Arthur Freeman on a lifetime alongside Cognitive Behavior Therapy

what will happen when Albert Ellis is no longer there to lead the movement. Well, a lot of movements died when Fritz Burls died, the whole model of him, you know, not GTO

therapy

. It's not doing so well at least in the US, sort of yeah, at least in the US MH um when Ellis died The Institute is still M, there are people who are still first generation people like Ry or Christine Doyle or others who were trained by Al um you know Janet Wolf other M when Beck dies and he is 95 MH so we don't know how many more years he has left but there is the Beck Institute M Judy is a wonderful teacher Judy is a brilliant clinic um CBT from a Beckian perspective.

Pick up when Arold Lazarus died. I don't know what happened to multimodal

therapy

. We don't hear much about that. You know your people aren't carrying the

behavior

al therapy banner here again. There are

behavior

al therapists, but you know? some are like that, I think ultimately, and this is what Ry and I talked about at dinner, that in a few years, when the first generation is gone, me and others is G to merge, I think to be more similar, Ry and I made a series of videos similar to what was done with the Gloria movies with Albert Ellis um, call me Rogers and uh Fritz Pearls, right, and um, if you look at Ray's tape and mine, we look like very young, that is the first thing that was done in 1980, 20, 37 years ago.

I was a baby when I was a little baby, working with this patient, we didn't watch each other's tapes, everything is independent, we say exactly the same things, we ask exactly the same questions, we use very similar interventions, not exact ones, so even in 1980 there was great overlap and similarity, but each of us follows our leader MH, so you know, it's Judy Beck Aaron Beck it's not R jeppi Albert Ellis no, that generation is gone and I don't think there's anyone in any specific group that has the strength to take control, so it's Not everyone will go to Steve Hayes or Marshall Linan or MHM or Judy Beck.

I mean, the influence of the main founders will always be there, but more similar than different. I think so, I'm going to jump around a little bit between what you guys do. I am saying and I would still like to ask you: Do you think you are a better therapist now than you were 20 years ago? Yes, I have had 20 more years of experience and why do I have students who tell me they will look at me. a video and they'll say oh, you make it look so easy. I said it's because I've been doing it for a long time for 50 years, yes you've been doing it for 50 days, come back and talk to me in 50 years and you'll be as good as me Maybe better.

You know, then I'm a better therapist. Yes, because over time I try to keep my ideas fresh. I try to develop new ideas, new ways of approaching. of conceptualizing and I try to keep all those acts fresh, yes, which makes me think I'm a better therapist, so in your 2008 book on Clinical Psychology that Integrates Science and Practice, you have a section called What Every Doctor need to know, where you write a little bit about the importance of therapist self-care, so I would always be curious to ask you: can you tell us a little bit about how you implement self-care in your own life?

One of the things is that I spend time every day thinking about going. throughout the day at the end of the day you know what I could have done better what I could have done um a very important topic for me are friends um people like Ry that I can talk to who speak my language um colleagues at work that I can talk to who understands what it's like to be a therapist, what it's like to be a CBT person, what it's like, you know, for example, I met a woman at a party and she said to me, what do you do?

I told him that I am a psychologist. she said, you teach, I said yes, you do therapy, I said yes, he said, well, we are similar in some ways, I do therapy and I teach that, she said, uh, you know what your model is and I said

cognitive

behavior when she did a grin. I said: can I interpret the expression on your face? and she said: well, I do psychodynamic work and I said: one of the techniques I've learned is to play stupid. What does that mean? She says fine. I told him: what kind of patients do you have?

Look and she said, well there's this guy I just saw today, he's just starting his fifteenth year of therapy mhm and I looked just like you. I said, I don't want to be rude, but what do you talk about for 15 years? Well, there I always said something, I don't doubt it, I mean, do you have an expensive car to pay for or do you know it's an annuity, not a patient? I didn't tell him that, but the bottom line is that there are people who want psychoanalytic work who want long-term work. I can't talk to her about what I do, but I have good friends, so that's part of my own health care.

I take care of my sleep hygiene. Uh, I try to get a good night's sleep. I like to eat, so I spend time preparing meals. You know, I serve myself very well. Then you know my own health. You know the need is to deal with it because if you don't, I'd like to avoid one of my models. The heroes were Mike Mahoney and Mike was brilliant, funny, smart, interesting mhm and he committed suicide M committed suicide MH and the way I originally found out was that I got a call from a mate in Santiago de Chile who said we had a problem, maybe you can help us.

Mike Mahoney was scheduled to come to a conference in Santiago to give a keynote on therapist self-care. He just committed suicide. Jesus, could you substitute it? No, so I said yes, of course, so I flew there and gave a lecture. and but I thought he was going to give a lecture on therapist self-care, yeah, and he didn't take care of himself, yeah, and I think about that and that, to me, Mike knew people from all over the world that he wasn't a close friend. his, but we were friends, if Mike called me and said art, I'm here in Rhode Island.

I'm going through a very bad depressive moment. Can you come and spend some time with me? He would be there in a minute. He could. I've gotten people you know from all over the world to be with him and he decided it wasn't worth killing himself so self care self care is very important to me they are friends friends well my last question overlaps with this. one in a way, but it's a question I've asked all of our colleagues and that's the advice he wishes he'd gotten when he was starting out as a psychotherapist. I think I got the advice he needed, and again, it wasn't original advice. that the advice that I received both in word and deed is from Shakespeare uh in Hamlet when Ponus tells his son to be truthful and that to me was the best advice I have to be true to myself, whatever that is. mean. as a father and grandfather, there are certain groups of patients that I will not work with, I will not work with pedophiles, someone will, it won't be me, because I have read the research and I am not convinced that we have done it. but I figured out how to treat them.

There are many things I believe in and I will hold firmly to those beliefs, so be true to yourself was the best advice I have ever received. I think it's a great way to end, so I just like it. to thank you for the opportunity art this has been fun thank you very much for inviting me