TREC: what is this type of therapy and what is it based on?

This therapy proposed by Albert Ellis has been tremendously influential in clinical psychology.

One of the current cognitive-behavioral psychological interventions that has demonstrated the greatest effectiveness in the analysis, management and reformulation of dysfunctional beliefs is Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), proposed in the middle of the last century by Albert Ellis..

Its central theoretical hypothesis defends that it is mainly the cognitive interpretations of the situations that a person experiences that provoke a certain emotional state.

In this way, by detecting the existence of distortions when drawing a conclusion or idea about a given event and replacing such thoughts with more realistic ones, the emotional consequence can have a more rational and balanced nature..

The postulates of TREC today.

In the last two decades, ECRT has been evolving and modifying significantly. In contrast to its initial nomenclature (ERT), this type of intervention now emphasizes much more significantly the relationship between cognitive and behavioral constructs. the relationship between the constructs cognition, emotion and behavior..

A second element that has been gaining more prominence more recently in ECRT is the relevance of the general adoption of a philosophy of life consisting of the awareness of the differentiation between irrational and rational cognitions.. The three central principles on which this type of philosophy of life is based correspond to the following.

1. Unconditional self-acceptance

From this the individual's own attitude of self-respect remains in the individual.The evaluation of the aspects that define the behavior of such a subject is categorized as good or bad, regardless of whether the evaluation of the aspects that define the behavior of such a subject is categorized as good or bad.

2. Unconditional acceptance of others

The positive or negative evaluations that a person makes about others are conditioned by one's own beliefs, emotions or actions and are based on the principles, values and moral aspects present in society. Despite such influence, the global being of the other is accepted with compassion and respect..

3. Unconditional acceptance of life

Depending on personal or social goals or objectives, the following can be made an assessment of life circumstancesHowever, these circumstances themselves are not judged, but are assumed and actively accepted.

The foundations of today's TREC

The theoretical basis underpinning TREC and enabling the adoption of a more adaptive and rational overall cognitive functioning, as well as the aforementioned philosophy of life, derives from the following core ideas.

1. The confluence between genetic and Biological load.

It is an element that the human being has at the origin and the set of contextual experiences (physical environment, interpersonal relationships and prevailing social values) is the cause of the system of thoughts and beliefs of each individual.

The learning derived from family, academic or professional influences, as well as from interpersonal relationships, shape a particular perspective for reading and interpreting oneself, others and the world as a whole.. Let's say that it is the lens through which the person values everything that surrounds him/her. Therefore, although sometimes such beliefs or perspectives are not functional, they tend to appear and be maintained unconsciously, since they are the precepts to which the individual is accustomed to generate automatically.

When a thought manages to pass from the area of automatisms to the conscious part, it is when its analysis and questioning becomes possible. The objective of TREC in this sense becomes, therefore, to make conscious, in the first place, the type of cognitions that are set in motion in certain personal situations and to what nature they correspond (functional or not).

2. The methodology used in TREC

It is fundamentally scientific. This implies a substantial training in a series of techniques that will favor the adoption of a general cognitive functioning based on logic, realism and rationality.

Thus, assuming that sometimes personal situations are going to be more or less pleasant, they are actively accepted as such, but they will always be evaluated from conclusions based on facts and not on subjective assumptions. will always be evaluated on the basis of conclusions based on facts and not on subjective assumptions.. That is to say, the interpretation that the individual will learn to make with TREC will be based on hypotheses of thought derived from logical, probable and consistent approaches. On the other hand, those options that are unlikely, contradictory or easily falsifiable will be discarded.

This ability to modify and adapt one's thoughts based on evidence and not on subjectivities is due to a flexible, adaptable, modifiable, etc. style of thinking, which is tested with behavioral experiments where the person is exposed to his or her irrational beliefs in order to contrast them scientifically.

This methodology aims to replace rigid and dogmatic reasoning with a more flexible, adaptable, modifiable, etc. style of thinking.The scientific method has nothing to do with this type of divine justice that is sometimes claimed to be applied to evaluate certain life events, as for example happens with the beliefs linked to the deservedness or undeservedness that are granted to the vital circumstances experienced by others or oneself according to their good or bad actions.

3. Conceptual distinctions

Related to the previous point, TREC intends that the person learns to discern the difference between a preference (related to rational approaches) and a demand (linked to dysfunctional postulates).

In the first case the preference indicates a desireIn the first case, preference indicates a desire, which entails the acceptance of the possibility that it may not materialize.

In the second phenomenon, the requirement implies obligation, necessity, rigidity, etc., and does not contemplate the occurrence of other alternative options.. The latter are the ones most usually associated with the appearance of personal emotional distress and are usually formulated by means of the well-known cognitive distortions "would have to" or "should".

4. The focus on the present

Finally, TREC emphasizes its techniques in identifying the dysfunctional cognitive patterns of the present, thus giving little relevance to gives little relevance to assigning traumatic causation to events that occurred in childhood.. The key lies, with a high probability, in the catastrophic connotation that the person generated at the time to elaborate his own thoughts, not so much to the situation itself.

Evidently, it is assumed that there are certain events such as episodes of mistreatment, abuse, marked deficits in the elaboration of significant bonds that can objectively constitute traumatic situations. However, in many other not so extreme occasions, the cognitive interpretation made in this regard becomes one of the causative factors of the dysfunctional belief system that the person may present at present.

By way of conclusion

As it has been verified, the type of intervention exposed presents a theoretical development of base with the sufficient rigor and foundation to reach highly significant efficacy indexes. The way in which an individual values his or her reality becomes one of the fundamental aspects that condition the presence of an adaptive and satisfactory emotional state.

Thus, the basic learning that TREC allows in the individual is mainly oriented to generating in the person a self-image of positive competence in the management of his or her own thoughts and in the capacity that these have to be modified (supported or refuted) according to the objective evidence found. This new methodology in reasoning favors, in short, a realistic, rational and, therefore, more balanced cognitive style.

Bibliographical references:

• Ellis, A. (2014). You can be happy. Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy to overcome anxiety and depression. Ed: Paidós Ibérica: Barcelona.
• Ellis A. (2013). How to control anxiety before it controls you. Ed: Paidós Ibérica: Barcelona.