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Re: Key concepts of CBT (and where RET, etc fits in)
Wayne Froggatt · 12/31/99 at 1:18 am ET
Jim, I congatulate you on this forum, which is most interesting and helpful; your replies to correspondents are often very detailed and must involve considerable time for you, but I am sure many people find they are useful for learning. You describe in answer to one correspondent what you see as a difference between Cognitive Therapy (CT) and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), namely that "RET appears to rely on the therapist confronting the client and convincing the client that his or her beliefs are irrational. It often sounds as though RET believes that rational thinking will eliminate all problems." This is a rather simplistic description of how REBT practitioners help their clients with dysfunctional beliefs! The differences between REBT and CT are not as great as they may appear - once you discover how the two approaches often describe the same thing using different terminology. Some of the attributed differences are in fact illusionary and are frequently due to misunderstandings arising from terminology. For example, some CT people think that because REBT advocates the disputing of irrational beliefs, that they are advocating arguing with clients - however, the term 'disputation' as used in REBT refers to the use of primarily Socratic questioning to help clients check out for themselves their beliefs in terms of their usefulness, logic and evidence. Disputation is a sophisticated methodology - not simply 'arguing with the client' as I read in an article by a CT therapist recently. It works the other way too - REBT people may also misunderstand CT. REBT practitioners sometimes criticise CT for emphasising working on a client's empirical beliefs or 'inferences' (e.g. "I suspect my wife is having an affair") rather than getting down to their underlying assumptions or 'evaluations'(e.g. "If my wife got involved with another man that would prove I was worthless") - but CT does in fact allow for the latter - they just approach it a slower pace (in REBT, it is seen as preferable to avoid too much work on inferences and instead focus on evaluative thinking at a very early stage - I personally prefer this approach, but recognise that CT also works!). I have been practicing a combined REBT / CT model now for some years and have written two books based on that model. I think that there is much to be learned from both (though I think it is helpful for them to still retain their own identities in order to facilitate the development that can arise from diversity). The important thing is not to become too focussed on one's own approach and thereby fail to learn from others. Ellis often quotes Beck - and Beck often quotes Ellis. If the founders of these two world-changing psychotherapies can respect each other's approaches, then I guess us humble practitioners can too!
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