Managing stress through rational behavior training

• Main Author: Cue, Miriam P.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 1992
• Subjects: Stress management; Job stress; Rational emotive behavior therapy; Counseling
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/154; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/context/etd_doctoral/article/1153/viewcontent/CDTG004240_P.pdf
• Institution: De La Salle University

This research was designed to determine the effectiveness of Rational Behavior Training (RBT), an educative model and psychotherapeutic system originally developed by Dr. Albert Ellis from the insights of the early stoic philosophies, as an intervention strategy in the management of stress. Combining the idiographic (N=1) approach and the one-group pre-post quasiexperimental method, the investigation was carried out primarily in a group setting. Progress was recorded for each single case to maintain subject-uniqueness, but group data across comparable measures were analyzed and subjected to statistical tests to provide for the systematic detection of treatment effects. The 15 subject-participants, all working professionals, were chosen through purposive sampling on the basis of their stress experience. Specific intervention strategies included a lecture discussion on RET’s fundamental concepts, principles and techniques, workshop exercises in Rational Self-Analysis (RSA) and Rational Emotive Imagery (REI), homework assignments, readings (Rational Bibliography), group and individual follow-through. Results pointed out that RBT brings about substantial beneficial changes in the general functioning of professionals suffering from stress. Mid-treatment and post-treatment behaviors of subject-participants showed demonstrable qualitative and quantitative changes in cognition, which in turn, set into motion, further profound changes in affect, physiology, interpersonal relating, and overt behavior. These therapeutic gains across the different modalities of human functioning, were moreover found to be durable and lasting. Overall, Rational Self Analysis (RSA), as an intervention technique within the program design was reported to have the greatest impact on the participants.