Rational behavior therapy

Rational behavior therapy (RBT) is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy developed by psychiatrist Maxie Clarence Maultsby Jr., a professor at the Medical College at Howard University. RBT is designed to be a short term therapy which is based on discovering an unsuspected problem which creates unwanted mental, emotional and physical behaviors.

According to Maultsby, RBT addresses all three groups of learned behaviors directly: the cognitive, the emotive, and the physical. It also involves systematic guidance in the technique of emotional self-help called rational self-counseling. One of the features of rational behavior therapy is that the therapist assigns the client "therapeutic homework".

History

Rational behavior therapy is the result of four significant influences in Maultsby's professional life: his experience as a physician, the neuropsychology of Alexander Luria, B. F. Skinner's behavioral learning theory, and Albert Ellis's rational emotive behavior therapy. It was Ellis who had the most significant impact on the development of RBT as a psychotherapy method. However, unlike Ellis's technique, RBT leaves philosophical issues to patients' individual preferences.

Further reading

• Maultsby, M.C. "The Evolution of RBT (Rational Behavior Therapy)". Proceedings of the Annual Conference of Rational Emotive and Behavioral Therapists. Chicago, Illinois (1977): 88–94.
• Maultsby, M.C. "The Principles of Intensive Rational Behavior Therapy", pp. 52–57 in J.L. Wolfe and. E. Brand, Eds., Twenty Years of Rational Therapy: Proceedings of the First National Conference on Rational Psychotherapy. New York: The Institute for Rational Living, 1977.
• Maultsby, M.C. A Million Dollars for Your Hangover: The Illustrated Guide for the New Self-Help Alcohol Treatment Method. Lexington, Kentucky: Rational Self-Help Books, 1979 (out of print). New version: Stay Sober and Straight, 2001.
• Maultsby, M.C. "Rational Behavior Therapy in Groups", pp. 169–206 in George M Gazda (ed.) Innovations to Group Psychotherapy (2nd Ed.) Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, 1981.
• Maultsby, M.C. "Rational behavior therapy". In S. M. Turner and R. T.Jones (Eds.), Behavior Therapy and Black Populations: Psychosocial Issues and Empirical Findings. New York: Plenum Press, 1982.
• Maultsby, M.C. Rational Behavior Therapy. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984.