Humanities Homework Help

Please provide an aside or constructive feedback to the following two Topics. Do you agree with the analysis presented? Why? Do you have some additional thoughts on the topic? Share them. When providing your feedback present the logic behind it.

Topic 1

Albert Ellis’ work in developing clinical theories to support persons dealing with personal crisis resulted in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT). REBT is a therapy that guides patients to identify irrational or negative thought patterns that produce maladaptive emotions and/or behaviors. Along with pinpointing irrational thoughts, REBT also uses and A-B-C model as a guide for the therapy to be effective. A represents “activating experiences” or a trigger which refers to an event of ongoing experience that is the root of an issue. B represents the beliefs that a person hold that are responses to the activating experience. Finally, C represents the ”consequences” which typically are the feelings that stem from A and B. In REBT a therapist would use the A-B-C model to identify each aspect and then work to dispute the beliefs, thus reversing the consequence.

One of the irrational beliefs laid out by Ellis, amongst his list of common irrational beliefs, that I can relate to my own beliefs is the notion that “if something is or may be dangerous or fearsome we should be terribly upset and endlessly obsess about it – instead of the idea that one would better frankly face it and render it non-dangerous and, when that is not possible, accept the inevitable” (Boeree, p. 6). This irrational thought could be used in various scenarios for persons managing anxiety disorders due to the immense amount of fear and obsession that comes with having the disorder. To analyze a particular scenario based on the stated irrational thought I will use the A-B-C model to analyze it.

1. A person experienced being hit by a car at age 7. Person broke their leg and ankle.
2. The person feels that cars are unsafe and refuses to get into cars. Because of this they are limited to riding public transportation and securing rides making them believe they are a burden and unable to be self-sufficient.
3. The consequence to the belief and the activating experience in this scenario could be depression, anxiety, and sadness or a combination of all.

In addition to the reading on Ellis’ theory, the readings this week proved to be very interesting and informative. Chapter 14 discussed B.F. Skinners theory on behavior and how people learn behaviors through observation, punishment, modeling, and reinforcement. After the previous readings on other behaviorists and personality theorists, Skinner is one of the only theorist that put an emphasis on the consequences of behavior which can be either punishment or reinforcement. The nature of the consequences, according to Skinner, are monumental in determining the likelihood of a behavior increasing, decreasing, or occurring again in the future, thus shaping behaviors (Allen, 2016).

Boeree, C.G. (2006). Personality Therories. http://bempsiunisba.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pt_ellis.pdf

Allen, B.P. (2016). Personality theories: development, growth, and diversity (5th ed.). Psychology Press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315665115

Topic 2

Post a brief analysis of what you have learned from this week’s readings and activities. Clearly identify each segment of the required response in order to facilitate discussion development.

Chapter 14: I learned about B.F. Skinner, how he had a behaviorist approach, and his theory about reinforcement and operant conditioning. He believed we were controlled by our environment and focused on studying three things when it came to human behavior: 1) The occasion in which the event occurs, 2) the response, 3) the consequences of the action ((“It’s all a Matter of Consequences: B.F. Skinner,” 2016, pp. 331-337).

Chapter 15: I learned about Henry Murray, and his concept of need, which is a driving force in the way the mind works, and how there are two different types of needs:

1 – Psychogenic needs, which are secondary to biological needs, and falls into two categories:

Adience: Positive-need-promoting, which propel us towards objects or people. Examples are achievement, affiliation, exhibition, and even dominance.

Abience: Negative-need-promoting, which pushes us away from objects or people. Examples are autonomy and contrariance.

2 – Vicerogenic needs, which involve basic biological drives.

Adience: An approach orientation to objects, like food, water, and physical contact.

Abience: An avoidant orientation o objects, like urination, defecation, and several types of physical and environmental avoidance.

(“Human Needs and Environmental Press: Henry A. Murray,” 2016, pp. 363-364)

Chapter 16: I learned about Cattell and Eysenck and their trait approach to personality. It is like a pyramid, with common traits being at the top. Common traits are ones that can be measure for all people by the same types of tests. Next, is the second order traits, which are the super factors that subsume other traits, meaning that most of the other traits fall under second order traits. Two examples of this are the exvia-invia traits and anxiety. Then come source traits, which is a factor-dimension, and is broken up into three categories:

1 – Ability traits

2 – Temperament traits

3 – Dynamic traits

Finally, there are surface traits, which are characteristics that are influenced by external sources

(“The Trait Approach to Personality: Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck,” 2016, pp. 384-387).

Ideas: Review Ellis’ model (Boeree, 2006). Select one “irrational idea” discussed that you believe relates to your own beliefs. Using the A-B-C Model, select a behavioral scenario and explain how this belief causes you (or might cause you) emotional distress. (Distress here can mean being upset, sad, angry, depressed, etc.) Explain each A, B & C element within your example scenario.

The only peer reviewed article on Ellis that I found by Dr. George Boeree talked about rational emotive behavioral therapy, which starts with ABC, or

Activating Experiences – The things that we see that we note as the sources of our unhappiness

Beliefs – The irrational beliefs regarding the activating experiences are the actual sources of our unhappiness

Consequences – The neuroses and negative emotions that come from our beliefs

(2006)

I will pick an example event:

Activating event: A patient and her spouse welcome an adult child of the spouse to come live with them. This comes with its own troubles, because the patient is used to a certain way of life, and along comes this new family member with their own thoughts, beliefs, and actions. This will most certainly cause conflicts between the patient and the new family member, and the spouse will feel the need to take sides, causing conflict between the patient and the spouse.

Beliefs: The patient will feel isolated in thier their own home, and outnumbered by the spouse and their family member 2 to 1. They will feel as though even if the child is the cause of the problem, they will always be seen as the problem because they are the outsider in this situation. To them, it isn’t a blended family, it is the spouse and their kid, with the patient being the third wheel. Any say that the patient has had in that household has gone out the window now that the spouse is spending time with the child. Whether it is a family food budget, a cleaning regime, or even a say in what show to watch on the shared television, the patient will feel as though they are being ignored.

Consequences: The patient will feel isolated, angry and dejected. They will be more likely to lash out over trivial things and be resentful towards both the child and the spouse. This causes pain and exhaustion, both emotionally and physically (as stress can cause real life pain).

References

Boeree, G. (2006). Albert Ellis. Webspace.ship.edu. https://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/ellis.html

Human Needs and Environmental Press: Henry A. Murray. (2016). In Personality Theories: Development, Growth, and Diversity (pp. 363–364). Routeledge. https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.umgc.edu/eds/e…

It’s all a Matter of Consequences: B.F. Skinner. (2016). In Personality Theories: Development, Growth, and Diversity (pp. 331–337). Routeledge. https://eds-a-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.umgc.edu/eds/e…

The Trait Approach to Personality: Raymond Cattell and Hans Eysenck. (2016). In Personality Theories: Development, Growth, and Diversity (pp. 384–387). Routeledge. https://eds-b-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.umgc.edu/eds/e…