Chapter 16: Albert Ellis and the Rational Emotive Behavioral Theory of Personality: Web Resources: Techniques for Disputing Techniques for Disputing Irrational Beliefs (DIBS) If you want to increase your rationality and reduce your self-defeating irrational beliefs, you can spend at least ten minutes every day asking yourself the following questions and carefully thinking through (not merely parroting!) the healthy answers. Write down each question and your answers to it on a piece of paper; or else record the questions and your answers on a tape recorder. 1. WHAT SELF-DEFEATING IRRATIONAL BELIEF DO I WANT TO DISPUTE AND SURRENDER? ILLUSTRATIVE ANSWER: I must receive love from someone for whom I really care. 2. CAN I RATIONALLY SUPPORT THIS BELIEF? ILLUSTRATIVE ANSWER: No. 3. WHAT EVIDENCE EXISTS OF THE FALSENESS OF THIS BELIEF? ILLUSTRATIVE ANSWER: Many indications exist that the belief that I must receive love from someone for whom I really care is false:
4. DOES ANY EVIDENCE EXIST OF THE TRUTH OF THIS BELIEF? ILLUSTRATIVE ANSWER: No, not really. Considerable evidence exists that if I love someone dearly and never am loved in return that I will then find myself disadvantaged, inconvenienced, frustrated, and deprived. I certainly would prefer, therefore, not to get rejected. But no amount of inconvenience amounts to a horror. I can still stand frustration and loneliness. They hardly make the world awful. Nor does rejection make me a turd! Clearly, then, no evidence exists that I must receive love from someone for whom I really care. 5. WHAT ARE THE WORST THINGS THAT COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN TO ME IF I DON'T GET WHAT I THINK I MUST (OR DO GET WHAT I THINK I MUST NOT GET)?
6. WHAT GOOD THINGS COULD I MAKE HAPPEN IF I DON'T GET WHAT I THINK I MUST (OR DO GET
You can take any one of your major irrational beliefs - your shoulds, oughts, or musts - and spend at least ten minutes every day, often for a period of several weeks, actively and vigorously disputing this belief. To help keep yourself devoting this amount of time to the DIBS method of rational disputing, you may use operant conditioning or self-management methods (originated by B.F. Skinner, David Premack, Marvin Goldfried, and other psychologists). Select some activity that you highly enjoy that you tend to do every day- such as reading, eating, television viewing, exercising, or social contact with friends. Use this activity as a reinforcer or reward by ONLY allowing yourself to engage in it AFTER you have practiced Disputing Irrational Beliefs (DIBS) for at least ten minutes that day. Otherwise, no reward! In addition, you may penalize yourself every single day you do NOT use DIBS for at least ten minutes. How? By making yourself perform some activity you find distinctly unpleasant-such as eating something obnoxious, contributing to a cause you hate, getting up a half-hour earlier in the morning, or spending an hour conversing with someone you find boring. You can also arrange with some person or group to monitor you and help you actually carry out the penalties and lack of rewards you set for yourself. You may of course steadily use DIBS without any self-reinforcement, since it becomes reinforcing in its own right after awhile. But you may find it more effective at times if you use it along with rewards and penalties that you execute immediately after you practice or avoid practicing this rational emotive behavior method. Summary of Questions to Ask Yourself in DIBS 1. WHAT SELF-DEFEATING IRRATIONAL BELIEF DO I WANT TO DISPUTE AND SURRENDER? Disputing (D) your dysfunctional or irrational Beliefs (iBs) is one of the most effective of REBT techniques. But it is still often ineffective, because you can easily and very strongly hold on to an iB (such as, "I absolutely must be loved by so-and-so, and it's awful and I am an inadequate person when he/she does not love me!"). When you question and challenge this iB you often can come up with an Effective New Philosophy (E) that is accurate but weak: "I guess that there is no reason why so-and-so must love me, because there are other people who will love me when so-and-so does not. I cantherefore be reasonably happy without his/her love." Believing this almost Effective New Philosophy, and believing it lightly, you can still easily and forcefully believe, "Even though it is not awful and terrible when so-and-so does not love me, it really is! No matter what, I still need his/her affection!" Weak, or even moderately strong, Disputing will therefore often not work very well to help you truly disbelieve some of your powerful and long-held iB's; while vigorous, persistent Disputing is more likely to work. One way to do highly powerful, vigorous Disputing is to use a tape recorder and to state one of your strong irrational Beliefs into it, such as, "If I fail this job interview I am about to have, that will prove that I'll never get a good job and that I might as well apply only for lowlevel positions!" Figure out several Disputes to this iB and strongly present them on this same tape. For example: "Even if I do poorly on this interview, that will only show that I failed this time, but will never show that I'll always fail and can never do well in other interviews. Maybe they'll still hire me for the job. But if they don't, I can learn by my mistakes, can do better in other interviews, and can finally get the kind of job that I want." Listen to your Disputing on tape. Let other people, including your therapist or members of your therapy group, listen to it. Do it over in a more forceful and vigorous manner and let them listen to it again, to see if you are disputing more forcefully, until they agree that you are getting better at doing it. Keep listening to it until you see that you are able to convince yourself and others that you are becoming more powerful and more convincing. Additional copies of this pamphlet are available at:
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