REBTOZ

A teacher colleague invested a lot of time teaching her year 3 students that thinking, feeling and behaving were all interconnected. As Albert Ellis, creator of REBT said (I paraphrase here): ‘We make ourselves more anxious than we need to be when we think events and things are worse than they really are.’ The teacher did a lot of groundwork to persuade her young group that they make themselves more upset than they need to be. She read books that had characters who helped themselves get better when they changed the way they thought about something. She reminded them often that it was their/our estimation of an event, how we thought about it that was key. ‘If they came to know this they can do something constructive about their discomfort,’ the teacher thought. She changed her language; rather than asking ‘what makes you angry?’ she would say ‘what are you thinking about what happened that’s making your feelings so strong?’ She didn’t say ‘don’t be angry’ either as she knew her st...

Dr. Albert Ellis uses the term ‘upsetness’ to describe a persons’ emotional discomfort when something unwanted has occurred. He says the intensity of the person’s ‘upsetness’ is not caused directly by the event or happening itself. Of course the event has a bearing on the emotional and behavioural outcome but that’s not the whole story. Dr. Albert Ellis, creator of REBT A young 7 year old student at my school was out of sorts; crying and quite inconsolable. After a while when he had gathered himself a little, we began to chat about what had happened. His favourite squishy toy had a small puncture and it was oozing its white fluid contents. He clearly saw this as a significant unwanted occurrence that initially triggered extreme emotional discomfort. Why did he feel as he did? Or more specifically why was his emotional response to the situation so extreme? Firstly, why is the child’s emotional response considered extreme? We can agree that the child was feeling upset but perhaps ...

Student C often found himself excluded from the class for his behaviour. He would sit quietly outside the room or he would find his way upstairs to speak to a person in leadership. The counsellor would engage with him and over a series of meetings together they worked out what the issue was. Student C would declare often and in different ways that he was ‘bad,’ ‘dumb,’ ‘stupid’ etc. He was adamant about this and it seemed that he would not be moved from that position! He was big in stature for his age, quiet and withdrawn generally which seemed to reflect the low estimation he had of himself. He seemed to feel angry, not towards others but more towards himself. When feelings ran high he could express himself in ways that were not acceptable but understandable. He might run his pen across his page of work or indeed rip the page out of his exercise book. He would write ‘STUPID’ across the brim of his school hat in texta. His frustration was palpable and his ideas about himself were ent...

I am a school counsellor and one of many great delights of my working day is the opportunity I have to work with students in the 'special class.' This term will mean different things to many people but to me 'special' is the time I get to spend with children from ages 5 -12 who present with a range of predispositions and learning and developmental needs. One such student who is on the autism spectrum, will often seek me out for a chat as we call it. I might say I seek him out just as much because it is always a fun time. We met recently over an issue that he had been dealing with which I will refer to in a moment. On the way to our meeting place we will speak casually about things and then Arthur will burst out laughing about something obscure but which connects to what we are saying but as yet I'm a step behind on the pick up! On this occasion he asked if he could chat with me and we got onto all the different words we could think of that had a simil...

I had the pleasure of working with a group of educators at a high school in the northern suburbs of Adelaide recently. The school has set up a well being hub where students can go for support if needed particularly of a social/emotional/behavioural kind. The 'Hub'staff is sourcing ideas to support their students and one staff member who attended several of my workshops last year considered that REBT would value add to the 'Hub'mission to help students better manage themselves in day to day life especially when things go awry. Craigmore High School It is always a challenge when presenting to 'hit the spot' as it were so that people become engaged and interested in the message. Is this stuff useful to my practice as a teacher/counsellor? Will it benefit my students? What will be my strategy, the hook used to get everyone 'in?' To start we looked at the philosophical underpinnings of the ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance. One significant ...

The obsession with certainty in education is perhaps a characteristic of our western way of life. We seem to want to know without doubt that what we teach, how we teach it and how we measure its efficacy is backed by the evidence. The evidence says that we should do this or do that in schools and this is how it should be measured and reported on. These imperatives are thrust upon a weary and disenchanted mob of educators whose autonomy in the classroom has been surrendered to the experts and the evidence they claim is true.  Pasi Sahlberg who is the former director general of the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland and a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has been appointed professor of educational policy at UNSW. He says: “Maybe the key for Australia is loosening up a little bit, less top down control and a bit more professional autonomy for teachers.” Mr Sahlberg on his travels in Oz is reported to have said that he w...

Even the most competent and composed amongst us will say how we have battled or continue to battle our inner demons of self-doubt and low self-worth. Some would measure their self-worth against goals achieved and how popular they are with others. This kind of ‘confidence glow’ can be temporary if one is inclined to put all of their psychological well-being eggs in the same ‘self-esteem’ basket. Albert Ellis, creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, famously stated: ‘Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to personkind because it’s conditional.’ We condition ourselves when we rehearse and re rehearse certain ingrained thought constructions that are unhelpful or helpful to us. Ellis claims, and I agree, that if a person’s self-worth is contingent on how others regard them or how well they do at tasks it can be very harmful. They will feel OK or not OK depending on which way the self-esteem winds blow! This is what Ellis called conditional self - worth, how one esteems...

We have rules that guide our behaviour many (if not all) of which we are unaware! Psychologists tell us that we behave as we do because of certain rules we have constructed over time. These rules are so deeply ingrained in our subconscious that we would find it hard to articulate the rationale for doing what we do or feeling how we feel. The great Albert Ellis said: “Too many people are unaware that it is not outer events or circumstances that will create happiness; rather, it is our perception of events and of ourselves that will create, or uncreate, positive emotions.” Albert Ellis Quotes Where do these rules come from? Do we learn them from others and if they are unconscious ‘belief rules’ how can we get to know them? I think it’s true to say that our ‘rules of engagement’ with the world around us are indeed learned but what’s the likelihood of ever learning what they are? This would be insightful, new knowledge which would have benefits for the learner. What if some or mo...