In Rational Emotive Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (RECBT), we use the ABCDE model as developed by Dr. Albert Ellis. This goal of this approach is to help clients to achieve make positive change in their life by helping them understand to how holding irrational beliefs leads to unwanted consequences, and showing them how changing those beliefs empowers them to produce more favourable outcomes.

In the ABCDE model, A stands for the Activating Event, B represents the irrational Belief that the client has about that event and C is the Consequence (emotional disruption), D stands for Disputation of the irrational belief and E represents the Effective belief that will replace the irrational belief.

When we start working with a client, it is likely that they will feel that the emotional disruption that they are experiencing is a direct result of the activating event. What we want to help them understand is that in fact, it is the irrational belief that emerges from their interpretation of the event that leads to the consequence. When we are able to get clear on the irrational belief/s that are present, we can help the client by disputing and challenging those beliefs, and replacing them.

Let’s look at how the ABCDE model works in action with an example.

Ms. T complains that she is experiencing overwhelming sensations of distress, anger and disappointment because someone damaged her car wing mirror and did not provide contact details in order for her to make an insurance claim. She admits that she shouted at passers-by and was impatient with the mechanic who she visited to fix the broken mirror. She blames the incident (A) for her extreme emotional discomfort.

However, listening to her talk about the incident allows us to gather some important information. Several statements stand out.

“This world is full of bad people who don’t respect other’s property. Everyone just wants to cause me problems.”

“Its one thing after another, I just can’t cope with the constant problems.”

As the helper, we can see that Ms. T can identify irrational beliefs (B) category of “musts”. She believes that the world must treat her well and other people who behave badly are therefore bad people, and she shows signs of low-frustration tolerance. We can also see a tendency to catastrophise, and interpret a minor incident as something major and insuperable.

In order to help Ms. T to deal with similar situations with less distress in the future, we need to assist her in achieving a different perspective and allowing her to see that her existing beliefs are not true.

We start by empathising and acknowledging her distress, while encouraging her to question whether in fact, her beliefs are true. This could take the following form:

“It sounds like this incident has caused you a great deal of distress – it isn’t pleasant to find that you have an expensive and inconvenient problem like this to deal with. But, do you really think that it is true that the world is filled with bad people whose sole intention is to hurt you?”

Ms. T is initially resistant to this line of questioning. She starts to come up with a long list of similar incidents from the past, where people have caused her problems through behaviour that she interprets as disrespectful. Here, it is important to illustrate to her how her reaction to the event is creating the consequence of feeling so bad about what has happened. We want her to realise that she has a choice about how she responds. Her initial feeling of anger is entirely justified. But, she can choose whether she holds onto and dwells upon that anger – or lets it go and moves on, not allowing this incident to disrupt her life any more than necessary.

We ask “Do you think it is objectively true that people are bad and aim to hurt you?”

She mulls this point over, and is able to concede that it is not true that everyone is bad. When she looks at the bigger picture, she can see that the truth is that people can do bad things, but aren’t necessarily bad people – and that they are not intentionally setting out to disrespect her or do her harm.

To help her start getting a more balanced perspective on the “awfulness” of the activating incident, we can ask “How would you rate this incident on a scale of one to ten – with ten being the worst thing that could possibly happen?

As we assist Ms. T to disputing (D) her beliefs, she starts to bring the incident into realistic proportions. She recognises that while the damage to her car is not a desirable thing to happen, it has not caused her physical harm or threatened her long-term well-being.

Now that Ms. T is starting to recognise the errors in her thinking, we want to provide her with tools to help her change her responses in the future. We ask “What would have to change for you to not feel such great levels of discomfort when something like this happens?” Here, we are working towards creating a new more effective belief (E).

She says “The next time I face a difficulty like this, I want to remember that while people may behave in ways that are disappointing it does not mean that the whole world is bad. In fact, there are many people who will go out of their way to help when a problem comes up. The next time a challenge like this comes up, instead of focusing on the inconvenience, I want to look for practical solutions that will help me resolve the problem… because I know that dwelling on my anger will not solve anything and will in fact make me feel worse”

As we can see, Ms. T is replacing her irrational belief that “all people are bad” with an effective rational belief. To conclude the session, we continue to empower her by reminding her that she can choose how she reacts when she faces a challenge in her life. By working through the steps of the ABCDE model, we have given her clarity and helped her to develop a new perspective that will help her to move through her life with greater ease and confidence.

Becky Middleton

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