Insight
Not only does REBT stress cognitive insight, but also it emphasizes emotional insight
that can lead to behavioral change. Changing unhealthy feelings and behaviors
usually requires three types of insight. The first level of insight is
acknowledging that disturbances come not only from the past but also from irrational beliefs that individuals bring to activating events. Thus, individuals upset
themselves by their irrational beliefs about past occurrences. The second level
of insight has to do with how individuals continually reindoctrinate themselves
with the same kind of irrational beliefs that originated in the past. Thus, irrational
beliefs can take on lives of their own and continue, even though the original
activating event has been forgotten. The third level of insight refers to accepting
the first two levels of insight with the realization that knowledge of these insights
does not automatically change people. Awareness of irrational beliefs is not sufficient;
active challenging of irrational beliefs and development of rational beliefs,
using knowledge of the A-B-C theory of personality, is essential. For Ellis,
changes that occur through the acquisition of all three insights represent elegant
change. Thus, individuals not only have changed feelings, thoughts, and beliefs
but also know how they have done so and why (Ellis, 2002; Ellis, 2003d).