Greetings! The term Irrational Beliefs comes from Dr Albert Ellis (1913 - 2007), the father of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Beliefs are at the core of almost all of our emotional experiences. I used the word 'almost' to leave some space for emotions such as fear or terror in situations where there is a real threat to life. Understanding beliefs and knowing if they are rational or irrational helps a lot in eventually overcoming the emotional disturbance. People carry all sorts of irrational beliefs which they are not even aware of. And the task of digging in deep and finding out the irrational beliefs is quite challenging and demanding. But it is equally rewarding. Irrational beliefs are the preformed beliefs about certain situations, events, relationships and other life conditions that prevent a person from taking a decision or an action that would take him/her towards the goal. On the other hand, a rational belief helps a person move towards achievement of their goals and purpose. This fact has been used extensively by psychotherapists, especially in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. Let me give you an example. Imagine a young man who has recently lost his job. He is also newly married and has his parents depending up on him for financial support and health care. Having lost his job, this young man goes into a state of depression, feeling worthless and decides that life is not worth living. What is happening here is that he is probably thinking he has "failed" in his "duties towards his family". This gives me a hint that he may be carrying with him a belief which could sound something like "I must never fail in life" or "Losing a job means failure in life and it's awful". Having such beliefs makes him think about giving up the fight. He is not able to take a positive action. His goal was to have a job which will earn him enough to support the family. And ideally, he should be searching for newer jobs. But the beliefs that he carries with him do not allow him to reach his goal. On the contrary, ......... to read the complete article, please click on the following link. http://www.medhelp.org/user_journals/index/368886