Transcription
Hello, I am Dr. Steve Johnson, and welcome to REBT Works, a podcast in which we focus on anything and everything having to do with REBT. Today's topic is called Inference Chaining Made Simple. So, first, let's just briefly describe what we mean by inference chaining. Inference chaining is a technique to help an REBT therapist working with a client to move from a client's inference about an activating event to the client's beliefs about the activating event.
Why is this even important? Well, in REBT, while a client's inference about an activating event helps us grasp the meaning the client gives to the event, the inference is not the direct cause of the client's dysfunctional emotions and or behaviors. It is the client's irrational or unhelpful beliefs about the AE that, to a large extent, functions as the direct cause of the client's dysfunctional emotions and behavior.
Let's say the client tells me, as the therapist, that she lost her great-grandmother's diamond wedding ring. That would be the activating event. The client says that there is absolutely no way she will ever find that ring. That latter statement is the client's inference about the event, the meaning that she is giving to the activating event. Let's say she also reports that she is ashamed of being so careless with her great-grandmother's ring. Her emotion experienced is shame. Knowing that it is the beliefs, not the inference, that causes the dysfunctional emotion in this case, happens to be shame, it would be helpful if I could use her inference to help me identify her dysfunctional shame-causing belief. Inference chaining is that technique that may help us help me, in this case, to do just that.
Most REBT therapists know that inference chaining involves having the client assume the inference is true. Or, in this case, it is that she will never find the lost ring. So the therapist says something like, "Let's assume you don't find the ring. What would that mean to you?" Well, typically, this question will not help the client produce or identify the irrational belief. Why not? Because the question is way too imprecise and doesn't lead the client toward a belief rather than that inference.
There is an easy way to correct this problem. There's, in fact, there's a simple formula for doing an inference chain that is made up of three parts, and it is important that all three parts are there, or the inference chain may be utterly ineffectual. First part: we say, as a therapist, "Let's say the inference is true." Part two: "What would you tell yourself about that?" Part three: "That would cause you to feel, in this case, ashamed." All three parts need to be present because what those three parts put together are doing is linking the inference to a possible irrational or unhelpful belief, and two, it is clearly linking that irrational belief, which we don't know yet, to the dysfunctional emotion or behavior. If we use this formula and have all three parts there, that's going to maximize, not guarantee, but maximize that we help the client reveal his or her irrational beliefs.
So, let's take a look at that example again. The inference chain would have them do the following three parts: "Let's say you don't find the diamond ring." Part one. "Two: What would you tell yourself about that?" "Three: Which would cause you to feel ashamed?" She might respond, "I would tell myself that family members are going to think that I am utterly irresponsible." Note that that statement is an inference; it's not a belief. So, we would do what? We would do the inference chain again on what she just said. The three parts would be: "Let's say that family members do think that you are utterly irresponsible." "What would you tell yourself about that?" "Which would cause you to feel ashamed?" Again, notice all three parts are there. So she might respond with something like, "Well, I couldn't stand having family members thinking I'm an utterly irresponsible person." Uh, we, we lucked out, and we were able to identify frustration intolerance. She believes that it would be intolerable; she couldn't stand it, having that irrational belief. We could then assess for the presence of the other potential irrational beliefs. Of course, demandingness would be there, but we could also test to see if there's any awfulizing or global negative rating of self, others, and the world.
An important possibility might arise here. What if the question again fails to help the client to identify an irrational belief associated with the inference? Well, we might try to do the inference chain again, and if they still fail at identifying an irrational belief, then instead of constantly using that Socratic questioning format such that it just really frustrates the client, what we might do is present some possible irrational beliefs about that inference based on what we know about REBT's conceptualization of emotions, which, in this case, what REBT would say about the conceptualization of shame.
There is another basic challenging feature of inference chaining. This technique requires that the therapist knows really well how to differentiate an inference from a belief. And that, especially when you're like a new REBT therapist or you haven't practiced it for some time, that can take some practice and further thinking about how to differentiate between an inference and a belief. I give my students two different ways they can differentiate an inference and a belief, and I tell them, "Use whichever one tends to work for you. And if you come up with a third way that works, then use your third way."
The first one would be: Remember that an inference is a statement that interprets the activating event or attributes meaning to it. Whereas a belief doesn't interpret the event, but it assigns value or disvalue to the activating event or it evaluates the activating event. Now, if that is still a challenge because, for some reason, that's a bit abstract, then you can have one other way that you could try is to realize that REBT only has four types of irrational or unhelpful beliefs: demandingness, awfulizing, frustration intolerance, and global negative rating. Global negative rating of self, others, life, and world. So, if a statement that a client offers is not an instance of one of those, it's most likely an inference, and it is definitely not a belief.
Let's take an example in the, the, you know, the example that we've been working on. And the client said, "There is no way I will find that lost diamond ring." That was the client's inference. And let's say we don't know that that's an inference because we're a bit confused about the difference between an inference and a belief. Well, one thing we could do is say, "Is it a form of demandingness?" No, there's no demand in there at all. I don't see anything even remotely like a demand. There's certainly no should or must have to or need expressed there. Two: "There is no awfulizing." The person's not saying it's terrible, horrible, or awful. Now, you might assume that they're thinking that, but if the client doesn't say it, you can't assume that there's any awfulizing. And then there's no frustration to intolerance revealed. It's not, they're not saying that in that inference, or in that statement, there is no statement that they can't stand it. And there's no global negative rating of self, others, life, or the world. And because there's, it's not a form of demandingness, it's not a form of awfulizing, it's not a form of frustration intolerance, and it's not global negative rating, then it's an inference. Use whichever way tends to help you the most.
Let's summarize. To do an inference chain, two skills are needed. One: to differentiate an inference from a belief, and we looked at two simple ways to do that. The second skill is using the three-part formula for stating the inference chain. You practice those two skills and learn them and have some facility in doing that, soon you're going to be creating perfect inference chains. I hope you found this helpful to some degree, and if so, I look forward to seeing you on another one of the podcasts. And if you want to get notices about forthcoming podcasts, please just subscribe. Click subscribe to this particular YouTube channel, and you will get those notifications. Thank you, and have a great day.