Psychology

Human beings brain is indeed very powerful. A mindset of a person will always have a physical manifestation through its actions and behavior. So to speak, it is not what happens to a person but rather it is what heshe does with what happens to her. Therefore, a person invents hisher own life.

    Let us take the case of Mr. G, a married man working for a major corporation, who is presently seeking treatment due to his frustration and disappointment because he lost his promotion due to public speaking. He even thinks that the thought of public speaking makes him sick that he just wants to run away whenever he anticipates it. He even claims that he will be stuck in his current position forever. It is but apparent that Mr. G. is not happy with the recent happenings in his life. He is having a negative disposition in life.

This can be more explicitly understood with the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) founded by Albert Ellis. This was formerly named as Rational Therapy which was later changed to Rational Emotive Therapy before it has been coined to its current appellation. According to this theory, a person does not merely get affected by unfavorable and unfortunate adversities, but by how they create their views and perspective of life with their language, beliefs, philosophies about them and others.

REBT makes us of the A-B-C (adversity-belief-consequences) model of psychological disturbance as well as change. This means that it is not just about adversity that results to dysfunctional behavioral Consequences, but also what a person believes about the adversity.

Taking the REBT in the scenario that we have with Mr. G, it is evident that with his negative views with what he is going through, this results to a destructive emotional and behavioral consequence.
Also, REBT makes use of framework concepts that humans have both innate rational (constructive) and irrational (destructive) propensity and leanings. People manifest emotional difficulties, whether consciously or unconsciously, such as self-blame, self-pity, clinical anger, hurt, guilt, shame, depression, and anxiety. And this is what Mr. G is going through and experiencing in the scenario presented above.

    According to this theory, there will be no other way to get better and stay better but by persistent work and continuous practice of searching for ones own irrational beliefs and actively deter these beliefs.

With REBT, an intervention can be created to help people like Mr. G. as this is after all adapted as an educational process in which the therapist teaches the patient on how to identify destructive beliefs and forcefully clash those beliefs.  The therapist can focus much on the emphasis that a person always has a choice on how to minimize such feelings of negativity towards unfortunate events of ones life.

The first step should be noted that Mr. G has to acknowledge the problems, accepts the emotional responsibility and most importantly, has the willingness and determination to help his self. To be more specific, the intervention which can be arranged to help Mr. G, is one in which we have to seek professional help from psychotherapists to help demonstrate Mr. G with the unconditional other-acceptance. The therapist shall understand Mr. Gs concerns and point of view and heshe shall work not just as a mere therapist but rather as a facilitator, teacher, and most importantly encourager.  The therapist and Mr. G shall together work in a structured and active-directive manner, working on a set of target problems and a set of therapeutic goals shall be established as well.

Consequently, Mr. G. is expected to learn to take a broad view on the insights of the relevant situations which happened in his life. The therapist shall then examine possible underlying beliefs and more deep perspective and schemes which may account for a possible variety of problematic emotions and behavior.

    Also, it is important that Mr. G should have the best social support that he could get from his wife, family, and friends to help him get out of this situation. Activities which focus on quality time with his loved ones could evidently help him to realize that there is indeed more to life. This could help him minimize the instances of focusing on thinking about the negative things that he has in mind.