Alan Bibb's Public Library

The ABCs of Irrational Beliefs

A major aid in cognitive therapy is what Albert Ellis called the ABC Technique of Irrational Beliefs^[2]. The first three steps analyse the process by which a person has developed irrational beliefs and may be recorded in a three-column table.

• A - Activating Event or objective situation. The first column records the objective situation, that is, an event that ultimately leads to some type of high emotional response or negative dysfunctional thinking.
• B - Beliefs. In the second column, the client writes down the negative thoughts that occurred to them.
• C - Consequence. The third column is for the negative feelings and dysfunctional behaviors that ensued. The negative thoughts of the second column are seen as a connecting bridge between the situation and the distressing feelings. The third column C is next explained by describing emotions or negative thoughts that the client thinks are caused by A. This could be anger, sorrow, anxiety, etc.
• Reframing. After irrational beliefs have been identified, the therapist will often work with the client in challenging the negative thoughts on the basis of evidence from the client's experience by reframing it, meaning to re-interpret it in a more realistic light. This helps the client to develop more rational beliefs and healthy coping strategies.
• A - Activating Stimulus This is the stimulus that activates the irrational fear or anxiety in the person.
• B - Blank This is the blank process that lies in between the stimulus and the irrational thinking. The person would have to identify this gap and create a bridge in their thought process in order to be able to be treated.
• C - Conditioned Response This is the irrational fear or anxiety with which the person has conditioned themself to respond with to the stimulus.

The way the treatment works is that by going back and thinking over what the stimulus was and the irrational reaction to it and then try to follow the chain of events that led from one to another, thereby filling in the blank in between, the person can identify what causes their thinking to become irrational.

For example;

A person walks out of his home and hears an ambulance siren. The person gets anxious from this and runs back into his home. The Activating Stimulus was the ambulance siren. The Conditioned Response was severe anxiety and running into his home. The person now has to fill in the Blank and try to understand what was the exact thought process that went through his mind that caused the irrational response to take place. By bridging this gap in his thought, he is identifying the faulty thought process that caused the extreme response. The person can now work on replacing these faulty thoughts with realistic ones, thereby correcting the undesired chain of thoughts and activating a functional one.