Learning from Mistakes in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

305 Pages·2011·0.82 MB·English

by  Windy Dryden, Michael Neenan

Learning from
Mistakes in
Rational Emotive
Behaviour Therapy
WINDY DRYDEN and MICHAEL NEENAN
Learning from Mistakes in Rational
Emotive Behaviour Therapy
Mistakes are often an inevitable part of training; Learning from
Mistakes in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy encourages the
trainee to pinpoint potential errors at the earliest possible stage in
training, helping them to make fast progress towards becoming
competent REBT practitioners.
Windy Dryden and Michael Neenan have compiled 111 of the
most common errors, explaining what has gone wrong and how to
put it right, and have divided them into eight accessible parts:
• general mistakes
• assessment mistakes
• goal-setting mistakes
• disputing mistakes
• homework mistakes
• mistakes in dealing with clients’ doubts and misconceptions
• working through mistakes
• self-maintenance.
Learning from Mistakes in Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy is
an indispensable guide for anyone embarking on a career in the
REBT field.
Windy Dryden is Professor of Psychotherapeutic Studies at
Goldsmiths, University of London.
Michael Neenan is Associate Director of the Centre for Stress
Management, Kent, and an accredited cognitive behavioural
therapist.

Learning from Mistakes in
Rational Emotive Behaviour
Therapy
Windy Dryden and
Michael Neenan
Firstpublished2012byRoutledge
27ChurchRoad,Hove,EastSussexBN32FA
SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
byRoutledge
711ThirdAvenue,NewYorkNY10017
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,anInformabusiness
(cid:216)2011WindyDrydenandMichaelNeenan
Apreviouseditionofthisbook,LearningfromErrorsinRationalEmotive
BehaviourTherapybyMichaelNeenanandWindyDryden,waspublished
byWhurr2001.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproduced
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Dryden,Windy.
Learningfrommistakesinrationalemotivebehaviourtherapy/Windy
DrydenandMichaelNeenan.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-415-67873-5(hardback) – ISBN978-0-415-67874-2
(paperback)1.Rationalemotivebehaviortherapy.I.Neenan,Michael.
II.Title.
RC489.R3D78752012
616.89'14–dc23
2011017800
ISBN:978-0-415-67873-5(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-415-67874-2(pbk)
ISBN:978-0-203-35693-7(ebk)
TypesetinTimesbyGarfieldMorgan,Swansea,WestGlamorgan
PaperbackcoverdesignbyAndrewWard
PrintedbyTJInternational,Padstow,Cornwall
Contents
Preface xiv
PART I
General mistakes 1
1 Exploring for too long your clients’ expectations of
REBT and their previous experiences of therapy 3
2 Developing the therapeutic relationship first 5
3 Not setting or keeping to a therapeutic agenda 7
4 Not being active and directive 10
5 Not wanting to intervene in your clients’ problems
without knowing the ‘big picture’ first 13
6 Believing you need to understand the past before
you can deal with the present 15
7 Wanting to give your clients opportunities to express
themselves in their own way instead of through the
REBT model 17
8 Listening passively 19
9 Not ensuring that your clients have answered the
questions you have asked 22
vi Contents
10 Not interrupting rambling or verbose clients 26
11 Being verbose yourself 29
12 Failing to obtain feedback 31
13 Avoiding confrontation 34
14 Not working collaboratively 37
15 Not adopting a problem-orientated focus 39
16 Failing to keep your clients on track 41
17 Not checking your clients’ understanding of REBT
terminology 43
18 Not developing a shared vocabulary 46
19 Trying to teach ‘B’–‘C’ thinking while struggling
unsuccessfully to abandon ‘A’–‘C’ language 48
20 Not socializing your clients into REBT in the
first or early sessions of therapy 51
21 Not teaching the ‘ABC’ model in a clear way 53
22 Being didactic with clients who would profit
more from Socratic dialogue and vice versa 58
23 Being insufficiently repetitive in teaching REBT
concepts 61
24 Not explaining the purpose of an intervention 63
PART II
Assessment mistakes 65
25 Allowing your clients to provide too much detail about
the activating event 67
26 Accepting your clients’ vagueness in describing ‘A’ 70
Contents vii
27 Allowing your clients to talk compulsively about their
feelings 73
28 Not obtaining a problem list 76
29 Not asking for a specific example of the target problem 78
30 Readily assuming that an irrational belief is your
clients’ problem 81
31 Failing to intervene to make imprecise emotional ‘C’s
precise 83
32 Not explaining why disturbed feelings are unhealthy/
unhelpful and why non-disturbed feelings are
healthy/helpful 86
33 Pressurizing your clients to be exact about their feelings 89
34 Treating frustration as a ‘C’ instead of an ‘A’ 91
35 Generalizing from an emotional ‘C’ when you need to
be specific, and being specific when it is important to
generalize 93
36 Focusing on a behavioural ‘C’ instead of using it to
find an emotional ‘C’ 95
37 Becoming obsessive in searching for the critical ‘A’ 98
38 Challenging inferences instead of waiting to dispute
uncovered irrational beliefs 101
39 Pursuing theoretical inferences instead of clinically
significant ones 103
40 Not realizing that your clients’ target emotion has
changed 106
41 Not noticing that your clients have provided you with
a ‘C’ instead of an inference 109
viii Contents
42 Not clarifying the ‘it’ 111
43 Using theory-driven questions in assessing irrational
beliefs when open-ended questions would be more
productive for your clients and vice versa 113
44 Assuming that your clients hold all four irrational
beliefs 117
45 Not distinguishing between absolute and preferential
shoulds 119
46 Constructing a general version of your clients’ situation-
specific irrational belief without any evidence for it 120
47 Not expressing self-depreciation in your clients’ words 122
48 Not clearly determining whether ego or discomfort
disturbance is the primary problem 124
49 Not looking for a meta-emotional problem 127
50 Assuming that the meta-emotional problem is always
present 129
51 Always working on a meta-emotional problem first 131
PART III
Goal-setting mistakes 133
52 Not seeing the relevance of two goal-setting stages 135
53 Only focusing on your clients’ long-term goals,
instead of achieving a balance between short- and
long-term goals 137
54 Setting a goal that would help to perpetuate your
clients’ irrational beliefs 139
55 Agreeing on goals that are outside of your clients’
control 141
Contents ix
56 Not stating your clients’ goals in positive terms 144
57 Focusing on process goals instead of outcome goals 146
58 Focusing on practical goals and neglecting emotional
goals 148
59 Helping your clients to seek only intellectual insight
into their problems 150
60 Helping your clients to feel neutral about negative
events 152
61 Implying a cure can be attained rather than focusing
on improved problem management 153
62 Agreeing with your clients’ goals that are unrealistically
ambitious or unrealistically unambitious 155
63 Not eliciting from your clients a commitment to change 157
PART IV
Disputing mistakes 159
64 Not preparing your clients for disputing 161
65 Disputing in a mechanical manner 163
66 Only disputing either the premise or the derivative
belief 165
67 Using didactic disputing when Socratic disputing would
be more productive and vice versa 167
68 Not focusing on the type of argument that is more
helpful to your clients than the other types 170
69 Not helping your clients to construct a flexible belief
to negate their rigid belief 172