Sarah Waller proposes that cognitive therapists and philosophical counselors ought to consider the feelings of the client of paramount importance in belief system change rather than the rationality of the belief system. I offer an alternative strategy of counseling that reinstates the place of rational belief revision while still respecting the importance of emotions. Waller claims that, because of the problem of under-determination, the counseling goal of rational belief revision can be trumped by the goal of improved client affect. I (...) suggest that, if we consider a different ontology for the domain of counseling - one whose objects are dialogues (the goal of counseling becomes greater information of dialogues), we can accommodate a place for emotions in rational belief revision. I then note some limitations of the new proposal and the possibility of incommensurability in the comparison of our different views. (shrink)

Pt. I. Philosophy and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) -- Ch. 1. The "philosophical origins" of CBT -- Ch. 2. The beginning of modern cognitive therapy -- Ch. 3. A brief history of philosophical therapy -- Ch. 4. Stoic philosophy and psychology -- Ch. 5. Rational emotion in stoicism and CBT -- Ch. 6 Stoicism and Ellis's rational therapy (REBT) -- Pt. II. The stoic armamentarium -- Ch. 7. Contemplation of the ideal stage -- Ch. 8. Stoic mindfulness of the "here (...) and now" -- Ch. 9. Self-analysis and disputation -- Ch. 10. Autosuggestion, premeditation, and retrospection -- Ch. 11. Preditatio malorum and mental rehearsal -- Ch. 12. Stoic fatalism, determination, and acceptance -- Ch. 13. The view from above and stoic metaphysics. (shrink)

The American Society for Philosophy, Counseling, and Psychotherapy (ASPCP) was founded on the premise that philosophical and psychological practices are interdependent and mutually supportive. While psychological practice can benefit from becoming more philosophical, the converse is also true. In contrast, the American Philosophical Practitioner’s Association, under the direction of Louis Marinoff, has driven a wedge between these two practices. In this paper, I show how philosophical therapies such as my own Log­ic-Based modality, and psychological therapies, especially Rational-Emotional Behavior Therapy ( (...) class='Hi'>REBT) work together synergistically. I hold that the APPA bifurcation of psycho­logical from philosophical practice is artificial, impractical, and self-defeating. Further, I maintain that Marinoff’s position that there is a distinct class of “sane” clients appropriate for the latter form of therapy serves to propagate a dangerous popular stereotype, that clients who “need” conventional psychological therapy must therefore be “insane.”. (shrink)

There is no doubt that a negative perception of financial risk and a lack of credit risk management adversely impact business growth and business owners’ wellbeing. Past studies suggest that most Nigerian traders have poor risk perceptions and manage risk poorly. A business coaching program within rational-emotive behavior therapy framework was evaluated in order to determine its effects on financial risk perception and credit risk management among Nigerian traders. This study used an open-label parallel randomized control design. This 8-weeks coaching (...) program had 60 traders in the REBT-based business coaching group and 59 traders in the control group. The mixed-model repeated measures ANOVA was utilized for analysis of the study data. Results show that relative to a control group, traders’ financial risk perception [F = 637.29, p < 0.001, ω2 = 0.69] and credit risk management [F = 795.51, p < 0.001, ω2 = 0.80] significantly improved after participating in REBT-based business coaching program. This study shows that REBT-based business coaching program is integral to increasing financial risk perception and credit risk management among Nigerian traders. This study contributes to the advancement of business coaching program within the rational-emotive behavior therapy framework for market traders, and its application in similar situations. The study considered the benefits of business coaching program for market traders from a developing country, which is a rarely studied group. It is highly recommended that professionals study the relationship between REBT-based business coaching and economic decision-making within various organizational contexts. (shrink)

The place of rationality in Stoicism and REBT -- Ellis and Epictetus: dialogue vs. method in psychotherapy -- The intellectual origins of Rational Psychotherapy: twentieth-century writers -- REBT and rationality: philosophical approaches -- Rationality and the shoulds -- When did a psychologist last discuss "chagrin"?: American psychology's continuing moral project -- The social psychology of "pseudoscience": a brief history -- Historical aspects of mindfulness and self-acceptance in psychotherapy -- Marginalisation is not unbearable, is it even undesirable?

The aim of the present paper is to offer a critical examination of the episte- mological foundations of rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT). Taking the tension between the basic presupposition between REBT and the ABC cognitive model constituting its core as its cue, the paper focuses on the causal relation between cognition and emotion and tries to argue that, at closer inspection, neither the theoretical, nor the experimental reasons ad- duced in favor of the idea of a determining (...) role of cognition in the appear- ance of mental disturbance actually hold. (shrink)

The integrated model of mental health recommends nowadays the collaboration between psychiatrists, psychotherapists and clinical psychologists. It is currently the agreed model in the managed health care system in the West and research has shown that mixing the medical model with the psychological model both in theory and practice elicits the best outcomes and guides the client towards recovery. In this paper I will challenge this view on a particular area of psychopathology, mild and moderate depression and anxiety, showing that (...) in these particular situations, 15-20 sessions of psychotherapy are sufficient and efficient for recovery and there is no further need for medicating the client, unless the client himself desires this particular type of psychiatric approach. I will also focus on a target group, pregnant women who fear toxic reactions for the fetus and don’t consider taking antidepressant and anxiolytic medication out of fear of adverse reactions. I will also explore the ethical implications of prescribing these target groups medication against their will. CBT, REBT and Existential Psychotherapy are effective options to treat both the symptoms and causes of mild and moderate anxiety and depression, whilst exercise, nutrition and mindfulness meditation can also be effective treatments. Since medications such as antidepressants have recently become the treatment of choice in United States with a 147.5% increase in antidepressant prescription rates between 1990 and 1998 and with a 10.9% decrease in the utilization of psychotherapy, my paper aims to balance this approach in the favour of psychotherapy as a first choice option. (shrink)

On approach to competitive situations, affective states (emotions and anxiety) occur through the complex interaction of cognitive antecedents. Researchers have intimated that irrational beliefs might play an important role in the relationship between cognitive appraisals and affective states, but has ignored challenge and threat. In the current research, we examine the interaction between cognitive appraisals, irrational beliefs, and challenge and threat to predict golfers’ pre-competitive affective states. We adopted a cross-sectional atemporal design to examine how golfers approached two different competitive (...) situations: imagined imminent golf competition (phase 1), and actual future golf competition (phase 2). Path analysis revealed how cognitive appraisals, irrational beliefs, and challenge and threat interact to predict affective states among golfers. Serial atemporal multiple mediation analysis indicated that the relationships between cognitive appraisals and affective states were mediated by irrational beliefs and challenge and threat. Further, some differences were revealed between phase 1 and phase 2 in the serial multiple atemporal mediation results with regard to challenge. That is, at phase 1 no significant serial mediation was found for any affective outcomes, but at phase 2 significant serial mediation was found for all affective states, showing that irrational beliefs and challenge serial mediated the associations between cognitive appraisals and affective states. The finding that mediation and bivariate associations differed across phase 1 and phase 2 is echoed in the phase 1-phase 2 tests of differences. The current research makes a theoretical advancement by elucidating in more detail the complex interaction between cognitive antecedents and mediators of affective states. Specifically, the inclusion of challenge and threat alongside irrational beliefs and cognitive appraisals is an important theoretical advancement that builds on work inside of sport literature (e.g., Dixon et al., 2016) and outside of sport literature (e.g., David et al., 2002; 2005), as this constellation of theoretically related antecedents of affective states has not been examined together in the extant research. (shrink)

Women working in academic environments that are male dominated are subjected to high levels of occupational stress due to the so called stereotype threat (ST) (Steele, 1997). Stereotype threat is a social-psychological threat that arises when one is in the situation of doing something for which a negative stereotype about his/her group applies. For women's university teaching staff stereotype threat is a source of anxiety that affects their performance, career commitment and overall job satisfaction. Additionally ST accounts, partly, for the (...) horizontal and vertical gender segregation that is found in many fields. In order to overcome these problems we have proposed a preventive intervention program based on Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy principles. (shrink)