Have you learned your ABC?

ABC THEORY.
Have you learned your ABC yet?

The American psychologist Albert Ellis (1913–2007) developed rational-emotive therapy (RET), which is a directive, confrontational psychotherapy designed to challenge and modify clients’ irrational beliefs thought to cause their personal distress (Ellis, 1961, 1977, 1979,1987). RET is based on Ellis’ ABC theory (Wood & Wood, 1993).

The A refers to the activating event,
the B to the person’s belief about the event,
and the C to the emotional consequence that follows.
Ellis believed that it is not the event that causes the emotional consequence, but rather the person’s belief about the event;
that is, A does not cause C, but B causes C.
If the belief is irrational (lacking in reason), then the emotional consequence can be extreme distress.
Because real life does not conform to such unreasonable beliefs as ‘‘I should be happy all of the time’’ or ‘‘I have to be perfect,’’ people who hold such beliefs are open to frustration and unhappiness.
DO YOU HOLD ANY SUCH BELIEFS?......................................................
If you are holding onto an irrational belief you may be seeing an undesirable event as catastrophic when in reality it is a disappointment or an inconvenience which should normally cause anxiety to anyone.
ARE YOU MAKING A MOUNTAIN OUT OF A BIG BUMP IN THE ROAD?
Ellis further suggests that the brief anxious feeling when held onto becomes the condition known as anxiety. Likewise the immediate feeling of depression when it is not challenged can become the condition known as depression. (Ellis,1987).
Life Coaches and Therapists use RET (rational emotive therapy) and ABC to help clients to see that often they are seeing things based upon faulty beliefs. Also that, they then form expectations which are unrealistic which causes them to have the problems they present with.
As clients replace unreasonable beliefs with more realistic beliefs they manage to react in ways that produce better results.
Better results when formed into life patterns create a better life built upon constructive behaviour.
I have personally developed a model based upon this which I call the EROS principal. This helps me to give my clients a structure which is easily learned and offers a quick method of addressing reactive thoughts based upon sometimes faulty interpretation of events.