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

One of the current cognitive-behavioral psychological interventions that have been most effective in the analysis, management and reformulation of dysfunctional beliefs is Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (RBT), 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, detecting the existence of distortions when drawing a conclusion or idea before a certain event and replacing these thoughts with other more realistic ones, the emotional consequence may have a more rational and balanced nature.

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The postulates of the TREC today

In the last two decades, the TREC has evolved and modified significantly. In contrast to its initial nomenclature (the ERT), today this type of intervention emphasizes much more significantly the relationship between the cognition, emotion and behavior constructs.

A second element that has been taking more prominence in the TREC more recently becomes the relevance of the general adoption of a philosophy of life made up of 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 one on an attitude of self-respect remains in the individual, regardless of whether the assessment of the aspects that define the behavior of such a subject are categorized as good or bad.

2. The unconditional acceptance of the other

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

3. The unconditional acceptance of life

Depending on personal or social goals or objectives, it can be carried out an assessment of vital circumstances, although such circumstances in themselves are not judged, but are actively assumed and accepted.

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The fundamentals of the current TREC

The theoretical basis that supports the TREC and that allows the adoption of a more general cognitive functioning adaptive and rational, as well as the aforementioned philosophy of life, derives from the following ideas central.

1. The confluence between genetic and biological load

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

Learning derived from family, academic or professional influence, as well as interpersonal relationships, configure a particular perspective to read and interpret oneself, others and the world globally. Let's say that it is the lens through which the person values ​​everything that surrounds him. Therefore, although sometimes such beliefs or perspectives are not functional, they tend to appear and remain unconsciously, since they are the precepts to which the individual is accustomed to generate automatic.

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 the TREC in this sense becomes, therefore, to make conscious, in the first place, the type of cognitions that are set in motion when faced with certain personal situations and to what nature they correspond (functional or not).

2. The methodology used in the TREC

This 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 assessed on the basis of conclusions based on facts and not on subjective assumptions. In other words, the interpretation that the individual is going to learn to make with the TREC will be based on thinking hypotheses derived from logical, probable and consistent approaches. On the contrary, those unlikely, contradictory or easily falsifiable options will be discarded.

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

This methodology aims to replace rigid and dogmatic reasoning, as for example occurs with beliefs related to deserving or undeserving that are granted to the life circumstances experienced by others or oneself based on their good or bad Actions; the scientific method has nothing to do with this kind of divine justice that is sometimes intended to be applied to evaluate certain life events.

3. The conceptual distinctions

Related to the previous point, the TREC intends for the person to learn to discern the difference between a preference (related to rational approaches) and a requirement (related to postulates dysfunctional).

In the first case, preference indicates a wish, which entails the acceptance of the possibility that it does 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 through the well-known cognitive distortions "should" or "should".

4. Focus on the present

Finally, the TREC emphasizes its techniques in identifying the dysfunctional cognitive patterns of the present, for which gives little relevance to conferring traumatic causality to events that occurred in childhood. The key resides, with a high probability, in the catastrophic connotation that the person generated at the time to elaborate their own thoughts, not so much to the situation itself.

Obviously, it is assumed that there are certain events such as episodes of mistreatment, abuse, marked deficits in the development of significant links that can objectively constitute situations traumatic. However, on 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 in the present.

In conclusion

As has been verified, the type of intervention presented presents a basic theoretical development with sufficient rigor and foundation to achieve highly significant efficiency rates. The way in which an individual values ​​the reality of it becomes one of the fundamental aspects that condition the presence of an adaptive and satisfactory emotional state.

Thus, the basic learning that the TREC allows in the individual are mainly oriented to generate in the person a self-image of positive competence in managing their own thoughts and in the capacity that these have to be modified (supported or refuted) based on the objective evidence found. This new methodology in reasoning ultimately favors a realistic, rational and, consequently, more balanced cognitive style.

Bibliographic 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.