  Meeting
Report
December 5, 2003
Frank Russell, MFT
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Frank Russell is a Marriage and Family Therapist in Elk
Grove. He was trained in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy at the Albert
Ellis Institute and in Cognitive Behavior Therapy at the Beck Institute.
He is a retired Parole Administrator with the California Department of
Corrections.
Frank Russell wanted to find methods of treatment for
mental and emotional problems that actually work. Some old and well-known
therapies, such as psychoanalysis, may sound interesting, but have not
been very successful in practice. Cognitive Behavior Therapy has worked
better. Borrowing from Epictetus' philosophy, he pointed out that what we
think about "bad" things and how we react to them shows our mental health.
Pleasure and a sense of accomplishment can counter feelings of depression.
Discovering cognitive errors and changing one's thinking can improve one's
mental health. Drugs such as Prozac also have their place in treatment and
we should use them if it helps the situation. Some can increase serotonin
and reduce depression. Sometimes, however, they have undesirable side
effects.
He went on to discuss how we disorder ourselves. People
can have a healthy or unhealthy response to the negative things that
happen to them. Negative self-talk, for example, which is often untrue,
can disorder a person. Anger is a disorder, although often difficult to
avoid. We should strive to avoid impulsiveness. He recommended the book
"Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy" by Albert Ellis and "Cognitive
Behavior Therapy of Borderline Personality Disorder" by Marsha Linehan.
Report
prepared by Wayne Luney, HAGSA Recorder
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