Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy as a Dialogical Practice of Philosophical Counseling

Abstract

This paper argues that Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), as framed within the medical model of psychopathology, is fundamentally incompatible with the dialogical and non-pathologizing ethos of philosophical counseling. REBT’s core concepts—“irrational beliefs,” the ABC model, and the therapist-as-expert role—clash epistemologically and ethically with philosophical counseling’s principles of “unexamined commitments,” Socratic dialogue, and co-inquiry. A close reading of Ellis’s own works reveals that while REBT claims Stoic roots, its clinical practice has drifted into pathologizing discourse. To resolve this tension, the paper proposes an original framework: the “Dialogical Reason Practice.” This model replaces the ABC schema with Socratic inquiry, reframes “irrational beliefs” as “unexamined commitments,” and shifts the therapist’s role from expert to philosophical partner. Consequently, REBT transcends its symptom-management function and re-emerges as a contemporary practice of philosophy as a way of life.