Within Counseling and Helping Relationships, counselors must understand major counseling theories and their conceptualizations of emotional and behavioral problems.

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), developed by Albert Ellis, holds that:

People do not simply become disturbed by events themselves; rather, they become disturbed by how they interpret the events through irrational or illogical beliefs.

These beliefs are often rigid (“musts,” “shoulds,” “have tos”) and self-maintained by ongoing self-talk and interpretations.

Emotional and behavioral disturbances are thus seen as the result of these self-sustained, irrational thought patterns, and counseling focuses on identifying, disputing, and replacing them with more rational beliefs.

Reality therapy (A) emphasizes choice, responsibility, and meeting basic needs, not primarily irrational beliefs.

Transactional analysis (C) focuses on ego states (Parent, Adult, Child) and life scripts.

Behavior therapy (D) emphasizes learned behaviors through conditioning and reinforcement, typically without the central emphasis on irrational beliefs as the main cause.

Therefore, the approach that specifically maintains that emotional and behavioral disorders stem from clients’ self-maintained illogical beliefs is Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (B).