Choosing Your Modality

In choosing which counselling modality to practise, it is very much a case of ‘horses for courses’ – the presenters use the analogy of different styles of music, played by different instruments. In his book To Lead an Honorable Life, John Shlien (a student, colleague and friend of Carl Rogers) comments that ‘all theory is autobiographical’. In other words, the theory and modality you chose must be meaningful to you and fit with your personal philosophy. Different modalities are right for different clients and presenting issues. Whichever modality you choose, the therapeutic relationship is key, as is thorough training.

Irrational Thoughts

Rory sets the scene for the theory slot by referring to M Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Travelled. The underlying philosophy here is stoicism: an acceptance that life is neither fair nor easy, and that self-control and mental toughness are needed to overcome irrationality. Epictetus, a first-century stoic philosopher, said: ‘What really frightens and dismays us is not external events themselves, but the way in which we think about them. It is not things that disturb us, but our interpretation of their significance.’

Humans have a tendency to think irrationally when they are feeling emotional. Rory goes through the 11 irrational beliefs put forward by Albert Ellis, the American psychologist who developed rational emotive behaviour therapy (REBT):

1. It is a dire necessity for adult humans to be loved or approved by virtually every significant other person in their community.
2. One absolutely must be competent, adequate and achieving in all important respects or else one is an inadequate, worthless person.
3. People absolutely must act considerately and fairly and they are damnable villains if they do not. They are their bad acts.
4. It is awful and terrible when things are not the way one would very much like them to be.
5. Emotional disturbance is mainly externally caused and people have little or no ability to increase or decrease their dysfunctional feelings and behaviours.
6. If something is or may be dangerous or fearsome, then one should be constantly and excessively concerned about it and should keep dwelling on the possibility of it occurring.
7. One cannot and must not face life's responsibilities and difficulties and it is easier to avoid them.
8. One must be quite dependent on others and need them and you cannot mainly run one's own life.
9. One's past history is an all-important determiner of one's present behaviour and because something once strongly affected one's life, it should indefinitely have a similar effect.
10. Other people's disturbances are horrible and one must feel upset about them.
11. There is invariably a right, precise and perfect solution to human problems and it is awful if this perfect solution is not found.