Rational-Emotive Approaches to Peace

Psychotherapy supposedly influences people’s values and actions and directly and indirectly affects their attitudes toward peace and war. This paper suggests that psychotherapy in general, and rational-emotive therapy (RET) in particular can directly help clients and their close associates, as well as indirectly help many members of the public, to acquire attitudes and behaviors to make them more peaceful toward themselves, toward their families and neighbors, and ultimately toward different ethnic, political, and foreign groups. RET has a specific theory and practice regarding how people inevitably have differences and disagreements and how, mainly by demanding that others absolutely must see how right they are and commanding that they have to agree with them, they frequently and needlessly construct self-defeating and society-sabotaging arguments and fights about their disagreements. A number of RET cognitive, emotive, and behavioral methods of achieving peaceful relationships are presented in this article.