Deliberate practice exercises provide trainees and students an opportunity to build competence in essential rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) skills while developing their own personal therapeutic style.

 

These exercises present role-playing scenarios in which two trainees act as a client and a clinician, switching back and forth under the guidance of a supervisor. The clinician improvises appropriate and authentic responses to client statements organized into three difficulty levels—beginner, intermediate, and advanced—that reflect common client questions and concerns.

 

Each of the first 12 exercises focuses on a single skill, such as psychoeducation, assessing and disputing irrational beliefs, helping clients differentiate maladaptive vs. adaptive behaviors and emotions, teaching clients the ABC model, and developing homework assignments. Two comprehensive exercises follow in which trainees integrate these essential skills into a single REBT session.

 

Step-by-step instructions guide participants through the exercises, identify criteria for mastering each skill, and explain how to monitor and adjust difficulty. Guidelines to help trainers and trainees get the most out of training are also provided.

To demonstrate how deliberate practice can be fully integrated into a professional curriculum, this series features exercises developed and refined within the clinical training curriculum at the Sentio online/hybrid marriage and family therapy (MFT) therapist training program in California, which is where we started developing this series. These exercises, which have been tested at clinical training sites around the world, are used to enhance clinical outcomes within the first hybrid MFT program approved by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences to fully integrate deliberate practice into its entire curriculum. By integrating these models into its hybrid MFT program in California, Sentio University demonstrates that therapist training graduate programs can use deliberate practice to bridge the gap between theory and clinical mastery through repetitive, feedback-informed practice to support the development of modern, outcome-focused clinicians.
 

Series Preface
Tony Rousmaniere and Alexandre Vaz
Acknowledgments
Part I: Overview and Instructions
Chapter 1: Introduction and Overview of Deliberate Practice and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Chapter 2: Instructions for the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Deliberate Practice Exercises
Part II: Deliberate Practice Exercises for Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Skills
Exercises for Beginner Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Skills
Exercise 1: Psychoeducation About Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy’s ABC Model
Exercise 2: Psychoeducation: Distinguishing Between Dysfunctional Negative Emotions and Maladaptive Behaviors and Healthy Negative Emotions and Functional Behaviors
Exercise 3: Agreement of the Session Goals
Exercise 4: Clarifying Inferences From Irrational Beliefs
Exercises for Intermediate Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Skills
Exercise 5: Assessing the Irrational Beliefs About the Activating Event
Exercise 6: Prioritizing Which Irrational Beliefs to Target for Change
Exercise 7: Teaching the Belief–Consequence Connection
Exercise 8: Functional Disputation of Irrational Beliefs
Exercises for Advanced Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Skills
Exercise 9: Empirical Disputation of Irrational Beliefs
Exercise 10: Semantic Disputation of Irrational Belief
Exercise 11: Construction of a Full Rational, Alternatives Belief to Replace the Irrational Beliefs
Exercise 12: Collaborative Homework Development
Comprehensive Exercises
Exercise 13: Annotated Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Practice Session Transcript
Exercise 14: Mock Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Sessions
Part III: Strategies for Enhancing the Deliberate Practice Exercises
Chapter 3: Additional Guidance for Trainers and Trainees: How to Get the Most Out of Deliberate Practice
Appendix A: Difficulty Assessments and Adjustments
Appendix B: Deliberate Practice Diary Form
Appendix C: Sample Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy Syllabus With Embedded Deliberate Practice Exercises
References
Index
About the Authors