To learn and integrate the benefits of REBT into their clinical internships and enrich their counseling skills, students from the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program at Touro’s School of Health Sciences participated in a week-long series of dynamic lectures and role-playing workshops taught by three experts in REBT: Dr. Kristene Doyle, Director of the Albert Ellis Institute (AEI) in New York City; Dr. Raymond DiGiuseppe, psychology professor at St. John’s University; and Dr. Michael Hickey, an expert in obsessive-compulsive disorders at the AEI. 

During role-play, the experts facilitated scenarios where students took turns ‘being’ the therapist and client. Rebeca Chavarria, a graduate student completing an internship at Queens Counseling Services, said role playing taught students what to look for when helping a client.   

“We weren’t just learning the information but practicing as well. During role play we were given an insight into our own issues and techniques that we could use on ourselves. I found myself changing right before my eyes. It is definitely a training I would recommend to others in my field,” said Chavarria.

The workshops demonstrated components of REBT such as separating irrational beliefs from rational beliefs, assessing frustration and identifying unhealthy negative emotions.

“Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy is a goal-oriented, evidence-based form of therapy that helps the therapist to keep the sessions focused and effective,” said Dr. Faye Fried-Walkenfeld, Department Chair and Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program Director at Touro.

“Through the Albert Ellis Institute's Primary Certificate Training, Touro's Clinical Mental Health Counseling graduate students enrich their counseling skills and are using those skills with clients at their internship sites,” she added.

Dr. Art Freeman, coordinator of the REBT training and an expert in the Albert Ellis method, said the cognitive approach has become the “zeitgeist” in counseling and psychotherapy.

“Today, REBT is being applied to every problem, with every population, in every setting, and with all clients. Touro graduates will be among the few in the New York metropolitan area that will have earned the Primary Certificate in this important form of therapy,” said Dr. Freeman.

Levi Rapaport, a graduate student interning at My Extended Family, a support organization for single parent families, described the benefits of the training:

“Many other therapies have the goal to help the client feel better in the therapy room, but they don't teach the client how to sustain a better model for interacting with the world. REBT gives the client tools which they can bring with them outside the therapy room into the real world.”