The ABC Model of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy CBT video transcript

At the heart of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy is the use of an ABC formulation.

The A is the activating event. This can be a real external event, a future event that you anticipate or internal event such as an image or memory. The A is usually referred to as your trigger.

B is your beliefs about the event. This also includes thoughts, your personal rules and the meanings that you attach to events.

C is the consequences. This includes your emotions, behaviours and physical sensations.

Let's look at an example. Frank's work colleague walked past him and doesn't acknowledge him. Frank believes he must be angry at me. Frank feels sad. He experiences a knot in his stomach and drinks too much alcohol when he gets home. Now let's imagine the same scenario with a different person, and this has a very different outcome. Debbie's work colleague walks past her and doesn't acknowledge her. Debbie believes, oh, he mustn’t have seen me. Debbie walks up to her colleague, tapped him on the shoulder and says Hi. How you doing? Fancy grabbing a coffee later? Debbie feels happy to talk to her colleague.

It's interesting that the same scenario can cause such different outcomes. We can see that Frank clearly jumped to the worst possible scenario. This in turn led to his low mood and a destructive pattern of behaviour. Debbie’s belief was much more helpful, more balanced and led to a positive consequence. The basic idea behind this model is that an activating event just not cause the consequences, it’s actually the belief that causes the consequences. It wasn't Frank colleague not acknowledging him that caused him to feel sad and drink too much alcohol. It was Frank's belief he must be angry at me, that caused him to feel sad and drink so much.

The ABC framework can be used early in therapy to teach basic cognitive behavioural concepts. It could also be helpful to ask the client to record their own ABC patterns as homework. This model helps the client understand what exactly triggers our emotions and behaviours. And to realise that although they cannot always control what happens, they can control how they respond.

The creator of the ABC model Albert Ellis was influenced by Stoicism and the ancient philosopher Epictetus, who famously said ‘Men are disturbed not by things but by their views he takes of them.’ So Ellis that drew on the notion that your interpretation of events has a greater impact than the event itself. The more illogical your interpretation, the more you suffer. The stoic principles of reason and logic, our cornerstone of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. According to Albert Ellis, the primary cause of your unhelpful reactions is your beliefs about an event, not the event itself. You remain psychologically disturbed because you continue to hold onto your rigid beliefs. Psychological health only comes when you work hard to change your irrational beliefs. The godfather of Stoicism, Socrates used both logic and reason to help people discover and dispute their irrational beliefs. In CBT we used Socratic questioning to help the client challenge their believes. Click on the video on the screen now to find out how to do this. I look forward to seeing you soon.

The ABC Model of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy CBT video

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