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If you feel overwhelmed by difficulties right now, Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy offers a rapid, active directive approach, working collaboratively as informed allies, to articulate and clarify problems, set agreed goals and use powerful, incisive strategies to achieve them, whilst increasing your confidence and resilience.

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Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT), is a pioneering approach to psychotherapy. It was originated and developed by Albert Ellis in the 1950s and hailed the world renowned  cognitive revolution in psychotherapy.

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It had such an impact on the treatment of emotional and psychological health, that Albert Ellis gained the distinction of being the second only to Carl Rogers as the most influential figure in  psychology since the 1900s, ahead of Freud and that accolade remains the same to the current day.

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Ellis mentored Aaron Beck, who studied under his aegis for a fifteen year period,  as he was developing  CBT in the 1970s. Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy is a scientific, evidence-based and clinically researched form of psychotherapy, which nonetheless, has it's roots dating back to the thinking  of the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, that it's not the events that happen to us that cause our  emotional response, but the way we react to them. 

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Painful distressing emotions and maladaptive behaviours result in poorer mental health and can be the direct cause of some of the most common significant mental health problems, so that our ability to manage our lives begins to deteriorate. 

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Rational Emotive and Behaviour Psychotherapists are trained to adapt REBT to address each different individual. It is a practical, action-oriented approach to problem-solving and provides the person with a set of proven techniques for helping them to do so. It has the distinct advantage of being a brief form of psychotherapy compared to  most others, which apart from cognitive psychotherapies have little or no clinical research to validate them.

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The REBT practitioner works closely with people to understand and become aware of their particular irrational beliefs  so that they become more self aware, active observers of their own mind, focusing on and identifying  the irrational beliefs that frequently lead to emotional distress. They are also effective in giving the skills to resolve conflicts in relationships by learning how to communicate more effectively and set personal boundaries in couples counselling, difficult break ups with romantic partners or friends. They seek to empower individuals, both by helping them more effectively manage their own painful, debilitating emotions and by enabling them to change their own behaviours to more constructive and less self-defeating ones,  so that they are able to achieve much better emotional health and improve their lives significantly.

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 "The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change"

- Carl Rogers

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If you define self-worth in terms of any criterion it is highly likely that you will create  an extremely detrimental effect on your emotional health, leaving you in a pendulum state of one unhelpful extreme or another, none of which is likely to serve your interests. Similarly, if you depend on the opinion of others, you are a  helpless pawn at the whim of other people's opinions, which is a poor way to go through your life and also highly unlikely to serve your interests. 

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Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy addresses the issue of Self-Acceptance as a major part of its pragmatic, philosophical approach and it is a vital component in the approach in the treatment of all emotional and mental health conditions, without exception. If you strive for high self esteem you risk feelings of superiority, if you rate yourself negatively that leads to insecurity. If you aim for unconditional Self-Acceptance, you avoid most pitfalls of either.

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If you actively (but not inflexibly), refuse to rate yourself or others you avoid depression by self-blame; and avoid resentment and corrosive bitterness by  the sustained blaming of anyone else. It is impossible to be content until you accept your strengths and weaknesses. For the present, change what you can and accept what you can't. REBT helps people to achieve self-acceptance along with tolerance for others and with self-discipline.

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Paul Hauck in his book Hold Your Head Up High  addresses in his encouraging style, a number of simple yet powerful ideas that with constant application  are life-changing.