FIGURE 15.3 The “ABC” Model in Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy Common sense tells us that unhappiness and other unpleasant emotions are caused by unpleasant or disturbing events. This view is shown in the top part of the figure. But Albert Ellis (1993) points out that it is really our beliefs about the events, not the events themselves, that make us miserable, as diagrammed in the bottom part of the figure.