REBT in Italy: Dissemination and Integration with Constructivism and Metacognition

This paper describes and critically discusses how rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) spread among Italian cognitive psychotherapists. In the 1980s Cesare De Silvestri, with the help of Carola Schimmelpfennig, Franco Baldini, and Mario Di Pietro, brought REBT to Italy and eagerly disseminated it. In addition, De Silvestri cooperated with the two leading figures in the Italian clinical cognitive movement, Vittorio Guidano and Gianni Liotti. Guidano and Liotti applied the ABC framework to their constructivist version of cognitive therapy. Given that the large majority of Italian cognitive therapists adopted Guidano and Liotti’s approach, they all started applying the ABC framework and are still applying it today. However, Italian therapists adapted the ABC framework to their constructivist training. For example, Guidano and Liotti interpreted the ABC framework as aimed at promoting cognitive and emotional awareness in clients, while they considered the ‘disputing’ phase to be not compatible with the constructivist principles they held. They also encouraged the application of John Bowlby’s ideas to REBT and the use of life experience report techniques in the ABC. Sandra Sassaroli and Roberto Lorenzini applied George Kelly’s “laddering” technique to the ABC framework, a technique more focused on dilemmatic structures than on REBTian dysfunctional thought. Caselli investigated REBT’s influence on Adrian Wells’ metacognitive version of the ABC. Finally, Ruggiero and Ammendola have made a strong call for “back to Ellis”. This implies that any innovation should involve a more stringent and faithful application of REBT principles.     

Effects of a REBT Based Training on Children and Teachers in Primary School

Rational Emotive Education (REE) is a psychological educational program offering a preventative psycho-educational curriculum to children in order to teach them emotional literacy skills. REE helps children by teaching them to challenge irrational thinking, to minimize their reactions to disappointment and frustrations, to cope more effectively with problems, and to more fully accept themselves. The efficacy of REE training for children and teachers was examined in a sample of 211 third grade students from nine different classes and 26 teachers. Each class was randomly assigned to one of three different groups, two experimental groups and a control group, each receiving different training. First objective of our study was to evaluate the efficacy of a REE training based on storytelling in changing children’s irrational beliefs. Second objective of our study was to observe the efficacy of a teachers’ training similar to that applied in REBT-focused school consultation groups in enhancing their self-efficacy. Results show an improved tendency in children to think rationally and an enhanced perception of self-efficacy in teachers for those groups that underwent the training compared to the control group. Our results suggest that REBT based trainings for children and teachers should be integrated into the classroom curriculum in order to prevent mental health problems and encourage positive social and emotional well-being.     

Gratitude as a Variable of Mediation between Parental Support and Self-Esteem in Adolescence

Despite there has been a growing interest in the study of gratitude, few studies have investigated which factors support and promote it; notably, no study has yet addressed ways in which parents could promote gratitude in their children. The present study aims to investigate the relation between parental emotional support and self-esteem through the mediation of gratitude. The analyses have been conducted considering both the maternal and the paternal roles. To that end, an explorative model has been proposed of these relations. A self-report questionnaire was administered to 279 15–19 year-old adolescents (M?=?16.83, SD?=?.85) living in Northern Italy. Findings show that (a) the mother’s emotional support, but not the father’s, sustains gratitude, and (b) gratitude completely mediates the relation between maternal emotional support and self-esteem. Limitations and research implications are discussed.     

Touch Precision Modulates Visual Bias

The sensory precision hypothesis holds that different seen and felt cues about the size of an object resolve themselves in favor of the more reliable modality. To examine this precision hypothesis, 60 college students were asked to look at one size while manually exploring another unseen size either with their bare fingers or, to lessen the reliability of touch, with their fingers sleeved in rigid tubes. Afterwards, the participants estimated either the seen size or the felt size by finding a match from a visual display of various sizes. Results showed that the seen size biased the estimates of the felt size when the reliability of touch decreased. This finding supports the interaction between touch reliability and visual bias predicted by statistically optimal models of sensory integration.     

Validating the Diathesis–Stress Model Based Case Conceptualization Procedure in Cognitive Behavioral Therapies: The LIBET (Life Themes and Semi-Adaptive Plans—Implications of Biased Beliefs,Elicitation and Treatment) Procedure

Journal of Rational-Emotive & Cognitive-Behavior Therapy - Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) approaches use case formulation procedures based on the diathesis–stress conceptualization...     

Chinese Short Form of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire: Construct and Concurrent Validity

This paper evaluated the construct and concurrent validity of a Chinese short form of the Personal Attributes Questionnaire, which measures instrumentality and expressivity as independent traits. In Study 1, 293 Hong Kong Chinese undergraduates completed the scale. Factor analysis revealed two independent factors, instrumentality and expressivity. In Study 2, 269 Hong Kong Chinese undergraduates completed the scale together with the dominance and nurturance scales of the Personality Research Form and Gudykunst’s Self-Construal Scale. Exploratory factor analysis replicated the bidimensional structure of the scale. Instrumentality correlated with independent self-construal and dominance, whereas expressivity correlated with interdependent self-construal and nurturance. Gender differences in item scores overall conformed to theoretical expectations. The findings indicate that the scale produces valid and reliable scores.     

Grasping language – A short story on embodiment

The new concept of embodied cognition theories has been enthusiastically studied by the cognitive sciences, by as well as such disparate disciplines as philosophy, anthropology, neuroscience, and robotics. Embodiment theory provides the framework for ongoing discussions on the linkage between “low” cognitive processes as perception and “high” cognition as language processing and comprehension, respectively. This review gives an overview along the lines of argumentation in the ongoing debate on the embodiment of language and employs an ALE meta-analysis to illustrate and weigh previous findings. The collected evidence on the somatotopic activation of motor areas, abstract and concrete word processing, as well as from reported patient and timing studies emphasizes the important role of sensorimotor areas in language processing and supports the hypothesis that the motor system is activated during language comprehension.     

Reconceiving rationality: situating rationality into radically enactive cognition

Rational beliefs and actions are typically evaluated against certain benchmarks, e.g., those of classical logic or probability theory. Rationality therefore is traditionally taken to involve some sort of reasoning, which in turn implies contentful cognition. Radically Enactive (and Embodied) views of Cognition (REC), on the other hand, claim that not all cognition is contentful. In order to show that rationality does not need to lie outside of REC’s scope of radicalizing cognition, I develop a Radically Enactive notion of Rationality (RER), according to which rationality is embodied, situated and contentless. For RER, an organism acts rationally insofar as it sustains a proficient interaction with its environment, which in turn requires the coordination of cognitive abilities in accordance with environmental constraints. Rationality is thus distinguished from reasoning, for reasoning is understood as a capacity to coordinate representational cognitive abilities.

     

On Simultaneous Masking in the Visual Field

The concept of simultaneous masking in visual field is discussed, in the light of classical examples, of the various kinds of the phenomenon, of a modal completion, of the figure/ground phenomenon, of ambiguous and reversible figures, of mimicry and camouflage and eventually of the complexity of the stimulus. There is some reference to masking in auditory field. The “reality” of the masked configuration is discussed, drawing the conclusion that it is perceptually unreal. The fact that the masking phenomenon cannot take place without comparison between two perceptual acts – what we see at one moment and what we see a moment after LATER – and the fact that the masked configuration pops out with some surprise, lead to the conclusion that simultaneous masking in visual field is not a bare perceptual phenomenon, but a psychological process not unlike insight