REBT and Whinging and Whining

Why do we whine? Do we know we're whining? What musturbatory demands are we making when our complaints are not in proportion to the perceived severity of our 'bad' circumstances? Catastrophising is potentially harmful and the idea is to train ourselves to recognise when we are 'awfulising' and then to 'see' what is happening in a more measured and reasonable way. Some people are very competent at doing this and seem to habitually regard problems in a calm and thoughtful way. Some of us react in a manner disproportionate to the perceived difficulty of the problem. Ellis talks about our tendency as 'fallible human beings' to make 'mountains out of molehills.' Helping students to develop healthy, rational habits of thinking is the work of many Rational Emotive Behaviour Educators in schools in South Australia e.g. Para Hills School P-7, Long Street Primary School, Whyalla Stuart Campus Primary School, Hincks Avenue Primary School, Whyalla Stuart Kindergarten and Whyalla Stuart High School are a few schools where this is part of the curriculum i.e. teaching students what the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance is and how to use it to feel and act more healthily.