The Rational Practitioner: The Sport and Performance Psychologist’s Guide To Practicing Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy

“For example, undertaking a ‘Control Mapping’ exercise (Turner, 2022), imagery (Wilkinson & Mansell, 2023), the ‘Badness Scale’ (Turner et al., 2014) or mindfulness (Young et al., 2023) may enhance athletes’ feelings of controllability, and in turn, this may reduce negative affective states such as…”

“Broadly, the results of study 1 support the con fl uence of CAT and REBT constructs in the context of a ff ect as pro ff ered in theory (Ellis, 1994; Turner, 2022), in the context of examinations and ASC.”

“Skilful CBT practitioners would likely integrate both CT and REBT methods, and indeed, Turner (2022) argues for an integrated REBT framework that incorporates a broad range of CBT techniques.”

“In brief (see Ellis, 1994; Turner, 2022, for protracted portrayals of the framework), human beings have many goals (G) in life, many of which at one point or another are thwarted by adversity (A) because humans are limited creatures and the world is uncontrollable.”

“Although authors have recognized this distinction between specific and general REBT, only recently has this distinction been elaborated in literature (Jordana & Turner, 2023; Turner, 2022, 2023).”

“Dotted line reflects the more distal relationships between G and C due to mediating effect of A that promotes negative emotion, not the G in isolation (adapted from Turner, 2022).”

“A cornerstone of applied sport psychology (Andersen, 2009), PST is born of a cognitive-behavioural approach to sport psychology (Turner, 2022) and as such, can be integrated within a broader cognitive-behavioural 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1617548 approach to service delivery.”

“For example, cognitive behavioral interventions such as rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT; Ellis, 1957) teach cognitive mediation emotion beliefs, and help recipients regulate emotion chiefly via cognitive change of deeply held beliefs (Turner, 2022).”

“Across two sessions, participants learned how to dispute this irrational belief, and irrational beliefs per se , using three core arguments most commonly written about in REBT literature (Dryden and Branch, 2008; Turner, 2022).”

“In addition, a negative relationship was found between irrational beliefs and well-being in the athletic samples (Michel-Kröhler & Turner, 2022 ) and non-athletic samples (Kabasakal & Emiroğlu, 2020).”

“There are recent studies revealing that irrational beliefs indirectly affect sportive performance negatively (Chadha et al., 2019a; Turner & Moore, 2016; Turner et al. 2020; Turner et al., 2019a; Turner, 2022 ; Urfa & Aşçı; 2018a).”

“Turner (2022) believes that when REBT intervention is adopted, irrational beliefs are first identified, then they are disputed and replaced with new, effective, and rational beliefs, followed by the enforcement of the beliefs.”

“PST (also known as mental skills training) is a set of psychological, performance enhancement techniques, rooted in CBT (Turner, 2022), that form the cornerstone of applied sport psychology (Andersen, 2009).”

“GABC are interconnected elements, so the modification of any aspect of the model affects the others (Turner, 2022).”

“Some SPs will be trained in therapies like cognitive therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (Turner, 2022; Olusoga and Yousuf, 2023), but they have a duty of care not to work beyond their training and competencies (Dokumbilek, 2024).”

“Irrational beliefs are seen to be deep-rooted cognitions that are stubborn to change (Turner, 2022), and in single-session REBT, the lack of depth in exploring the athletes’ beliefs may have resulted in temporary effects.”

“These findings may be explained by gender-based differences in irrational beliefs among athletes, specifically that numerous studies have found that female athletes have more irrational beliefs than male athletes (e.g., Michel-Kröhler & Turner, 2022; Turner & Allen, 2018; Turner et al., 2018).”

“This is partly due to some key academic practitioners championing the role of REBT, believing that working with the concept of ‘ irrational beliefs ’ bridges ‘ performance and MH ’ effectively (Jordana et al ., 2020; Turner, 2022; Turner and Bennett, 2018).”

“Performance settings are rife with emotional suffering, and so we need to become better as a discipline in understanding antecedents to this suffering, and developing interventions that can fortify performers against the adversity that helps to define and often malign goal pursuit (Turner, 2022).”

“However, as my role changes to “Mentor” I can be more active-directive in my engagement with the client, and can advise and guide, in line with REBT practice (Turner, 2022).”

“The control group consisted of a waitlist/no-treatment control or an active control (PST/psychological skills training/REBT/CBT/relaxation training; Röthlin et al., 2020; Gross et al., 2018; Turner, 2022; Jordana et al., 2023).”

“Despite the dysfunctional properties of irrational beliefs, the positive relationship between irrational beliefs and challenge evaluations may be explained by considering that irrational beliefs can offer a motivational function towards goal attainment (Turner, 2022).”

“These beliefs can contribute to avoidance, procrastination, emo - tional distress, and reduced persistence when facing academic challenges (Turner, 2022 ).”