
The Theory of Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) fits well for Christians with a Biblical Worldview.
This video discusses the ABC model and focuses specifically on the Biblical basis for REBT therapy and the relationship between beliefs, emotions, and behaviors.
Explore how REBT distinguishes helpful versus unhelpful emotions and how these influence actions within the ABC model’s Consequential emotions and behaviors, guiding goal-driven responses.
Explore REBT's A-B-C model, showing how core beliefs like demandingness shape emotions and behaviors, and how to reframe them into helpful beliefs and godly desires for self-directed change.
Explore the B-C connection in the ABC model of REBT, showing how beliefs about activating events shape emotions and behavior, and how internal locus of control strengthens self-efficacy.
Explore the distinction between inferences and beliefs. Trace how beliefs drive emotions and behaviors through inference chains, and learn to challenge or reframe thoughts.
Apply unconditional self-acceptance within REBT by acknowledging you are fallen and loved by God. Separate self-worth from behavior and pursue change through forgiveness and grace.
Apply rational emotive behavioral therapy disputing strategies to unhelpful beliefs using functional, empirical, logical, friendship, and biblical disputes. Shift from self-labeling to realistic, evidence-based thinking.
Explore how rational emotive behavioral therapy uses the elegant emotional solution over practical fixes with the ABC model, changing unhelpful beliefs and emotions rather than the situation.
Before watching this lecture, view the case study located in the resource folder. You will also find the REBT Self-Help Form in the resource folder. When watching the YouTube session, try filling out the REBT Self-Help Form as the session goes on. The goal is to see whether or not you are able to identify the ABCs in the session! Once you have watched the case study and filled out the form, watch this discussion of the case study lecture to see how well you did identifying the activating event, consequential emotion, and unhelpful belief.
There are plenty of case studies online through the Ellis Institute's Friday Night Live series. Keep practicing by watching these live sessions and identifying the ABCs as you go!
Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and what some have called the grandfather of all forms of Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), often said, “The deepest, most profound change that you can help clients achieve is to help them change their philosophy of life." St. Paul, in his second letter to the Corinthians, wrote something similar: "From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new" (2 Corinthians 5:16-17).
Since one’s philosophy of life is a “way of seeing” life, the world, others, and the self, both Ellis and St. Paul are advocating a profound change in one’s “way of seeing,” in other words, one’s point of view or set of beliefs that one holds about life. Christian beliefs and practices can be incorporated into REBT/CBT to help Christian clients adopt a new “way of seeing,” so they can experience themselves as a “new creation” with fewer emotional disturbances and self-defeating behaviors. If you regularly counsel Christians, this course will teach you a model that is not only biblically based but will resonate with a Christian Worldview of how people can change.
If you engage in any form of Christian counseling or coaching, you will benefit from using REBT techniques and Steve Johnson is one of the best in the field!