REBTOZ

I wrote a post call BAD,  Breaking Approval Dependence  about a teachers journey to unconditional self-acceptance, where their own self approval eventually held sway over the need for others to esteem them. They had identified their errant, irrational way of thinking about their  self , challenged its veracity and began to rebuild the kind of healthy, rational, self that would hold them in good stead, unconditional self-acceptance.  Our early childhood constructivists are making sense of the world they live in. Ideas about  self  are formulating in their young minds and what they believe about themselves or their  self  will impact their emotional and behavioural wellbeing now and into the future. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) and General Semantics (GS) theories are used in counselling practice, where the individual is called upon to examine the personal philosophies that inform what they do and how they emote especially in ...

Alfred Korzybski of General Semantics theory said,   ‘ the map is not the territory’ and ‘ the word is not the thing.’ A word may label a thing but it isn’t the thing itself, and a word used to describe a person is not the person themselves. To believe so is unsane according to General Semantics theory i.e., it is not a fair representation of the real world and can cause emotional and behavioural angst! A persons map of me e.g., their opinion of me, is not the territory i.e., it is not, does not define me in a global sense. To agree I am what they call me, is to deny the fact that I am many things and to abstract one from the many and believe I am that, would be an irrational belief. How do young people develop the irrational idea that they can be dumb, smart, or cute? When a child receives the message that they are   e.g., smart how might that message be received? The child, as constructivist, may interpret such feedback to mean that they are the word smart . Ho...

The Have a Go Spaghettio! Rational Emotive Behaviour Educator works in the classrooms of schools. I consider all people working with students in our schools as educators but for me special kudos goes the classroom operators, the people at the chalk face, those on the front line. The role of the classroom educator is a complex and challenging one; teacher, counsellor, mentor, role model and the list goes on. For those lucky enough to have a had positive connection with teachers on their journey they are fortunate indeed. Behaviour management can suggest that students need to be managed or told how they should and shouldn’t behave and some children need close guidance in this regard but the end goal is to help them self-regulate and decide for themselves how they might behave according to the thinking rules they are formulating or have formulated. The six Have a Go colour coded Success Helper/Brain Friend competencies that are outlined in this video on the Have a Go Spaghettio! chart, co...

Ms. Vivienne Ayshus arrived at her new school with vim and vigour. Ms. Viv, as she preferred to be called, hit the ground running and she was true to her nickname, ‘Vivacious Viv.’ She presented as bright and bubbly and her students responded to her in a very positive way. Behaviour was never an issue as her students had what seemed, unconditional positive regard for her, and many would say how much they looked forward to coming to school each day. She smiled often, and her dangly earrings would catch the sunlight and sparkle like she did. Not only did the students like her, but the parents did also, as they knew that their children would have a great day at school with Ms. Viv as they would report on returning home at the end of the day. Many of her teacher colleagues also appreciated the value she added to the working environment. Ms Viv was an asset to the school and education, so you’d think it would be onward an upwards from here. Surely a person of this calibre would become...

Have a Go Spaghettio! Counselling In an ideal teaching and learning world there would be a qualified counsellor in each school across all year levels from preschool to year 12. However, it would be rare to find a qualified counsellor in the junior primary setting, but that aside, what would a counsellor be charged to do in the scheme of early childhood things? Albert Ellis, creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, said the future of psychotherapy is in the school system. What did he mean by that? He was suggesting that teachers can help students understand why they act and feel as they do according to the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance counselling paradigm. What are their constructed beliefs about themselves, others and how the world works? And what can they do about self-defeating and destructive, deeply held irrational beliefs and how do they build new, robust and healthy rational ones? By what means do we bring a model of psychotherapy into the early childhood teaching an...

Narcissism can begin to develop in early childhood, with some traits appearing around ages 7 or 8 as children start to evaluate themselves based on others' perceptions. The development of narcissism is a result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors, with contributing factors including childhood trauma, abuse, neglect, inconsistent or overly indulgent parenting, and excessive criticism or praise.  Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) says narcissism is linked to  irrational beliefs  about one's self-worth which can lead to emotional disturbances like excessive self-criticism or grandiose self-inflation. The core REBT approach is to identify and dispute these beliefs, helping the individual cultivate   unconditional self-acceptance  a more realistic, balanced view of self that is not dependent on external validation or achievements. This involves replacing beliefs like "I must be superior" with more rational ones, teachin...

The Yellow Success Helper (YSH) represents behaviours related to positive relationships and interactions. They are associated with what REBT calls unconditional other acceptance (UOA) or what Carl Rogers calls unconditional positive regard (UPR). These philosophical perspectives see others as fallible human beings, like ourselves, and making judgements based on a particular quality or characteristic abstracted from the many are inaccurate assumptions. YSH thinking makes YSH choices and emotions. This is the message conveyed to our early childhood learners, that they are constructivists, building their own conceptions about how things work. Have a Go Spaghettio! thinking is Brain Friend, Success Helper or rational thinking. If they learn that thinking, feeling and behaviour are connected they can learn to regulate how they feel and behave successfully. The Red ‘I’m worthwhile crocodile’ thinking Success Helper is unconditional self-a...

  Albert Ellis's ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance is a paradigm within Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT). It provides a framework for understanding how our thoughts, beliefs, and events interact to influence our emotional and behavioural responses. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) is a psychoeducational teaching and counselling model. The ABC model is a tool used within REBT to help individuals identify, challenge, and deconstruct irrational beliefs and to construct new, more efficient ways of thinking and believing. Have a Go Spaghettio! is an early childhood approach to social, emotional, and behavioural learning based on REBT and the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance paradigm. It teaches young learners that they make (construct) their own habits of thinking that in turn make their emotional and behavioural responses to events. Early learnings about their thinking nature will provide the tools with which they can learn to think about their th...

Written by a past member of Approvalists Anonymous, a support group for those who are at risk of becoming *‘love slobs.'  This is an REBT perspective (Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy) on Breaking Approval Dependence (BAD), a debilitating psychological impediment to happiness and success. ‘I need to be needed.' (Oh no you don’t!) ‘It’s been two weeks since I sat and stewed about how an insignificant other esteems me,’ proclaimed the primary school teacher to the others in the group. Everyone nodded their approval of the reforming 'approvalist' before them, and their fortitude grew as the teacher expounded their newfound belief; ‘what I think of me is more important than how you might assess my personhood.’ ‘Bravo!’ They exclaimed in unison as the AA member added, ‘what you think of me is none of my business!’ As the AA member emerged from the meeting into the cool autumn night, they thought, ‘I approve of me, and I’m OK no matter what!’ To break a habit of a lif...

Ms Prudence Putty Nose wanted to impress her colleagues and her line managers, to demonstrate her dedication to her job and to illustrate just how much of a hit she was taking for the good cause. She pondered a while and considered how she might best get the attention of the esteemers and sycophants, her narcissist suppliers, to keep her fragile ego buoyant. She had been under a fair bit of pressure as she'd been planning the demise of a colleague whose position she coveted and as her line manager also wanted him gone, they concocted a plan to get rid of him. Deceit and unethical collusion with co conspirators was a debilitating and tiring endeavour but it could be used to her advantage. So what did she do? She summoned her close and trusted sycophant others to her office and declared she had been feeling dizzy and needed to lie down. She suggested she may need an ambulance as she had been under a fair deal of pressure. They pandered to her of course and diligently phoned for an am...