REBT Case Conceptualization
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) refers to a detailed psychotherapeutic and philosophical treatment for resolving behavioral and emotional challenges among clients. Through this process, individuals can live happily, and achieve their desired objectives in life. This therapy points out that people develop and formulate opinions, which make them distressed.
In this case, people build up views about themselves from a wide scope. For instance, majority of individuals base their views on backgrounds and convictions. As a result, affected individuals construct ideas to resolve their own problems. The model considers that people instill emotional distress into themselves. Coherent and illogical innate behaviors enhance such a notion.
Notably, individuals compose reasons to accuse themselves of their weaknesses. Therefore, they withdraw themselves due to guilt and misery.
Over time, the individuals despise other people, interfering with their interpersonal relationship (Fall et al., 2004). As a result, this behavior affects them negatively. This proves that REBT is vital in addressing psychological problems of clients with maladaptive thoughts and abnormal behaviors.
REBT can be used to explain the behavior portrayed by Tammy. This is because Tammy has formulated negative views and strange behaviors, which emanates from the surrounding. Initially, Tammy despises her father because of his disgusting habits. She claims that her father was a hot-tempered and unpredictable person. His anger, which could last for several days, made everyone in the family to agonize.
This is because being a victim of it was unbearable. Despite her father being a drunkard, his drinking habits were unique. In this case, he would drink at home late in the evening until he found himself in the bed. He would always be amazed by his drinking capacity the following day. The behavior of her father troubled Tammy because she could not live an independent live.
In addition, Tammy’s problems results from the kind of relationship she had with her mother. Although she never had conflicts with her, they could not associate well. In this case, they could not communicate frequently even if they were alone. As a result, Tammy perceives that she spent her childhood in solitude.
On the other hand, Tammy believes that she cannot do anything that satisfies anyone. This is because she has never been given any opportunity to try something new (Sheryl, 2009).
Tammy shows a sense of irrational imaginations. Ellis, the author of REBT, believes that emotional distress originates from the surroundings of an individual. This implies that individuals lack the flexibility of overcoming abnormal behaviors and mental disorders (Parrott, 2004). The growing environment of Tammy caused the disorders. The external environment influences one’s feelings and behaviors.
This can be demonstrated by her disturbances, which are constructed on her relationship with the parents. Similarly, her mother and maternal grandmother had related experience of depression, which often involved thoughts of suicide. In her case, she claims to have experienced the first thought of suicide at fifteen.
Furthermore, her nineteen-year-old son had also been affected with similar episodes of depression. This view also is worsened by the death of her father’s uncle and aunt in their 50’s due to alcoholic-related diseases. All these thoughts have consolidated into her depression.
Another irrational belief constructed by Tammy is that she cannot remain committed to relationships. Despite the fact that she has never been a victim of sexual abuse, she has not experienced mutual satisfaction in a relationship. She only claims to have had mutual satisfaction with her first boyfriend at age sixteen. During her marriage period, she claims to have been unhappy because her husband was not sexual attracted to her.
She supports this idea with the view that she has never engaged in extra-marital affairs, which could have driven her to this status. Furthermore, when she went for a divorce, most of her relationships failed. These thoughts have made Tammy despise relationships. In addition, she has withdrawn herself from men leading distress (Patterson & Watkins, 2006).
The view of distress as being hereditary is also an irrational belief. In this regard, she claims that her generation was cursed because the same experience has been witness in her family lineage. As a result, she attempts to be caring and alert for his son, to avert the course of nature. However, she has problems of depression and demeanor while they are alone with her son.
This has significantly affected their relationship. Notably, the condition of her son has become one of the troubles, although it rarely occurs with severity. For these reasons, she does not relate well with him, creating an additional irrational view of being a non-caring mother (Fall et al., 2004).
The case of Tammy demands adoption of Cognitive therapy to address the behavior. It is noticeable that Tammy has maladaptive thoughts. These thoughts stem from the external environment, which make one develops abnormal behavior and strange feelings.
This is shown by her feelings towards normal work when she is with people. She regards herself as being useless, with no ability to contribute anything of value. As a result, she has withdrawn herself from people making her depressed. Notably, this fact has affected her working place activities and home chores.
The behavior of Tammy portrays signs of noticeable and non-noticeable maladaptive behaviors. For instance, Tammy has noticeable maladaptive behavior because she feels not good enough when working with people. As a result, she has developed feelings of inferiority, causing a drop in her performance. The initial behaviors of Tammy before the disorder occurred changed her life (Parrott, 2004).
At the beginning, the kind of relationship that her parents have due to his father’s drinking habits worries her. The nature of association that she experienced with her mother while still young worsens her views. Her growth is interfered significantly by lack of support, especially in her undertakings.
Growing up as a second-born child, she received minimal assistance in her daily work from her parents. With the lack of support, she developed negative feelings for everyone around her because of her weaknesses. These thoughts portray a sense of being unfit in the society, and lack of ability to win anyone’s interest (Patterson & Watkins, 2006).
Goal setting and Interventions
A therapist has to resolve Tammy’s troubles through identification of appropriate interventions. Initially, counseling will aid in solving the challenges that face her. This implies that Tammy should be taught a new set of behaviors that counter her abnormal conduct. For instance, she should appreciate that everyone has some weaknesses in his or her undertakings. In spite of this common trait, one should not feel rejected.
Through this process, she will enhance her relationship with other people. Hence, she can minimize the detestation level for others. This can be achieved through altering her environmental conditions. Moreover, the non-noticeable irrational thoughts should be substituted with rational thoughts. This will avert her behaviors to stability. Therefore, she can retrieve her normal course of life and live happily (Sheryl, 2009).
The view of Tammy about her parents’ irresponsibility in her life is one of the irrational thoughts. This feeling grew over time until she felt inferior among her colleagues. Based on this view, she experienced challenges in her marriage that forced her to go for a divorce.
After divorcing her husband, challenges in her life never ceased. This is depicted by the relationship she had with her son. Her mental and emotional feelings make her propagate her distress to the son. Under this case, she should learn to take life normally and think positively about everyone (Patterson & Watkins, 2006).
After establishing the appropriate model to use in resolving the above model, one can apply several interventions. These interventions will be directed to reduction of depression and suicidal thoughts. Similarly, other crucial elements experience in her life such as feelings of emptiness, withdrawal from people and negative behavior will be covered.
As a result, modeling intervention should be adopted to enhance pleasurable activities of Tammy. A therapist should demonstrate or dramatize the appropriate behavior, which Tammy has to learn. Through observation, she can overcome the problems.
Furthermore, Tammy has to relate with affected individuals like her to motivate her in acquisition of new behaviors. As a result, she would be stimulated to follow them so that she can adjust to new behaviors (Kuyken, 2009).
Behavioral practice is another intervention that should be used to resolve Tammy’s problems. This intervention gives the client the ability to incorporate new behaviors that are healthy. Through a demonstration of similar behaviors, she would gain new knowledge.
Over time, she can refine the skills and live happily. Some of the vital skills she would gain from this experience include participation in entertaining activities frequently, reduction of argument frequency and improvement of relationship with other people especially her boyfriend (Patterson & Watkins, 2006).
Self-control is also one of the interventions that would play a crucial role in addressing Tammy’s case. Despite the belief that her family lineage is cursed with similar psychological troubles, she should not drive herself into such problems. In this regard, Tammy should learn more from people that have positive imaginations about life rather than restricting herself to weaknesses in her background.
As a result, she would avoid thoughts of suicide, and imagine being contended with life. In addition, the client should monitor how other people behave in the society, and begin to appreciate their contributions. This would improve her feeling of emptiness because other people would reciprocate the goods things she does for them.
Self-monitoring during interaction moments with other people also adds the client’s knowledge in differentiating what is right from what is wrong (Sheryl, 2009).
This promotes the concept of understanding good and bad things that affect life. Based on this fact, she would monitor her deeds to prevent the dire consequences of bad behaviors. Consequently, this would boost the relationship she has with his son and the boyfriend.
Skills development training is suitable for countering Tammy’s problems. This training process will teach the client ways of relating with counterparts. Negative thoughts would reduce because one will always be in the company of others (Fall et al., 2004). Based on Tammy’s thoughts of suicide, this intervention would motivate her in reducing mental pressure, while increasing fan in her life.
As a happy woman, she can rarely have suicidal thoughts crossing over her mind. This intervention combined with relaxation plays a critical role in Tammy’s case. She would have adequate relaxation, which reduces instances of negative thoughts. Thus, the client realizes the causes of negative thoughts that affect her.
Maladaptive thoughts can be resolved through cognitive restructuring. Since Tammy is an intelligent woman, she should be trained on concepts of recognizing thoughts that are destructive to her psychological stability. This idea will assist her develop strength in her reasoning, and avoid reoccurrence past traumas. The negative thoughts of suicides will also be reduced significantly.
Her relationship with the son would be improved, since she will act as a counselor to him over his weaknesses. Similarly, her sex life would be significantly improved. This is because she would be able to interact with men without a sense of inferiority.
At the same time, she would be able to derive satisfaction that she has missed since her first relationship at sixteen. This restructuring mechanism would be ideal to handle the case of Tammy, hence, making her live happily.
Systematic desensitization will be adopted to challenge fear and anxiety disorders portrayed by Tammy. This process involves the identification of fears held by the client. After the series of fears are clarified, one is considered for appropriate means that reduce mental pressure through relaxation (Mike, 2011). When fears are eliminated sequentially, one would experience trust in oneself that leads to eradication of more fears.
In the case of Tammy, she experienced fears while she was still young, and has piled up to the current fear of suicidal attempts. These fears should be addressed in stages. Fears of stresses imparted into her by her parents should be wiped out because she is now a grown up.
Sequentially, this would lead to eradication of the complicate fear of suicide. Through cooperation portrayed by the client, the whole process would be successful. As a result, she would live happily (Patterson & Watkins, 2006).
Learning a new internal dialogue addresses some challenges portrayed in Tammy’s case. Tammy’s internal dialogue in the past only involved negative ideas and views about herself. The fact that her counterparts do not relate well with her has worsened the condition. At the current moment, it is essential for Tammy to learn means of becoming positive about life.
Through giving herself hope and courage in her undertakings, she would realize a good life that is full of pleasure. This concept initiates from the mind, where she should regard herself as being important, and having a role for her existence. Over time, her internal spirit would counter multiple challenges in her life. This would be significant in making her live happily.
When the client has experienced satisfactory assistance from the therapist, it is essential to establish whether she can cope up with the changes. In this regard, the client would be able to identify the thoughts and behaviors that affect her life.
For this reason, she would realize their effects on her life. After some time, she would develop solutions to her thoughts making her live happily. These solutions would emanate from behaviors that make her life normal and stable.
Conclusion
The REBT has been adopted to handle Tammy’s case because the model addresses the Client’s problems appropriately. The therapeutic model demonstrates the reasons that make affected individuals have maladaptive behaviors and thoughts. The theory outlines the multiple clients’ behaviors such as depression, withdrawal and avoidance to reduce qualms.
This nature of behaviors results from external environment one is brought up in the early days. As a result, the client is influenced to react in multiple ways (Mike, 2011). For instance, in the above case, Tammy reacts in varied ways due to activities surrounding her. This is because the actions have portrayed problematic behaviors within her life. Her parents are the main reason driving her to depression.
This fact is worsened by the lack of support she receives from other people, which is an indication of the ability to do something worthwhile. After getting married, she felt that she could not be attracted to her husband, which forced her to take a divorce. The life after marriage is still unsatisfactory as she attempts to provide for her son.
Her understanding about the family lineage indicates that most of the members experienced the same condition. As a result, she imagines that this might have been a curse. All these negative thoughts have made her a depressed woman. Thus, she cannot leave a happy life.
The REBT cognitive theories would assist a therapist to realize the root causes of behaviors. One way of identifying the behaviors is behavioral rehearsal intervention. This provides that client with an opportunity to gain new skills and learn essential behaviors. Such a model allows a therapist to demonstrate the skills and knowledge of handling life issues.
As the client watches these skills, she identifies her weaknesses, while attempting to perceive issues in a different dimension. Meanwhile, self-control and repose are some of the interventions that can be adopted (Kuyken, 2009).
Clients are given skills and training that allows relaxation of the mind, and regulation of physical activities. This therapy promotes positive behavior towards normal work and other people. For this reason, the client would develop rational thoughts that will enable her live happily.
Despite the possibility of positive results from the therapy, there are certain challenges that the therapist will experience. These challenges emanates from the fact that the client is intelligent and aware of the external environment influencing her moods and behaviors.
In addition, the client has always attempted to improve her personality, but never succeeded. Notably, the idea that the client has lived long with the challenges could be an obstacle in incorporating changes in her life.
The client also could realize some of the weaknesses from the therapist. Initially, the therapist’s mazy could be affected by one’s education level. On the other hand, the client may not be willing to adjust to her new behaviors.
This results from the difference in culture and education standards. Nevertheless, the case of Tammy will be resolved appropriately by REBT. As a result, most of her mental, emotional, and psychological troubles would be eradicated. This would enable her live a life that is fulfilling as a woman.
References
Fall, K. A., Holden, J. M., & Marquis, A. (2004). Theoretical models of counseling and psychotherapy. New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Kuyken, W., Padesky, C. A., & Dudley, R. (2009). Collaborative case conceptualization: working effectively with clients in cognitive-behavioral therapy. New York: Guilford Press.
Mike, A. (2011). Publications on REBT. Psychotherapy, 4(3), 5-10.
Parrott, L. (2004). Counseling and psychotherapy. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies.
Patterson, C. H., & Watkins, E. C. (2006). Theories of psychotherapy (5th ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins College Publishers.
Sheryl, A. (2009). Using REBT to Treat Panic Disorder. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, 5(2), 12-15..