Irrational Beliefs

Introduction

Cognitive-behavioural assessment is a technique used to test the thought processes which define many psychological disorders. A major component of cognitive-behavioural assessment is the measurement of irrational thoughts and beliefs. The tests of irrational thinking developed thus far have grown out of the work of American clinical psychologists Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck.

Irrational Beliefs in Clinical Psychology

Albert Ellis developed rational-emotive therapy (RET), now known as rational-emotive-behaviour therapy (REBT), during the 1950s as a result of his discontent with the efficacy of psychoanalysis (Ellis, 1962). The main hypothesis of REBT is that beliefs about events are the most important cause of appropriate or self-defeating emotions and behaviours. REBT is based on the ABC model of psychopathology, in which unpleasant activating environmental events (A) do not cause undesirable emotional and behavioural consequences (C); instead they are caused by the irrational beliefs (B) held about the event.

Irrational beliefs are beliefs by which external events are interpreted which are absolutistic and self-defeating observations. They are self-statements, unlikely to find empirical support, that reflect unspoken assumptions about what is necessary to lead a meaningful life. In a person holding irrational beliefs, inevitable setbacks will lead to inappropriate negative behaviours and emotions. Rorer (1989: 484), in describing the absolutistic nature of these beliefs, referred to them as ‘beliefs that the world or someone or something in it should be different than it, she, or he is, because one wants it to be’. One very common irrational belief noted by Ellis is that people believe they must be completely competent in everything they do. When an inevitable error is committed, it becomes catastrophic because it is a violation of the belief in personal perfection.

Another version of the ABC model was provided by Beck (1976). According to Beck's theory, numerous disorders are caused and maintained by negative thinking styles and negative beliefs that people have about themselves, their current circumstances, and the future. Included among these cognitive errors are assuming excessive personal causality for negative events, and thinking of the worst believing that it is most likely to happen. These cognitive errors, referred to as distortions, guide the interpretation of new experiences and increase vulnerability to psychopathology.

The theories of both Ellis and Beck describe the logic of people with behaviour disorders as faulty in that they make exaggerated negative inferences about what happens to them. However, recent research suggests that for REBT, demandingness, thinking that someone or some circumstance must be a certain way rather than preferring that something be a certain way, is the main quality of all irrational beliefs. It is in this way that the theories of Ellis and Beck differ; for REBT disorders occur if beliefs are demanding rather than preferential (McDermut, Haaga & Bilek, 1997).

The aim of REBT is to eliminate self-defeating beliefs via cognitive restructuring. Therapists forcefully dispute clients' irrational beliefs by questioning the evidence for the belief. The eventual goal is the integrating of cognitive, affective, and behavioural processes in order to bring about the desired therapeutic result. As in the case of REBT, the goal of Beck's cognitive therapy (CT) is to alter systematic errors in logic or misinterpretations about events which predispose an individual to develop pathological behaviours. Consequently, accurate assessment of irrational beliefs is essential for treatment. Perhaps more importantly, as REBT and CT are receiving increasing empirical scrutiny, valid measures of irrationality are necessary to furnish evidence of their scientific status.

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