Mediational role of rumination and reflection on irrational beliefs and distress

Abstract

Background: The cognitive restructuring of maladaptive beliefs within many cognitive behavioural psychotherapies typically encourages the client to undertake self-reflection. However, whilst self-consciousness can aid self-regulation, it is also implicated in a broad Grange of psychopathologies. The extent to which self-consciousness is associated with psychological distress is yet to be fully determined, but recent literature suggests that irrational beliefs, as proposed within rational emotive behaviour theory (REBT) may play an important role.Aims:The aim of the study was to test the mediational effects of self-consciousness, specifically reflection and rumination, on the relationship between irrational beliefs and psychological distress. Based on past research, it was hypothesized that reflection and rumination would mediate the positive relationship between irrational beliefs and psychological distress. We expected irrational beliefs to interact with rumination to positively predict psychological distress, and irrational beliefs to interact with reflection to negatively predict psychological distress.Method:The present research tested a structural equation model (SEM) in which rumination and reflection mediated the relationship between irrational beliefs and psychological distress.Results:Results indicated that rumination mediates the positive relationship between irrational beliefs and psychological distress. However, in contrast to our hypotheses, significant mediation did not emerge for reflection.Conclusions:This study is the first to show how irrational beliefs and rumination interact to predict psychopathology using advanced statistical techniques. However, future research is needed to determine whether similar mediational effects are evident with rational beliefs as opposed to irrational beliefs. © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 2019.