Dr. David Russell graduated with distinction from Swarthmore College with a double major in math and psychology. After graduating, he worked as an actuary in training at a major insurance company. He realized that this wasn’t his true calling and enrolled in Rutgers University where he got his Masters and Ph.D. in clinical psychology. He then did his internship at Yale. He obtained the highest score in the state on the psychology licensing exam.

Dr. Russell was a clinical instructor at Yale and director of outpatient counseling at Klingberg Family Centers in New Britain, CT prior to going into full-time private practice. In addition to private practice, he co-founded the Connecticut chapter of Chadd (a support group for parents of children with Attention Deficit Disorder) and co-founded a non-profit organization designed to help people affected by stress, trauma & tragedy.

Dr. Russell has dedicated himself to improving the understanding and treatment of the effects of emotionally difficult experiences on children, adults, couples and families. More specifically, he focuses on how unresolved emotional wounds subconsciously interfere with healthy relationships, work productivity and general life satisfaction.

In addition to his practice, he is currently involved in several interesting projects. Over the past 13 years, Dr. Russell has been developing and refining treatments that were originally designed to treat Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) so that these powerful treatments can also address any problem that is caused or aggravated by unresolved emotional wounds. As part of this work he has developed a series of techniques designed to translate the problems a client comes in with into a finite set of unresolved emotional memories. The client is then helped to use strengths and positive emotional resources that they have collected during their lives to help them to not only learn to control the negative emotions associated with these memories but to get the memories to fully heal.

Dr. Russell is currently working on several research studies designed to demonstrate that clients can get to a place of ‘perfect peace’ with even the most painful memories imaginable. This research will document what he has seen repeatedly in his practice, that painful memories can heal so completely that clients are no longer able to get themselves upset about them no matter how hard they try.

In addition to his counseling and research interests, he is also interested in developing more powerful theories of emotional functioning and treatment that can integrate biology, thought and emotion. He is finalizing a paper detailing a comprehensive neural network theory of PTSD and emotional memories. Neural network theory is a mathematical model of brain functioning that allows us to create computer-based models of how the brain works. He has been developing this model over the past several years in collaboration with an internationally recognized expert on neural network theory. This theory not only explains how and why the techniques he uses works but, it may also help to guide the continued development of psychological and pharmacological treatments for a wide range of emotional problems. It will also allow us to actually create computer models of what happens in the mind when someone goes through an emotionally difficult experience and how the mind/brain can return to normal when the memories fully heal.

Dr. Russell is a member of the American and Connecticut Psychological Associations, the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the American Association of Christian Counselors.