Treating aggressive children: A rational-emotive behavior systems approach

Abstract

In children with reactive aggression, feelings of anger drive their aggressive behavior. To treat these children most effectively, utilizing both behavioral and cognitive techniques is necessary. REBT is particularly well-suited for this purpose. The use of negative strategies and positive strategies combined with rehearsal are critical in decreasing inappropriate behaviors and increasing prosocial behaviors, respectively. One of the most important and challenging aspects of treating aggressive children is stimulating them to become motivated for treatment and helping them progress from the precontemplative to the action stage of change. The use of the motivational syllogism and obtaining agreement on the goals and tasks of therapy are critical to achieving this end. Further, helping children dispute and replace their IBs with RBs enables them to substitute feelings of anger with less disturbing feeling of annoyance. Besides working directly with the children, involving the parents in the treatment as much as possible is crucial. It is often necessary to work with the parents in disputing and replacing their IBs before they can manage their childs behavior effectively. REBT focuses on the role of irrational, dogmatic, and rigid thinking in causing psychopathology. Irrational beliefs are tacit, pervasive, rigid schematic representations of the way the world is and ought to be. These beliefs are both factual and evaluative in nature. Beliefs are irrational when they are rigidly held in the face of evidence that they are logically inconsistent, anti-empirical, and self-defeating. The theory further discriminates between adaptive and maladaptive emotions. Its goal is not to eliminate negative emotions, but to replace maladaptive negative emotions with more adaptive negative emotions and to help individuals improve their lives and be free of emotional disturbance. The primary techniques of REBT involve challenging and replacing dysfunctional irrational beliefs. Many logical, empirical, and functional strategies to challenge beliefs are recommended. In addition, REBT employs a wide range of behavioral, imaginal, and emotive exercises to cause change. The theory stresses the importance of rehearsing new ways of thinking and a variety of appropriate techniques that accomplish this. Although REBT was originally designed for adults, it has been used with children and adolescents for more than 25 years. It follows a psychoeducational model that allows it to be used in groups, workshops, and classrooms as a preventative procedure. Because of its psychoeducational format, REBT can easily be integrated into educational settings. It can be used in an educational format to teach students, parents, and teachers how to reduce their emotional disturbance and improve their productivity. REBT provides a model for school mental health services including direct service and consultation. REBT can be integrated with family systems theory to work with parents. The theory helps identify the clients thinking that reinforces family dysfunction. The use of REBT techniques can eliminate parents emotional disturbance so they are free to explore and follow more productive models of relating and parenting. Since REBT shares many similarities with other behavioral and cognitive therapies, there is reason to suspect that research in REBT with children and adolescents will continue to support its effectiveness. There is a substantial body of research supporting the efficacy of REBT. However, this research has employed too few designs and has not compared REBT to alternate active treatments. Future research could focus on identifying the crucial techniques of REBT, the problems and populations for which it is best suited, and more efficient ways of achieving change in clients. © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.