Applied Psychology, Psychiatry and Mental Health(Venue: Crowne Plaza)

In a 1969 speech to the APA, AG Miller said: “I can think of nothing that would pose a greater challenge to psychologists and that would be more relevant to human welfare than to discover how best to give psychology away”. The mental and emotional tool kit for life does that–gives psychology away. We have always had and continue to have too many people who generate more emotion than is helpful or necessary in response to their life events, more than they want to have, more than they know what to do with. Most mental illness is literally defined by generating a dysfunctional amount of emotion. This emotion drives and gives purpose to so many unhealthy, self-defeating, even dangerous behaviors, i.e. violence, abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, suicide. These behaviors in turn lead to other problems, i.e. addiction, disability, premature death. The “toolkit” is based on Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) and Education (REBE) developed by the late Dr Albert Ellis. The “tools” can be taught to anyone and used by anyone to generate a more functional amount of emotion. They do so largely through cognitive restructuring. People can and will do much to help themselves if given the right “tools”. One of the most important “tools” is developing an internal locus of control. The majority of people walking the planet have an external locus and wrongly blame the events of their lives for how they feel. This needlessly puts them at the mercy of events and causes them to feel worse than necessary. We miss a golden opportunity to correct this while people are in our schools. Teaching them that they have more control over their emotional destiny than they realize would do much to help people generate a more functional amount of emotion in their lives.