Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is an addiction treatment that helps you identify negative, self-defeating thoughts. You learn to challenge whether such feelings are rational, then replace them with more productive thoughts.
At Harbor Village rehab center in Miami, we use REBT treatment to help you understand how irrational, unhealthy thoughts can create emotional distress. This distress, of course, can lead to detrimental behavior such as drug and alcohol abuse. But once you identify and understand this cycle, you can replace those negative thoughts with positive ones – which lead to more productive actions as a result.
We address three basic components in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy:
Working with our trained clinicians at Harbor Village, the first step in your REBT treatment during rehab is to learn how to identify your irrational thoughts. Some examples are:
These beliefs are clearly not beneficial to your efforts to recover. Such thoughts can lead to disappointment and regret, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
After you discuss and understand these concepts, your REBT therapist encourages you – even pushes you – to challenge your irrational thoughts. Your therapist is honest, blunt and logical, and the sessions may seem confrontational at times. But this is by design. This modality tackles problems head-on, forcing you to understand your illogical beliefs and how they are negatively impacting your life.
Perfectionism is a typical irrational standard many people hold themselves to. But we know perfection is not attainable. We will help you work through why perfectionism doesn’t exist and how such thought patterns can contribute to your cycle of addiction.
During the next aspect of the REBT process, you will be asked to change those irrational beliefs. Even once those thoughts are identified, this can be difficult. It may be hard at first to even understand or accept that they are irrational.
But it’s a necessary step toward completing successful Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy and learning how to replace those negative beliefs with more productive ones.
