same model helps understand how people function and express themselves in their behaviors.
2. As a theory of communication it extends to a method of analysing systems and organisations.
3. It offers a theory for child development, where it ties in very neatly with the Freudian developmental stages -oral, anal, phallic.
4. It introduces the idea of a "Life (or Childhood) Script", that is, a story one perceives about ones own life, to answer questions such as "What matters", "How do I get along in life" and "What kind of person am I". This story, TA says, is often stuck to no matter the consequences, to "prove" one is right, even at the cost of pain, compulsion, self-defeating behaviour and other dysfunction. Thus TA offers a theory of a broad range of psychopathology.
5. In practical application, it can be used in the diagnosis and treatment of many types of psychological disorders, and provides a method of therapy for individuals, couples, families and groups.
6. Outside the therapeutic field, it has been used in education, to help teachers remain in clear communication at an appropriate level, in counseling and consultancy, in management and communications training, and by other bodies.
Key ideas of TA

TA emphasizes a pragmatic approach, that is, it seeks to find "what works" in treating patients, and, where applicable, develop models to assist understanding of why certain treatments work. Thus, TA continually evolves. However some core models and concepts are part of TA as follows:--


The Ego-State (or Parent-Adult-Child, PAC) model
At any given time, a person experiences and manifests their personality through a mixture of behaviours, thoughts and feelings. Typically, according to TA, there are three ego-states that people consistently use:
• Parent ("exteropsyche"): a state in which people behave, feel, and think in response to an unconscious mimicking of how their parents (or other parental figures) acted, or how they interpreted their parent's actions. For example, a person may shout at someone out of frustration because they learned from an influential figure in childhood the lesson that this seemed to be a way of relating that worked.
• Adult ("neopsyche"): a state of the ego which is most like a computer processing information and making predictions absent of major emotions that cloud its operation. Learning to strengthen the Adult is a goal of TA. While a person is in the Adult ego state, he/she is directed towards an objective appraisal of reality.
• Child ("archaeopsyche"): a state in which people behave, feel and think similarly to how they did in childhood. For example, a person who receives a poor evaluation at work may respond by looking at the floor, and crying or pouting, as they used to when scolded as a child. Conversely, a person who receives a good evaluation may respond with a broad smile and a joyful gesture of thanks. The Child is the source of emotions, creation, recreation, spontaneity and intimacy.
Berne differentiated his Parent, Adult, and Child ego states from actual adults, parents, and children, by using capital letters when describing them. These ego-states may or may not represent the relationships that they act out. For example, in the workplace, an adult supervisor may take on the Parent role, and scold an adult employee as though they were a Child. Or a child, using their Parent ego-state, could scold their actual parent as though the parent were a Child.
Within each of these ego states are subdivisions. Thus Parental figures are often either nurturing (permission-giving, security-giving) or criticizing (comparing to family traditions and ideals in generally negative ways); Childhood behaviours are either natural (free) or adapted to others. These subdivision categorize individuals' patterns of behaviour, feelings, and ways of thinking, that can be functional (beneficial or positive) or dysfunctional/counterproductive (negative).
Ego-states do not correspond directly to Sigmund Freud's Ego, Superego and Id, although there are obvious parallels. Ego states are consistent for each person and are argued by TA practitioners as more readily observable than the pats in Freud's hypothetical model. In other words, the particular ego state that a given person is communicating from is determinable by external observation and experience.
There is no "universal" ego-state; each state is individually and visibly manifested for each person. For example, each Child ego state is unique to the childhood experiences, mentality, intellect, and family of each individual; it is not a generalised childlike state.
Ego states can become contaminated, for example, when a person mistakes Parental rules and slogans, for here-and-now Adult reality, and when beliefs are taken as facts. Or when a person "knows" that everyone is laughing at them because "they always laughed". This would be an example of a childhood contamination, insofar as here-and-now reality is being overlaid with memories of previous historic incidents in childhood.
Ego states also do not correspond directly to thinking, feeling, and judging, as these behaviors are present in every ego state.
Berne suspected that Parent, Adult, and Child ego states might be tied to specific areas of the human brain; an idea that has not been proved.[1]
In more recent years the three ego state model has been questioned by a marginal TA group in Australia, who have devised a "two ego-state model" as a means of solving perceived theoretical problems:
"The two ego-state model sought to correct inaccuracies in the three ego-state model Berne devised. The two ego-state model says that there is a Child ego-state and a Parent ego-state, placing the Adult ego-state with the Parent ego-state. The information we learn at school is all Parent ego-state introjects. How we learn to speak, add up and learn how to think is all just copied from our teachers. Just as our morals and values are copied from our parents. There is no absolute truth where facts exist out side a person’s own belief system. Berne mistakenly concluded that there was and thus mistakenly put the Adult ego-state as separate from the Parent ego-state." For anyone interested in sourcing this deviation from mainstream TA, see [2][3]


Transactions and Strokes
• Transactions are the flow of communication, and more specifically the unspoken psychological flow of communication that runs in parallel.
• Transactions occur simultaneously at both explicit and psychological levels. Example: sweet caring voice with sarcastic intent. To read the real communication requires both surface and non-verbal reading.
• Strokes are the recognition, attention or responsiveness that one person gives another. Strokes can be positive (nicknamed "warm fuzzies"[4]) or negative ("cold pricklies"). A key idea is that people hunger for recognition, and that lacking positive strokes, will seek whatever kind they can, even if it is recognition of a negative kind. We test out as children what strategies and behaviours seem to get us strokes, of whatever kind we can get.
People often create pressure in (or experience pressure from) others to communicate in a way that matches their style, so that a boss who talks to his staff as a controlling parent will often engender self-abasement or other childlike responses. Those employees who resist may get removed or labeled as "trouble".
Transactions can be experienced as positive or negative depending on the nature of the strokes within them. However, a negative transaction is preferred to no transaction at all, because of a fundamental hunger for strokes.
The nature of transactions is important to understanding communication.


Kinds of transaction

Reciprocal or Complementary Transactions
A simple, reciprocal transaction occurs when both partners are addressing the ego state the other is in. These are also called complementary transactions.
Example 1
A: "Have you been able to write the report?"
B: "Yes - I'm about to email it to you." ----(This exchange was Adult to Adult)
Example 2
A: "Would you like to skip this meeting and go watch a film with me instead?"
B: "I'd love to - I don't want to work anymore, what should we go and see?" (Child to Child)
Example 3
A: "You should have your room tidy by now!" (Parent to Child)
B: "Will you stop hassling me? I'll do it eventually!" (Child to Parent)
Communication like this can continue indefinitely. (Clearly it will stop at some stage - but this psychologically balanced exchange of strokes can continue for some time).

Crossed Transactions

Communication failures are typically caused by a 'crossed transaction' where partners address ego states other than that their partner is in. Consider the above examples jumbled up a bit.
Example 1a:
A: "Have you been able to write that report?" (Adult to Adult)
B: "Will you stop hassling me? I'll do it eventually!" (Child to Parent)
is a crossed transaction likely to produce problems in the workplace. "A" may respond with a Parent to Child transaction. For instance:
A: "If you don't change your attitude, you'll get fired."
Example 2a:
A: "Is your room tidy yet?" (Parent to Child)
B: "I'm just going to do it, actually." (Adult to Adult)
is a more positive crossed transaction. However there is the risk that "A" will feel aggrieved that "B" is acting responsibly and not playing their role, and the conversation will develop into:
A: "I can never trust you to do things!" (Parent to Child)
B: "Why don't you believe anything I say?" (Adult to Adult)
which can continue indefinitely.
[edit] Duplex or Covert transactions
Another class of transaction is the 'duplex' or 'covert' transactions, where the explicit social conversation occurs in parallel with an implicit psychological transaction. For instance,
A: "I need you to stay late at the office with me." (Adult words)
body language indicates sexual intent (flirtatious Child)
B: "Of course." (Adult response to Adult statement).
winking or grinning (Child accepts the hidden motive).





Phenomena behind the transactions

Life (or Childhood) Script
• Script is a life plan, directed to a reward.
• Script is decisional and responsive; i.e., decided upon in childhood in response to perceptions of the world and as a means of living with and making sense of the world. It is not just thrust upon a person by external forces.
• Script is reinforced by parents (or other influential figures and experiences).
• Script is for the most part outside awareness.
• Script is how we navigate and what we look for, the rest of reality is redefined (distorted) to match our filters.
Each culture, country and people in the world has a Mythos, that is, a legend explaining its origins, core beliefs and purpose. According to TA, so do individual people. A person begins writing his/her own life story (script) at a young age, as he/she tries to make sense of the world and his place within it. Although it is revised throughout life, the core story is selected and decided upon typically by age 7. As adults it passes out of awareness. A life script might be "to be hurt many times, and suffer and make others feel bad when I die", and could result in a person indeed setting himself up for this, by adopting behaviours in childhood that produce exactly this effect. Though Berne identified several dozen common scripts, there are a practically infinite number of them. Though often largely destructive, scripts could as easily be mostly positive or beneficial.


Redefining and Discounting
• Redefining means the distortion of reality when we deliberately (but unconsciously) distort things to match our preferred way of seeing the world. Thus a person whose script involves "struggling alone against a cold hard world" may redefine others' kindness, concluding that others are trying to get something by manipulation.
• Discounting means to take something as worth less than it is. Thus to give a substitute reaction which does not originate as a here-and-now Adult attempt to solve the actual problem, or to choose not to see evidence that would contradict one's script. Types of discount can also include: passivity (doing nothing), over-adaptation, agitation, incapacitation, anger and violence.

Injunctions and Drivers
TA identifies twelve key injunctions which people commonly build into their scripts. These are injunctions in the sense of being powerful "I can't/mustn't ..." messages that embed into a child's belief and life-script:
Don't be (don't exist), Don't be who you are, Don't be a child, Don't grow up, Don't make it in your life, Don't do anything!, Don't be important, Don't belong, Don't be close, Don't be well (don't be sane!), Don't think, Don't feel.
In addition there is the so-called episcript, "You should (or deserve to) have this happen in your life, so it doesn't have to happen to me." (Magical thinking on the part of the parent(s).)
Against these, a child is often told other things he or she must do. There is debate as to whether there are five or six of these 'drivers':
Please (me/others)! Be perfect! Be Strong! Try Hard! Hurry Up! (Be Careful! is disputed)
Thus in creating his script, a child will often attempt to juggle these, example: "It's okay for me to go on living (ignore don't exist) so long as I try hard".
This explains why some change is inordinately difficult. To continue the above example: When a person stops trying hard and relaxes to be with his family, the injunction You don't have the right to exist which was being suppressed by their script now becomes exposed and a vivid threat. Such an individual may feel a massive psychological pressure which he himself doesn't understand, to return to trying hard, in order to feel safe and justified (in a childlike way) in existing.
Driver behaviour is also detectable at a very small scale, for instance in instinctive responses to certain situations where driver behaviour is played out over five to twenty seconds.
Broadly, scripts can fall into Tragic, Heroic or Banal (or Non-Winner) varieties, depending on their rules.


Ways of Time Structuring

There are six ways of structuring time by giving and receiving strokes:
1. Withdrawal
2. Ritual
3. Pastimes
4. Activity
5. Games
6. Intimacy
This is sorted in accordance to stroke strength, Intimacy and Games allow for the most intensive strokes, in general.

Withdrawal
This means no strokes are being exchanged

Rituals
A ritual is a series of transactions that are complementary (reciprocal), stereotyped and based on social programming. Rituals usually comprise a series of strokes exchanged between two parties.
For instance, two people may have a daily two stroke ritual, where, the first time they meet each day, each one greets the other with a "Hi". Others may have a four stroke ritual, such as:
A: Hi!
B: Hi! How do you do?
A: Getting along. What about you?
B: Fine. See you around.
The next time they meet in the day, they may not exchange any strokes at all, or may just acknowledge each other's presence with a curt nod.
Some phenomena associated with daily rituals:
• If a person exchanges fewer strokes than expected, the other person may feel that he is either preoccupied or acting high and mighty.
• If a person exchanges more strokes than expected, the other person might wonder whether he is trying to butter him up or get on good terms for some vested interests.
• If two people do not meet for a long time, a backlog of strokes gets built up, so that the next time they meet, they may exchange a large number of strokes to catch up.

Pastimes
A pastime is a series of transactions that is complementary (reciprocal), semi-ritualistic, and is mainly intended as a time-structuring activity. Pastimes have no covert purpose and can usually be carried out only between people on the same wavelength. They are usually shallow and harmless. Pastimes are a type of smalltalk.
Individuals often partake in similar pastimes throughout their entire life, as pastimes are generally very much linked to one's life script and the games that one often plays. Some pastimes can even be understood as a reward for playing a certain game. For example, Eric Berne in Games People Play discusses how those who play the "Alcoholic" game (which Berne differentiated from alcoholism and alcoholics) often enjoy the "Morning After" pastime in which participants share their most amusing or harrowing hangover stories.

Activities (Work)
Activities in this context mean the individuals work together for a common goal. This may be work, sports or something similar. In contrast to Pastimes, there is a meaningful purpose guiding the interactions, while Pastimes are just about exchanging strokes. Strokes can then be given in the context of the cooperation. Thus the strokes are generally not personal, but related to the activity.

Games
Games are discussed below.

Intimacy
Intimacy as a way of structuring time allows one to exchange the strongest strokes without playing a Game. Intimacy differs from Games as there is no covert purpose, and differs from Activities as there is no other process going on which defines a context of cooperation. Strokes are personal, relating to the other person, and often unconditional.
Games and their analysis

Definition of game
A game[5] is a series of transactions that is complementary (reciprocal), ulterior, and proceeds towards a predictable outcome. Games are often characterized by a switch in roles of players towards the end. Games are usually played by Parent, Adult and Child ego states, and games usually have a fixed number of players; however, an individual's role can shift, and people can play multiple roles.
Berne identified dozens of games, noting that, regardless of when, where or by whom they were played, each game tended towards very similar structures in how many players or roles were involved, the rules of the game, and the game's goals.
Each game has a payoff for those playing it, such as the aim of earning sympathy, satisfaction, vindication, or some other emotion that usually reinforces the life script. The antithesis of a game, that is, the way to break it, lies in discovering how to deprive the actors of their payoff.
Students of transactional analysis have discovered that people who are accustomed to a game are willing to play it even as a different "actor" from what they originally were.


Analysis of a game


One important aspect of a game is its number of players. Games may be two handed (that is, played by two players), three handed (that is, played by three players), or many handed. Three other quantitative variables are often useful to consider for games:
• Flexibility: The ability of the players to change the currency of the game (that is, the tools they use to play it). In a flexible game, players may shift from words, to money, to parts of the body.
• Tenacity: The persistence with which people play and stick to their games and their resistance to breaking it.
• Intensity: Easy games are games played in a relaxed way. Hard games are games played in a tense and aggressive way.
Based on the degree of acceptability and potential harm, games are classified as:
• First Degree Games are socially acceptable in the players' social circle.
• Second Degree Games are games that the players would like to conceal, though they may not cause irreversible damage.
• Third Degree Games are games that could lead to drastic harm to one or more of the parties concerned.
Games are also studied based on their:
• Aim
• Roles
• Social and Psychological Paradigms
• Dynamics
• Advantages to players (Payoffs)

Contrast with rational (mathematical) games

Transactional game analysis is fundamentally different from rational or mathematical game analysis in the following senses:
• The players do not always behave rationally in transactional analysis, but behave more like real people.
• Their motives are often ulterior


Some commonly found games

Here are some of the most commonly found themes of games described in Games People Play by Eric Berne:
• YDYB: Why Don't You, Yes But. Historically, the first game discovered.
• IFWY: If It Weren't For You
• WAHM: Why does this Always Happen to Me? (setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy)
• SWYMD: See What You Made Me Do
• UGMIT: You Got Me Into This
• LHIT: Look How Hard I've Tried
• ITHY: I'm Only Trying to Help You
• LYAHF: Let's You and Him Fight (staging a love triangle)
• NIGYYSOB / NIGYSOB: Now I've Got You, You Son Of a Bitch
• RAPO: A woman falsely cries 'rape' or threatens to - related to Buzz Off Buster
Berne argued that games are not played logically; rather, one person's Parent state might interact with another's Child, rather than as Adult to Adult.
Games can also be analysed according to the Karpman drama triangle, that is, by the roles of Persecutor, Victim and Rescuer. The 'switch' is then when one of these having allowed stable roles to become established, suddenly switches role. The Victim becomes a Persecutor, and throws the previous Persecutor into the Victim role, or the Rescuer suddenly switches to become a Persecutor ("You never appreciate me helping you!").

Why Don't You/Yes But
The first such game theorized was Why don't you/Yes, but in which one player (White) would pose a problem as if seeking help, and the other player(s) (Black) would offer solutions (the "Why don't you?" suggestion). This game was noticed as many patients played it in therapy and psychiatry sessions, and inspired Berne to identify other interpersonal "games".
White would point out a flaw in every Black player's solution (the "Yes, but" response), until they all gave up in frustration. For example, if someone's life script was "to be hurt many times, and suffer and make others feel bad when I die" a game of "Why Don't You, Yes But" might proceed as follows:
White: I wish I could lose some weight.
Black: Why don't you join a gym?
W: Yes but, I can't afford the payments for a gym.
B: Why don't you speed walk around your block after you get home from work?
W: Yes but, I don't dare walk alone in my neighborhood after dark.
B: Why don't you take the stairs at work instead of the elevator?
W: Yes but, after my knee surgery, it hurts too much to walk that many flights of stairs.
B: Why don't you change your diet?
W: Yes but, my stomach is sensitive and I can tolerate only certain foods.
"Why Don't You, Yes But" can proceed indefinitely, with any number of players in the Black role, until Black's imagination is exhausted, and she can think of no other solutions. At this point, White "wins" by having stumped Black. After a silent pause following Black's final suggestion, the game is often brought to a formal end by a third role, Green, who makes a comment such as, "It just goes to show how difficult it is to lose weight."
The secondary gain for White was that he could claim to have justified his problem as insoluble and thus avoid the hard work of internal change; and for Black, to either feel the frustrated martyr ("I was only trying to help") or a superior being, disrespected ("the patient was uncooperative").
Superficially, this game can resemble Adult to Adult interaction (people seeking information or advice), but more often, according to Berne, the game is played by Black's helpless Child, and White's lecturing Parent ego states.

Rackets
• A racket is the dual strategy of getting "permitted feelings," while covering up feelings which we truly feel, but which we regard as being "not allowed".
More technically, a racket feeling is "a familiar set of emotions, learned and enhanced during childhood, experienced in many different stress situations, and maladaptive as an adult means of problem solving".
A racket is then a set of behaviours which originate from the childhood script rather than in here-and-now full Adult thinking, which (1) are employed as a way to manipulate the environment to match the script rather than to actually solve the problem, and (2) whose covert goal is not so much to solve the problem, as to experience these racket feelings and feel internally justified in experiencing them.
Examples of racket and racket feelings: "Why do I meet good guys who turn out to be so hurtful", or "He always takes advantage of my goodwill". The racket is then a set of behaviours and chosen strategies learned and practised in childhood which in fact help to cause these feelings to be experienced. Typically this happens despite their own surface protestations and hurt feelings, out of awareness and in a way that is perceived as someone else's fault. One covert pay-off for this racket and its feelings, might be to gain in a guilt free way, continued evidence and reinforcement for a childhood script belief that "People will always let you down".
In other words, rackets and games are devices used by a person to create a circumstance where they can legitimately feel the racket feelings, thus abiding by and reinforcing their Childhood script. They are always a substitute for a more genuine and full adult emotion and response which would be a more appropriate response to the here-and-now situation.

Philosophy of TA
• People are OK; thus each person has validity, importance, equality of respect.
• Everyone (with only few exceptions) has full adult capability to think.
• People decide their story and destiny, and this is a decision that can be changed.
• Freedom from historical maladaptations embedded in the childhood script is required in order to become free of inappropriate, inauthentic and displaced emotion which are not a fair and honest reflection of here-and-now life (such as echoes of childhood suffering, pity-me and other mind games, compulsive behaviour, and repetitive dysfunctional life patterns).
• The aims of change under TA are autonomy (freedom from childhood script), spontaneity, intimacy, problem solving as opposed to avoidance or passivity, cure as an ideal rather than merely 'making progress', learning new choices.


Transactional Analysis Today

Leaving psychoanalysis half a century ago, Eric Berne presented transactional analysis to the world as a phenomenological approach replacing Freud's philosophical construct with observable data. His theory built on the science of Penfield and Spitz along with the neo-psychoanalytic thought of people such as Federn, Weiss and Erikson. By moving to an interpersonal motivational theory, he placed it both in opposition to the psychoanalytic traditions of his day and within what would become the psychoanalytic traditions of the future. From Berne, transactional analysts have inherited a determination to create an accessible and user-friendly system, an understanding of script or life-plan, ego states, transactions, and a theory of groups. They also inherited troubled aspects of his thinking and personality, especially his rebelliousness and antagonism toward the psychoanalysis of his day. They have inherited misunderstandings arising from the ill-informed equation of the ego states of transactional analysis with the psychoanalytic constructs of id, ego, and superego and the consequences of the popularity of his book Games People Play which resulted in the vulgarization of some of its concepts. These problems have been compounded by the isolationist and elitist attitude that permeated the beginnings of transactional analysis as it established its own standards for competency based credentialing without taking into account other training or certification in occupational fields– while at the same time paradoxically cultivating the “pop psychology” image[who?]that appealed to mental health clients and other consumers in organizations and education.

Fifty years later

Within the overarching framework of transactional analysis, more recent transactional analysts have elaborated several different, if overlapping, “flavors:” cognitive, behavioral, relational, redecision, integrative, constructivist, narrative, body-work, positive psychological, personality adaptational, self-reparenting, psychodynamic, and neuroconstructivist[citation needed]. Some transactional analysts[who?] highlight the many things they have in common with cognitive-behavioral therapists: the use of contracts with clear goals, the attention to cognitive distortions (called “Adult decontamination” or “Child deconfusion”), the focus on the client’s conscious attitudes and behaviors and the use of “strokes”[citation needed]. Cognitive-based transactional analysts use ego state identification to identify communication distortions and teach different functional options in the dynamics of communication. Some make additional contracts for more profound work involving life-plans or scripts or with unconscious processes, including those which manifest in the client-therapist relationship as transference and countertransference, and define themselves as psychodynamic or relational transactional analysts. Some highlight the study and promotion of subjective well-being and optimal human functioning rather than pathology and so identify with positive psychology[citation needed]. Some are increasingly influenced by current research in attachment, mother-infant interaction, and by the implications of interpersonal neurobiology, and non-linear dynamic systems.

History

TA is not only post-Freudian but according to its founder's wishes consciously extra-Freudian. That is to say that while it has its roots in psychoanalysis - since Berne was a psychoanalytic-trained psychiatrist - it was designed as a dissenting branch of psychoanalysis in that it put its emphasis on transactional, rather than "psycho-", analysis.
With its focus on transactions, TA shifted its attention from internal psychological dynamics to the dynamics contained in people's interactions. Rather than believing that increasing awareness of the contents of unconsciously held , whatever the perspective preferred by the individual TA practitioner, all share a common group of Bernian concepts: ego states, transactions, strokes, games, Transactional analysis, commonly known as TA to its adherents, is an integrative approach to the theory of psychology and psychotherapy. Integrative because it has elements of psychoanalytic, Humanist and Cognitive approaches. It was developed by Canadian-born US psychiatrist Eric Berne during the late 1950s.
TA and popular culture

Berne's ability to express the ideas of TA in common language and his popularisation of the concepts in mass-market books inspired a boom of popular TA texts, some of which simplify TA concepts to a deleterious degree[citation needed].
One example is a caricature of the structural model, where it is made out that the Parent judges, the Adult thinks and the Child feels. Most serious TA texts, including those aimed at the mass market rather than professionals, avoid this degree of oversimplification.
Thomas Harris's highly successful popular work from the late 1960s, I'm OK, You're OK is largely based on Transactional Analysis. A fundamental divergence, however, between Harris and Berne is that Berne postulates that everyone starts life in the "I'm OK" position, whereas Harris believes that life starts out "I'm not OK, you're OK". Many transactional analysts[citation needed] have regarded Harris as too far removed from core TA beliefs to be considered a transactional analyst.
New Age author James Redfield has acknowledged[6] Harris and Berne as important influences in his best-seller The Celestine Prophecy. The protagonists in the novel survive by striving (and succeeding) in escaping from "control dramas" that resemble the games of TA.

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Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) by Albert Ellis

Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT), previously called rational therapy and rational emotive therapy, is a comprehensive, active-directive, philosophically and empirically based psychotherapy which focuses on resolving emotional and behavioral problems and disturbances and enabling people to lead happier and more fulfilling lives. REBT was created and developed by the American psychotherapist and psychologist Albert Ellis who was inspired by many of the teachings of Asian, Greek, Roman and modern philosophers. REBT is one of the first and foremost forms of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and was first expounded by Ellis in the mid-1950s and continues its development to this day.


History

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is both a psychotherapeutic system of theory and practices and a school of thought established by Albert Ellis. Originally called rational therapy, its appellation was revised to rational emotive therapy in 1959, then to its current appellation in 1992. REBT was one of the first of the cognitive behavior therapies, as it was predicated in articles Ellis first published in 1956, nearly a decade before Aaron Beck first set forth his cognitive therapy.


Theoretical assumptions


One of the fundamental premises of REBT is that humans, in most cases, do not merely get upset by unfortunate adversities, but also through how they construct their views of reality through their language, evaluative beliefs, meanings and philosophies about the world, themselves and others.[3] In REBT, clients usually learn and begin to apply this premise by learning the A-B-C-model of psychological disturbance and change. The A-B-C model states that it normally is not merely an A, adversity (or activating event) that contributes to disturbed and dysfunctional emotional and behavioral Cs, consequences, but also what people B, believe about the A, adversity. A, adversity can be either an external situation or a thought or other kind of internal event, and it can refer to an event in the past, present, or future.[4]

The Bs, beliefs that are most important in the A-B-C model are explicit and implicit philosophical meanings and assumptions about events, personal desires, and preferences. The Bs, beliefs that are most significant are highly evaluative and consists of interrelated and integrated cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects and dimensions. According to REBT, if a person's evaluative B, belief about the A, activating event is rigid, absolutistic and dysfunctional, the C, the emotional and behavioral consequence, is likely to be self-defeating and destructive. Alternatively, if a person's evaluative B, belief is preferential, flexible and constructive, the C, the emotional and behavioral consequence is likely to be self-helping and constructive.

Through REBT, by understanding the role of their mediating, evaluative and philosophically based illogical, unrealistic and self-defeating meanings, interpretations and assumptions in upset, people often can learn to identify them, begin to D, dispute, refute, challenge and question them, distinguish them from unhealthy constructs, and subscribe to more constructive and self-helping constructs.[5]

The REBT framework assumes that humans have both innate rational (meaning self- and social-helping and constructive) and irrational (meaning self- and social-defeating and un-helpful) tendencies and leanings. REBT claims that people to a large degree consciously and unconsciously construct emotional difficulties such as self-blame, self-pity, clinical anger, hurt, guilt, shame, depression and anxiety, and behaviors and behavior tendencies like procrastination, over-compulsiveness, avoidance, addiction and withdrawal by the means of their irrational and self-defeating thinking, emoting and behaving.[6] REBT is then applied as an educational process in which the therapist often active-directively teaches the client how to identify irrational and self-defeating beliefs and philosophies which in nature are rigid, extreme, unrealistic, illogical and absolutist, and then to forcefully and actively question and dispute them and replace them with more rational and self-helping ones. By using different cognitive, emotive and behavioral methods and activities, the client, together with help from the therapist and in homework exercises, can gain a more rational, self-helping and constructive rational way of thinking, emoting and behaving. One of the main objectives in REBT is to show the client that whenever unpleasant and unfortunate activating events occur in people's lives, they have a choice of making themselves feel healthily and self-helpingly sorry, disappointed, frustrated, and annoyed, or making themselves feel unhealthily and self-defeatingly horrified, terrified, panicked, depressed, self-hating, and self-pitying.[7] By attaining and ingraining a more rational and self-constructive philosophy of themselves, others and the world, people often are more likely to behave and emote in more life-serving and adaptive ways.



Albert Ellis- posits three major insights of REBT:


Insight 1 - People seeing and accepting the reality that their emotional disturbances at point C only partially stem from the activating events or adversities at point A that precede C. Although A contributes to C, and although strong negative As (such as being assaulted or raped) are much more likely to be followed by disturbed Cs (such as feelings of panic and depression) than they are to be followed by weak As (such as being disliked by a stranger), the main or more direct cores of extreme and dysfunctional emotional disturbances (Cs) are people’s irrational beliefs — the absolutistic musts and their accompanying inferences and attributions that people strongly believe about their undesirable activating events.


Insight 2 - No matter how, when, and why people acquire self-defeating or irrational beliefs (i.e. beliefs which are the main cause of their dysfunctional emotional-behavioral consequences), if they are disturbed in the present, they tend to keep holding these irrational beliefs and continue upsetting themselves with these thoughts. They do so not because they held them in the past, but because they still actively hold them in the present, though often unconsciously, while continuing to reaffirm their beliefs and act as if they are still valid. In their minds and hearts they still follow the core "musturbatory" philosophies they adopted or invented long ago, or ones they recently accepted or constructed.


Insight 3 - No matter how well they have achieved insight 1 and insight 2, insight alone will rarely enable people to undo their emotional disturbances. They may feel better when they know, or think they know, how they became disturbed - since insights can give the impression of being useful and curative. But, it is unlikely that they will actually get better and stay better unless they accept insights 1 and 2, and then also go on to strongly apply insight 3: There is usually no way to get better and stay better but by: continual work and practice in looking for, and finding, one’s core irrational beliefs; actively, energetically, and scientifically disputing them; replacing one’s absolutist musts with flexible preferences; changing one's unhealthy feelings to healthy, self-helping emotions; and firmly acting against one’s dysfunctional fears and compulsions. Only by a combined cognitive, emotive, and behavioral, as well as a quite persistent and forceful attack on one's serious emotional problems, is one likely to significantly ameliorate or remove them — and keep them removed.

Regarding cognitive-affective-behavioral processes in mental functioning and dysfunctioning, originator Albert Ellis explains:[7]


"REBT assumes that human thinking, emotion, and action are not really separate or disparate processes, but that they all significantly overlap and are rarely experienced in a pure state. Much of what we call emotion is nothing more nor less than a certain kind — a biased, prejudiced, or strongly evaluative kind — of thought. But emotions and behaviors significantly influence and affect thinking, just as thinking influences emotions and behaviors. Evaluating is a fundamental characteristic of human organisms and seems to work in a kind of closed circuit with a feedback mechanism: Because perception biases response and then response tends to bias subsequent perception. Also, prior perceptions appear to bias subsequent perceptions, and prior responses appear to bias subsequent responses. What we call feelings almost always have a pronounced evaluating or appraisal element."
REBT then generally proposes that many of these self-defeating cognitive, emotive and behavioral tendencies are both innately biological and indoctrinated early in and during life, and further grow stronger as a person continually revisits, clings and acts on them. Ellis alluded to similarities between REBT and General Semantics in explaining the role of irrational beliefs in self-defeating tendencies, citing Alfred Korzybski as a siginificant modern influence on this thinking.
REBT differs from other clinical approaches like psychoanalysis in that it places little emphasis on exploring the past, but instead focuses on changing the current evaluations and philosophical thinking-emoting and behaving in relation to themselves, others and the conditions under which people live.


Psychological dysfunction


One of the main pillars of REBT is that irrational and dysfunctional ways and patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving are contributing to much, though hardly all, human disturbance and emotional and behavioral self- and social defeatism. REBT generally teaches that when people turn flexible preferences, desires and wishes into grandiose, absolutistic and jehovian dictates, this tends to contribute to disturbance and upsetness.

Albert Ellis has suggested three core beliefs or philosophies that humans tend to disturb themselves through:[7]

"I absolutely MUST, under practically all conditions and at all times, perform well (or outstandingly well) and win the approval (or complete love) of significant others. If I fail in these important—and sacred—respects, that is awful and I am a bad, incompetent, unworthy person, who will probably always fail and deserves to suffer."

"Other people with whom I relate or associate, absolutely MUST, under practically all conditions and at all times, treat me nicely, considerately and fairly. Otherwise, it is terrible and they are rotten, bad, unworthy people who will always treat me badly and do not deserve a good life and should be severely punished for acting so abominably to me."

"The conditions under which I live absolutely MUST, at practically all times, be favorable, safe, hassle-free, and quickly and easily enjoyable, and if they are not that way it's awful and horrible and I can't bear it. I can't ever enjoy myself at all. My life is impossible and hardly worth living."


Holding this belief when faced with adversity tends to contribute to feelings of anxiety, panic, depression, despair, and worthlessness.

Holding this belief when faced with adversity tends to contribute to feelings of anger, rage, fury, and vindictiveness. Holding this belief when faced with adversity tends to contribute to frustration and discomfort, intolerance, self-pity, anger, depression, and to behaviors such as procrastination, avoidance, and inaction.
REBT commonly posits that at the core of irrational beliefs there often are explicit or implicit rigid demands and commands, and that extreme derivatives like awfulizing, frustration intolerance, people deprecation and over-generalizations are accompanied by these.

According to REBT the core dysfunctional philosophies in a person's evaluative emotional and behavioral belief system, are also very likely to contribute to unrealistic, arbitrary and crooked inferences and distortions in thinking. REBT therefore first teaches that when people in an insensible and devout way overuse absolutistic, dogmatic and rigid "shoulds", "musts", and "oughts", they tend to disturb and upset themselves.


Further REBT generally posits that disturbed evaluations to a large degree occur through over-generalization, wherein people exaggerate and globalize events or traits, usually unwanted events or traits or behavior, out of context, while almost always ignoring the positive events or traits or behaviors. For example, awfulizing is partly mental magnification of the importance of an unwanted situation to a catastrophe or horror, elevating the rating of something from bad to worse than it should be, to beyond totally bad, worse than bad to the intolerable and to a "holocaust". The same exaggeration and overgeneralizing occurs with human rating, wherein humans come to be arbitrarily and axiomatically defined by their perceived flaws or misdeeds. Frustration intolerance then occurs when a person perceives something to be too difficult, painful or tedious, and by doing so exaggerates these qualities beyond one's ability to cope with them.
Essential to REBT theory is also the concept of secondary disturbances which people sometimes construct on top of their primary disturbance. As Ellis emphasizes:[7]
"Because of their self-consciousness and their ability to think about their thinking, they can very easily disturb themselves about their disturbances and can also disturb themselves about their ineffective attempts to overcome their emotional disturbances."


Mental wellness


As would be expected, REBT argues that mental wellness and mental health to a large degree results from a surfeit of self-helping, flexible, logico-empirical ways of thinking, emoting and behaving.[6] When a perceived undesired and stressful activating event occurs, and the individual is interpreting, evaluating and reacting to the situation rationally and self-helpingly, then the resulting consequence is, according to REBT, likely to be more healthy, constructive and functional. This does not by any means mean that a relatively un-disturbed person never experiences negative feelings, but REBT does hope to keep debilitating and un-healthy emotions and subsequent self-defeating behavior to a minimum. To do this REBT generally promotes a flexible, un-dogmatic, self-helping and efficient belief system and constructive life philosophy about adversities and human desires and preferences.
REBT clearly acknowledges that people in addition to disturbing themselves, also are innately constructivists. Because they largely upset themselves with their beliefs, emotions and behaviors, they can be helped to, in a multimodal manner, dispute and question these and develop a more workable, more self-helping set of constructs.
REBT generally teaches and promotes:


• That the concepts and philosophies of life of unconditional self-acceptance, other-acceptance, and life-acceptance are effective philosophies of life in achieving mental wellness and mental health.

• That human beings are inherently fallible and imperfect and that they had better accept their and other human being's totality and humanity, while at the same time not like some of their behaviors and characteristics. That they are better off not measuring their entire self or their "being" and give up the narrow, grandiose and ultimately destructive notion to give themselves any global rating or report card. This is partly because all humans are continually evolving and are far too complex to accurately rate; all humans do both self- and social-defeating and self- and social-helping deeds, and have both beneficial and un-beneficial attributes and traits at certain times and in certain conditions. REBT holds that ideas and feelings about self-worth are largely definitional and
are not empirically confirmable or falsifiable.


• That people had better accept life with its hassles and difficulties not always in accordance with their wants, while trying to change what they can change and live as elegantly as possible with what they can not change.


REBT Intervention


As explained, REBT is a therapeutic system of both theory and practices; generally one of the goals of REBT is to teach how people learn how they often needlessly upset themselves, how to un-upset themselves and then how to empower themselves to lead happier and more fulfilling lives.[3] The emphasis in therapy is generally to establish a successful collaborative therapeutic working alliance based an the REBT educational model. Although REBT teaches that the therapist or counsellor had better demonstrate unconditional other-acceptance or unconditional positive regard, the therapist is not necessarily always encouraged to build a warm and caring relationship with the client. The tasks of the therapist or counsellor include understanding the client’s concerns from his point of reference and work as a facilitator, teacher and encourager.


In traditional REBT, the client together with the therapist, in a structured active-directive manner, often work through a set of target problems and establish a set of therapeutic goals. In these target problems, situational dysfunctional emotions, behaviors and beliefs are assessed in regards to the client's values and goals. After working through these problems, the client learns to generalize insights to other relevant situations. In many cases after going through a client's different target problems, the therapist is interested in examining possible core beliefs and more deep rooted philosophical evaluations and schemas that might account for a wider array of problematic emotions and behaviors.[4] Although REBT much of the time is used as a brief therapy, in deeper and more complex problems, longer therapy is promoted.


In therapy, the first step often is that the client acknowledges his problems, accepts emotional responsibility for these and has willingness and determination to change. This normally requires a considerable amount of insight, but as originator Albert Ellis[7] explains:


"Humans, unlike just about all the other animals on earth, create fairly sophisticated languages which not only enable them to think about their feeling, their actions, and the results they get from doing and not doing certain things, but they also are able to think about their thinking and even think about thinking about their thinking."


Through the therapeutic process, REBT employs a wide array of forceful and active, meaning multimodal and disputing, methodologies. Central through these methods and techniques is the intent to help the client challenge, dispute and question their destructive and self-defeating cognitions, emotions and behaviors. The methods and techniques incorporate cognitive-philosophic, emotive-evocative-dramatic, and behavioral methods for disputation of the client's irrational and self-defeating constructs and helps the client come up with more rational and self-constructive ones. REBT seeks to acknowledge that understanding and insight are not enough; in order for clients to significantly change, they had better pinpoint their irrational and self-defeating constructs and work forcefully and actively at changing them to more functional and self-helping ones.


REBT posits that the client must work hard to get better, and in therapy this normally includes a wide array of homework exercises in day-to-day life assigned by the therapist. The assignments may for example include desensitization tasks, i.e., by having the client confront the very thing he or she is afraid of. By doing so, the client is actively acting against the belief that often is contributing significantly to his disturbance.


Another factor contributing to the brevity of REBT is that the therapist seeks to empower the client to help himself through future adversities. REBT only promotes temporary solutions if more fundamental solutions are not found. An ideal successful collaboration between the REBT therapist and a client results in changes to the client's philosophical way of evaluating him- or herself, others, and his or her life, which will likely yield effective results. The client then moves toward unconditional self-acceptance, other-acceptance and life-acceptance while striving to live a more self-fulfilling and happier life.


Limitations and critique


REBT and CBT in general have a substantial and strong research base to verify and support both its psychotherapeutic efficiency, effectiveness and its theoretical underpinnings. A great quantity of scientific empirical studies have proven it to be an effective and efficient treatment for many different kinds of psychopathology, conditions and problems[7][8].[9][10] A vast amount of outcome- and experimental studies has shown to support the effectiveness of REBT and CBT.[11][12] Recently, REBT randomized clinical trials have offered a positive view on the efficacy of REBT.


In general REBT is arguably one of the most investigated theories in the field of psychotherapy and a large amount of clinical experience and a substantial body of modern psychological research have validated and substantiated many of REBTs theoretical assumptions on personality and psychotherapy[14].[13][9] Some critiques have been given on some of the clinical research that has been done on REBT both from within and by others. For instance originator Albert Ellis has on occasions emphasized the difficulty and complexity of measuring psychotherapeutic effectiveness, since many studies only tend to measure whether clients merely feel better after therapy instead of them getting better and staying better.


Ellis has also criticized studies for having limited focus primarily to cognitive restructuring aspects, as opposed to the combination of cognitive, emotive and behavioral aspects of REBT.[9] As REBT has been subject to criticisms during its existence, especially in its early years, REBT theorists has a long history of publishing and addressing those concerns. It has also been argued by Ellis and by other clinicians that REBT theory on numerous occasions has been misunderstood and misconstrued both in research and in general.


Some have criticized REBT for being harsh, formulaic and failing to address deep underlying problems.[14] This has been cogently refuted by REBT theorists who have pointed out that a careful study of REBT shows that it is both philosophically deep, humanistic and individualized collaboratively working on the basis of the client’s point of reference.[14][3] They have further pointed out that REBT utilizes an integrated and interrelated methodology of cognitive, emotive-experiential and behavioral interventions.[9][3] Others have questioned REBTs view of rationality, both radical constructivists who have claimed that reason and logic are subjective properties and those who believe that reason can be objectively determined.[14] REBT theorists have reputed these claims by maintaining that REBT raises objections to clients irrational choices and conclusions as a working hypothesis and through collaborative efforts demonstrate the irrationality on practical, functional and social consensual grounds.[7][14] In 1998 when asked what the main criticism on REBT was, Albert Ellis replied that it was the claim that it was too rational and not dealing sufficiently enough with emotions. He repudiated the claim by saying that REBT on the contrary emphasized that thinking, feeling, and behaving are interrelated and integrated, and that it includes a vast amount of both emotional and behavioral methods in addition to cognitive ones.


Seen as a quite controversial figure in some camps, Ellis has also received criticism that has arguably been more directed at him than his psychotherapy. These include his use of four-letter words and confrontational attitude. In addition Ellis has himself in very direct terms criticized opposing approaches such as psychoanalysis, transpersonal psychology and abreactive psychotherapies in addition to on several occasions questioning some of the doctrines in certain religious systems, spiritualism and mysticism. Many, including REBT practitioners, have warned against dogmatizing and sacredizing REBT as a supposedly perfect psychological cure-all and panacea. Prominent REBTers have promoted the importance of high quality and programmatic research, including originator Ellis, a self-proclaimed "passionate skeptic". He has on many occasions been open to challenges and acknowledged errors and in-efficiencies in his approach and concurrently revised his theories and practices.[7][14] In general, with regard to cognitive-behavioral psychotherapies' interventions, others have pointed out that as about 30-40% of people are still nonresponsive to interventions, that REBT could be a platform of reinvigorating empirical studies on the effectiveness of the cognitive-behavioral models of psychopathology and human functioning.[13]


REBT has generally in quite many ways been developed, revised and augmented through the years as understanding, knowledge and science about psychology and psychotherapy have progressed. This includes both its theoretical concepts but also its practices and methodology. Inherent in REBT as an approach has been the teaching of scientific thinking, reasonableness and un-dogmatism and these ways of thinking have been part of REBT's empiricism and skepticism.


Applications and interfaces


REBT is used with a broad range of clinical problems in traditional psychotherapeutic settings such as individual-, group- and family therapy. It is used as a general treatment for a vast amount of different conditions and psychological problems normally associated with psychotherapy.
In addition, REBT is used with non-clinical problems and problems of living through counselling, consultation and coaching settings dealing with problems including relationships, social skills, career changes, stress management, assertiveness training, grief, problems with aging, money, weight control etc.
REBT also has many interfaces and applications through self-help resources, phone- and internet counseling, workshops & seminars, workplace and educational programmes, etc. This includes Rational Emotive Education (REE) where REBT is applied in education settings, Rational Effectiveness Training in business and work-settings and S.M.A.R.T. in self management and recovery training. In addition a wide variety of special treatment strategies and applications have been developed for different kinds of specialized groups.