REBTOZ

Sofia was new to the country and was vivacious and good humoured. She was an enthusiastic student, who worked hard at her studies and had a wide circle of friends. She had a ready smile and a caring nature, sensitive to the needs of others, a delight to teach. On many occasions she would accompany me on yard duty and we would talk about things and inevitably the topic of discussion would turn to friendships and her concern about a particular student who did not seem to like her. This student would generally ignore her and chose not to associate with her in the classroom or in the yard. Sofia would become tearful and I would ask why she felt so sad. She said that she didn’t understand why this student didn’t seem to want to be her friend as ‘everyone else liked me, why doesn’t she?’ On another occasion Sofia said she wasn’t happy because this student wasn’t her friend and she would say ‘she makes me sad.’ As an REBTer (Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy counsellor) I used some of the st...

Constructivist theory says we learn to behave according to what we observe going on around us. Our models of behaviour show us how to get what we want, how to respond to situations and how we can interact with others. If these models are helpful they will teach us that we can wait for things if we have to, that we can respect others (even when we don’t wish to associate with them) and we can remain confident even when we fail at something or suffer the rejection of others. If we live amongst such role models we will internalize (construct) some very useful ‘rules for living.’ Conversely if those around us show low frustration tolerance, who may get what they want through aggression and who take failure and rejection to heart then we are likely to internalise a different set of ‘rules for living.’ Such habits of thinking and behaving (helpful or unhelpful) will determine how successful or not we may be in achieving our goals in life. According to Dr Albert Ellis we can deconstruct those...