On the 24th
July eight years ago Albert Ellis died but his work lives on. He would have been
encouraged to know that schools have taken up the challenge he set many years
ago; teach children how to make themselves less ‘disturbable’.
Rational
Emotive Behaviour Education is doing this is many South Australian schools with
positive outcomes.
Teachers
have been trained in the understanding and application of Ellis’ ABC Theory of
Emotional Disturbance and they are helping their students to understand that
their habits of thinking are linked to how they act and how they feel.
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| Gone but not forgotten |
This insight
empowers the child to monitor and assess how she is feeling and how she is
estimating (thinking about/interpreting) the situation at hand. How am I
feeling? Is this situation as bad as I think it is? I can reassess this
situation so that I remain in control and make OK choices.
Rational
Emotive Behaviour Educators (REBE’rs) remind students daily that their worst
enemy is often between their ears. They self-sabotage; they undermine their
prospects of succeeding by reengaging the negative habits of thinking they have
constructed and which have been practiced all their lives. This self-talk is on
a continuous ‘loop’ reminding them that they are useless/dumb/unlikeable and
that this is their lot in life.
These habits
of believing can be challenged, deconstructed and replaced with healthier more
rational ones. Ellis said we (genetic predisposition aside) construct our
depression so we can deconstruct it; we can make ourselves less self
disturbable!
How say you?
This is the subject of most of the items published on this humble blog but in a
nutshell the key is in the daily teaching reminders i.e.
- Our worth is not given to us by anyone so it can’t be taken away
- We are not what we do or what others think of us
- It is impossible to rate ourselves ‘good’ or ‘bad’ so don’t waste time doing so
The more our
students are exposed to this logic the less self disturbable they will become
and that’s what Albert Ellis would want. Well done all the REBE’rs out there!
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| Wise rabbit |
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