REBTOZ

The Quality of Our Thoughts “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” Marcus Aurelius This message comes across loud and clear in Albert Ellis’ Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) theory. Ellis talked about the quality of our thoughts in terms of how helpful or unhelpful they are in getting what we want in our lives, our wants, goals, and aspirations. We can learn to think in ways that help us, rational thinking or we can construct beliefs that are more irrational and unhelpful. REBT provides the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance paradigm that counsellors and psychotherapists use in therapy to help their clients understand how it is that they experience what Albert Ellis calls emotional and behavioural ‘upsetness.’   The ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance (see video) embraces the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius and others of the Stoic tradition and considers the relationship between belief constructions, and emotional and behavioural res...

Don Hoffman, cognitive scientist, would say that the labels or words one might ascribe me are not me. Similarly, my ideas about my self are but representations of who I think I am. I can do good but that doesn’t make me good, how one esteems me is not me either. If I unconditionally accept myself, I don’t need others to approve of me, though I might prefer that they did. The Have a Go Spaghettio! pedagogy is designed to teach young learners that the ideas and beliefs they construct about themselves are not them. Even Einstein, it is said, argued that he was not nor could he be a genius. He said he had exceptional aptitudes in some areas but was lacking in many others so how could he be perfect as the word genius might imply? It would be useful to convey the message to students at every opportunity that what they do and how others might esteem them, is not them. If teachers can feedback to the six Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper capabilities they are doing the following: · ...

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...

A rational and healthy appreciation of the ‘self’   according to REBT is called unconditional self-acceptance. The ability to maintain its integrity, even in difficult circumstances is to be able to conserve it. If children can learn that their overall worth is not determined by others’ estimation of them, and that an opinion of them cannot ‘be’ them, they will conserve their established unconditional self-acceptance status. This is what I understand conservation of the ‘self’ to be. If children learn to believe that they need others’ approval, that someone’s estimation of them ‘is’ them, they expose themselves to excessive upset, excessive worry, sadness etc. As the ‘self’ in this sense, cannot be stable, and remains reliant on others to determine it’s worth it cannot be conserved. It lacks strength and integrity, it is a ‘self’ that has conditions attached to it and the child will be externally controlled i.e., their sense of self is determined by others and not them. The w...

Have a go Spaghettio! Success Helper Goal Setting Personal goals give us some direction, something to aim at. In the Have a Go Spaghettio! classroom we can introduce the idea of personal goal setting. There are 6 Success Helper capabilities or competencies that we can develop to help us to experience success, achieving what we set out to achieve. It is important to remind our young class members that positive feelings are linked to achievement, trying new things and making friends with others. A simple definition of success might be: ‘Success is trying to do stuff, doing my best and feeling good about things.’ Success Helper goal setting can be described and encouraged in reference to the Have a Go Spaghettio! Success Helper chart in our daily teaching. A day starter might include a reminder that Success Helper goals help us to get better at stuff. The teacher might set things rolling by declaring that their goal is to practice e.g., the Red Success Helper called ‘I’m worthwhil...