Efficacy of rational emotive therapy (RET) with children: a critical re-appraisal.

Proponents of rational-emotive therapy (RET) advocate its use within the school curriculum to forestall future maladjustment through the early detection and eradication of irrational beliefs. A review of 33 unpublished dissertations and four published reports found RET effective in about 25% of comparisons with wait-list, placebo, and other treatment conditions. The major effects of RET were changes in scores on self-report measures of irrational beliefs, less on emotional distress, and little or no change in behavior; essentially the same pattern of effects previously found in a similar analysis of RET in adult populations.

The efficacy of rational emotive therapy in adults: clinical fact or psychometric artifact?

The efficacy of Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET) in reducing maladjustment, while insistently touted by its advocates, has not been unambiguously demonstrated in outcome research. Previous reviews have generally been quite partisan and subjective, and have not reflected available research. The object of the present review was to determine the extent to which RET significantly improved adjustment of adult subjects on different outcome measures in comparison with wait-list, placebo, and other treatment conditions.