REBTOZ

Many would say that bullies bully because they feel inferior and they get a 'self esteem' boost when they put others 'in their place.' Research Ken Rigby/Giulio Bortolozzo  suggests that bullies can have a healthy sense of self worth but may still be inclined to bully others. The research suggests that in schools we can focus on 'psychologically immunising' our students with a dose of Unconditional Self Acceptance (USA). Albert Ellis encourages us to develop our USA so we are less likely to be the targets of bullies because we will more inclined to act confidently. Bullies will tend to target those they perceive to be weak. Some would also say that bullying is a cowardly act! My experience of bullies suggests that this is so.  # REBT   # schools   # bullying   # mentalhealth Some people manage bullies well, whilst others don't. It's always a question of how well the prospective victim can learn to manage the bully. A 'good' bully will ...

The student continues to explore the idea that events don’t cause our extreme ill feelings but rather it is our interpretation or thinking about them that does. The belief we are worthwhile only when others do is an errant philosophical view and our student is beginning to realise that his unrealistic demand that others MUST like him to be likeable is doing him a disservice. In the counselling office in a school in South Australia Counsellor:    You say that you feel anxious when you think you have ‘offended’ someone. Is that fair to say? Student:   Yes I want people to be happy. I hate it when they feel bad because of me. Counsellor:   It would appear that you believe you are responsible for how others feel. You say you ‘made him upset.’ Would that also mean that you believe others ‘make you upset?’ Student:   Yes. People can make me upset and I can upset others. Counsellor:    I want to talk about a ‘must’ rule that people m...

Have you heard a child, colleague (yourself!) use expressions such as she made me angry, if only the weather were better, I can’t stand it when things don’t go my way? These kind of self-talk statements indicate an underlying belief system which precipitates feelings and behaviours that are not self-helpful and may also be harmful to others. For those of us who believe that the way we feel and behave is dictated by factors external to ourselves this will challenge that view and hopefully provide some food for thought! A long time ago (100 AD) a person called Epictetus developed his philosophy about life. The legacy of his wisdom sits at the core of personal development programs for students, teachers and parents being implemented in school communities across the land. His message across the ages to us is this, “We are troubled not by things, but by the view we take of them.” Epictetus was one of many wise folk, collectively called the stoic philosophers. Their advice and g...

What is a  Bonsai  child  ? It's a new term to describe the child who has been over tended to, fussed over and over supervised. When something happens at school an  enquiry  is needed to get to the bottom of 'why Isabella fell out with her friend and what did the school do about it as she is such a  sensitive  child!' Is Isabella temporarily sad or is she depressed. Could be either but it's important to know the difference.  Clinical psychologist and researcher Judith Locke writes in her book The Bonsai Child  "A sense of melancholy is labelled depression; any trepidation is labelled anxiety. A friendship fight is bullying." The Bonsai Child  is her term for children who are over-nurtured. Michael  Carr-Gregg talks about  marshmallow kids  a generation of children who are afraid to fail. Do they experience healthy disappointment when they don't achieve their goals and wants or do they feel unhealthily de...

On the 24 th July eight years ago Albert Ellis died but his work lives on. He would have been encouraged to know that schools have taken up the challenge he set many years ago; teach children how to make themselves less ‘disturbable’. Rational Emotive Behaviour Education is doing this is many South Australian schools with positive outcomes. Teachers have been trained in the understanding and application of Ellis’ ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance and they are helping their students to understand that their habits of thinking are linked to how they act and how they feel. Gone but not forgotten This insight empowers the child to monitor and assess how she is feeling and how she is estimating (thinking about/interpreting) the situation at hand. How am I feeling? Is this situation as bad as I think it is? I can reassess this situation so that I remain in control and make OK choices. Rational Emotive Behaviour Educators (REBE’rs) remind students daily that their ...

The professional victim is adept at deflecting blame, using hard luck stories to win sympathy, making herself ‘indispensible’ to influential others. This all feeds her need to be needed. She has low self worth and has such a poor opinion of herself that she relies on the approval of others to feel good about herself, an approval addiction/dependence. In previous posts we have discussed Serious Approval Dependence (SAD) where the individual needs to be noticed and esteemed by others. When this is taken away, the individual can be left with feelings of inadequacy, self-doubt and self-loathing. She may also resent those who don’t acknowledge her talents and capabilities (as they absolutely should! – see Albert Ellis’ ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance). She is often left feeling angry, anxious and depressed. Approval needy people are worthy of understanding and respect but at the same time those around her would be wise to protect themselves from her manipulative behaviour. 1. ...

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...

The Whyalla REBE School Cluster comprise 5 schools: Hincks Avenue Primary, Whyalla Stuart Campus R7 Primary, Whyalla Stuart Kindergarten, Long Street Primary and Whyalla Stuart High school. Educators at these schools promote the work of Albert Ellis through Rational Emotive Behaviour Education; they are Rational Emotive Behaviour Educators. They continue to wage war on musturbatory beliefs that students have constructed over time so they can learn to think, act and feel in ways that will help themselves and others  pursue their goals in life: to be happy and successful. Albert Ellis is the original 'positive psychologist' and educators in Whyalla are on the ball! From the REBT Network web page Completed just after Albert Ellis' last public appearance, this documentary is about the life and opinions of psychotherapy's most important and influential voice. Directed by J.G.M. Davi, the film runs about 90 minutes. (Each preview clip is about 5 or 6 minutes.) http:/...

I posted this (below) on the Albert Ellis FB page this week ( https://www.facebook.com/TheAlbertEllisProfessionalLearningCentre?ref=hl ). It had been a week where temperatures had hovered above 40 degrees celsius for days in succession and then ended with a deluge of rain that caused minor flooding in Whyalla, and widespread damage in Adelaide, South Australia's capital. Happily for fire fighters in the Southern Flinders Ranges it doused bushfires which had been burning out of control for a month! Fantastic work by the fire fighters who work voluntarily and provide such great service to us all. Thank you! 'The week that was. Pretty challenging week for educators (and everyone) in Whyalla and surrounds. Heatwave and deluge kept students in the classroom. Pressure all round well handled by all. What a week! Have a good weekend!!' Relieving rains! The week was a trying one for all teachers and students as most days they had to stay indoors. They weathered the weathe...

The universe doesn’t care about you, it’s not for or against you, it just doesn’t give a shit. Albert Ellis There are many quotes that Albert Ellis left us to ponder and this one’s a cracker! You can imagine him talking to the regular Friday night crowd at the (now fake) Albert Ellis Institute. He would demonstrate his ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance to help volunteer clients gain insight into what was causing their emotional and behavioural disturbances. He would listen carefully to his client protest about how unfair this or that was and that if only life wasn’t so hard he could be happy. He would ‘cherchez le should’ listening intently for the tell-tale signs suggesting that his client believed the world owed him easy passage through life. Dr Ellis would challenge the belief that this or that shouldn’t have happened and that life was so unfair! ‘It happened therefore it should have happened. Yes it was unfortunate but not so awful that you can’t stand it! You can’t change wh...

Thanks to Dr. Albert Ellis’ ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance we have helped Sofia understand the relationship between thinking, feeling and behaving. She understands that beliefs like, ‘someone I like should like me,’ ‘I need her approval to be worthwhile,’ ‘I am worthless,’ are self defeating because they cause undue sadness, anger and depression, which get in the way of her achieving her goals. These beliefs can be challenged and disproved with evidence. Dr. Ellis invites us to ‘cherchez le should, cherchez le must’ as we did with Sofia. We determined that Sofia’s sadness and anxiety was caused by her ‘shoulding’ i.e. ‘she should like me. I should get what I want.’ We challenged these self-defeating shoulds and replaced them with self – helpful ‘preferences’ i.e. ‘I would prefer to get what I want but I accept this will not always be so.’ Let’s look at the components of Sofia’s journey so far according to Ellis’ ABC Theory of Emotional Disturbance. A= Activating event (the issue,...