ABCDE method
This coaching framework comes from Cognitive-Based Therapy. Developed by psychologist Albert Ellis, it helps the client understand how they approach a situation and develop new and more functional patterns of thinking, by reinforcing positive patterns of thinking and behaviour and by inhibiting negative patterns. There are five stages:
- An Activating event – something that happens to trigger a negative emotion, such as stress or worry (for example, a poor appraisal, a put down by a colleague, or being in a crowded, oppressive physical environment) The coach explores the event with the client, helping them be more objective and specific about it. Questions, such as who, what, when and where dominate at this point.
- The client’s Belief system – the internal conversation, conscious or unconscious, that the client has in reaction to the activating event (for example, “I’m going to make a fool of myself”). The coach helps them bring this internal conversation into the open, where it can be tested. An important line of enquiry here is: What is the underlying belief in this conversation?
- The Consequences of their irrational beliefs, both in the moment and when they ruminate later. Consequences may be emotional (how they felt about themselves and others), behavioural (what they did) and actual (what happened as a result).
- Disputing irrational thoughts and beliefs involves challenging them as directly as possible by encouraging them to identify inconsistencies and illogicalities in their beliefs. It’s important that they make these discoveries, as they may resist your observations. Once they have begun to question their beliefs, the coach can help them generate a different, more realistic narrative and self-talk.
- Effects of thinking and behaving differently – the coach helps the client visualise the outcomes of changing how they interpret the event and to plan how they will bring this insight into play when they encounter future activating events.
Ellis, A., 1989. Inside Rational Emotive Therapy: A Critical Appraisal of the Theory and Therapy of Albert Ellis (Vol. 38). Academic Pr
© David Clutterbuck, 2018
Prof David Clutterbuck
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