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It is better for your peace of mind to simply PREFER to get what you want than DEMAND it. The problem is that you are DEMANDING something that you simply cannot get! Most external phenomena simply cannot be controlled. So this will automatically make you feel bad frustrated, ineffective, angry, desperate, hurt, enraged, and so on because you cannot translate the DEMAND “they MUST NOT do that” into reality. Often, it just isn’t possible to control other peoples’ behavior. The missing part of the puzzle, and the part that is the really crucial part, is what YOU THINK about what they do.įor example, if you really believe that they MUST NOT do whatever they are doing, and then they still continue to do it, then the DEMAND that you have inside your head that says “they MUST NOT do that” will put considerable pressure on you from the inside to do something about it, which you very often may be unable to do. This is what REBT can accomplish, in many such situations. Since they are very likely going to do that (whatever it is) anyway, it seems, then it would make life a great deal easier if you didn’t get angry about it and lose your peace of mind. Is this a useful response for you to others’ behavior? Probably not. It’s like walking around with a big pushbutton on your forehead that says “Push here to aggravate”. They do what they do, and then you automatically get angry about it, and feel quite upset for a while- possibly very upset. This is a very important element of the equation- reality. If you think about it, what the other person SHOULD do is not necessarily what they DO do, right? The anger is based on a faulty assumption, which is that the other person SHOULD behave in the way you want them to. REBT theory says that it is generally irrational and self-defeating to get all worked up about someone else’s behavior.

This can sound strange at first, but when dealing with problematic anger and frustration this is the way it works. The responsibility for the anger is yours, not theirs. You notice their behavior and then become angry. They are not making you anything- they are simply behaving in a way that you are getting angry about. A more accurate description of “someone making me angry” is to say that you feel angry about their behavior. This is a very common way of expressing something and we hear it often, but in fact it distorts the situation it attempts to describe. The ABCs are an exercise that help stop you from being victimized by your own thinking.Ī common example is the issue of someone else’s behavior “making you angry”. We use it to examine the beliefs we have (or the thinking we are doing) as some of this may be causing us problems. You can learn to do this straight out of a book, or off the computer screen. The ABCs are an exercise from REBT, which is a form of cognitive therapy that is simple enough and effective enough to be used by anybody and – it works. If you get some paper and a pencil to use while you read this, you can learn this technique in 10 minutes.

#Abc box pdf pdf#

Join the New SMART Insiders+ ProgramĪn Introduction to the ABCs of REBT (Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy)Ī PDF version of this article is available here: