Rational emotive behavior therapy research: What we know and what we need to know

Abstract

Rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) has achieved positive results in quantitative reviews of treatment outcome studies. In part because of methodological limitations of these studies, however, the generalizability of their favorable results to routine clinical practice is unknown. Also unknown are the clinical significance of outcomes achieved by REBT, the contribution made by its distinctive and specialized procedures, and the types of patients for whom REBT is particularly useful. Recommendations are provided for refining our knowledge of the effectiveness of REBT.Forty years ago, rational therapy (RT) appeared particularly wellsuited to the challenges of treatment outcome research. Albert Ellis had described a clear and parsimonious model of emotional disturbance and its treatment, and he promoted the scientific evaluation of his approach with his own pioneering example (Ellis, 1957). Rational therapy was, among other things, an empiricist's rejoinder to the less testable formulations of psychoanalytic theory (Ellis, 1992). It might well have seemed likely that a data-based verdict on the effectiveness of RT and its explanations of psychological distress would soon be forthcoming.However, twenty years after Ellis' inaugural effort at treatment validation, several distinguished psychotherapy scholars reviewed the

Individualized measurement of irrational beliefs in remitted depressives

“…Unlike earlier measures of irrational beliefs, the Belief Scale has demonstrated strong internal consistency (␣ ϭ .80; Malouff & Schutte, 1986), and high test-retest reliability and discriminant validity from negative affectivity (Malouff, Valdenegro, & Schutte, 1987). As a result, methodological reviews have noted that the Belief Scale represents a significant improvement over earlier measures of irrational beliefs (e.g., Haaga & Davison, 1993;Solomon & Haaga, 1995).…”

“…Indeed, it was only recently that researchers moved beyond merely demonstrating that demandingness is a correlate of depression, to testing whether it is a stable characteristic of depression-prone people (Solomon & Haaga, 1995). To date, only two published studies have used the remitted-depression (RD) design to explore the stability of conventional irrational belief scores.…”

A Systematic Review of the Literature on the Use of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy in Criminal Justice Work to Reduce Re-offending

“…The few studies that have reviewed the literature on REBT effectiveness over the years (Lyons & Woods 1991;Engels et al 1993;Solomon & Haaga 1995;Neenan 2001), indicate that the support for REBT as an effective therapeutic intervention is not particularly strong. While some have concluded that REBT is an effective form of therapy when compared to baseline and other forms of control (Lyons & Woods 1991), and others have discussed the methodological flaws and limitations of REBT evaluation research (Engels et al 1993;Solomon & Haaga 1995), the most recently expressed published view is that the empirical evidence in support of REBT continues to be lacking after 45 years (Neenan 2001).…”

“…While some have concluded that REBT is an effective form of therapy when compared to baseline and other forms of control (Lyons & Woods 1991), and others have discussed the methodological flaws and limitations of REBT evaluation research (Engels et al 1993;Solomon & Haaga 1995), the most recently expressed published view is that the empirical evidence in support of REBT continues to be lacking after 45 years (Neenan 2001).…”

Counseling Children and Adolescents: Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and Humanism

“…Although rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) has been tested with many disorders and has fared well in psychotherapy and counseling outcome studies (Solomon & Haaga, 1995), critics throughout the years have maintained that REBT places too little emphasis on the therapeutic relationship (Garfield, 1995), and that rational is equated with being "cold, calculating, and certainly manipulative" (Woods, 1996). Consequently, for these as well as other reasons, REBT has often been described as an antihumanistic theory.…”