Rational emotive behavior therapy successes and failures: Eight personal perspectives

Eight experts in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) provided personal examples of their own successes and failures in applying REBT to themselves. The experts actively talked to themselves both rationally and irrationally. Understandably, there were far more shoulds, oughts, musts, and have to’s in the narratives in which the experts described when they failed to use REBT than when they succeeded in using REBT. Rational self-talk was more prevalent in the examples of how REBT was successfully used by the experts. Reprinted from Journal of Counseling & Development, Summer 2001, Volume 79. ACA. Reprinted with permission. No further reproduction authorized without written permission from the American Counseling Association.