Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

In addressing the needs of young people who have academic problems including those who underachieve, the view expressed in this chapter that while cognizance needs to be placed on eradicating psychosocial barriers to learning (e.g., social and emotional disabilities), a more productive focus is in developing the social and emotional strengths of students who underachieve (e.g., Epstein et al., 2003). REBT clearly illuminates the irrational beliefs/negative Habits of the Mind and concomitant unhealthy emotions and unhelpful behaviors that need to be identified, challenged and changed in order to help remove the barriers to learning. However, as Albert Ellis has said, there is also the need to develop rational beliefs/positive Habits of the Mind and attendant positive emotion and behaviors that support motivation and school success.

REBT as it is, and as it continues to develop, is as applicable today to the experiences of those working with specially challenged children as it was when then original version of this chapter was written (McInerney, 1983). Parents, educators and professional support personnel can benefit from the interventions described above. Furthermore, the basic principles and techniques described in the present work can be integrated into school-based programs to support parental involvement in special education programs, as a supportive intervention for the parents of emotionally and behaviorally disturbed students as well as more generally disaffected or substance misusing adolescents not typically part of a school’s special education population. In the future, the authors hope to see school-based programs grounded in the priciples of REBT implemented in both regular education and special education settings.

In the ideal world, approaches such as rational-emotive education and You can Do It! Education would be routinely implemented in schools throughout the world in a systematic effort to enhance the emotional health of children. The major assumption of emotional education programs is that prevention is more effective than remediation, and that if we can teach children how to think rationally, they will approach both developmental and situational challenges in a healthier manner, which in turn will decrease the proliferation of self-defeating behaviors that far too many young people succumb to. In order to effectively implement REE and YCDI, teachers and other school personnel must learn the theory and model it. Professionals need to continually challenge their own irrational thinking, getting rid of their demands that their job should always be easy, that their students should always behave perfectly, or that they will always be treated fairly. They must stop making overgeneralizations about student behavior or performance, avoid awfulizing about their work conditions, refrain from equating their own self-worth with their performance as a teacher; and force themselves to give up their demandingness that everything should come easily to their students. Until teachers themselves “walk the talk” and believe in the REBT principles, implementing REE and YCDI will not be as effective. Although REE lessons appear to be an effective way to help children and adolescents approach life more successfully, rational thinking principles need to be an inherent part of every young person’s experience. Adults are important models, and although it is difficult to develop a rational stance toward life when surrounded by irrationality in the world, every effort to teach rational principles, directly or indirectly, will help facilitate healthy emotional development.