Sharing successful strategies for dealing with stress – to which college students are hardly immune – is the premise for a newly created stress-management group open solely to students this fall at Amarillo College.
 

All AC students are invited to take advantage of Success Over Stress (SOS), which meets from noon to 12:50 p.m. Thursdays throughout the fall semester in Dutton Hall, Room 201, on the Washington Street Campus.
 

The first session of SOS is Sept. 1; however students may enter the support group at any time during the semester, and those who attend are welcome to bring a sack lunch.
 

SOS is completely free and will be facilitated by Dr. Alan Kee, professor of psychology and chairman of AC’s Behavioral Studies Department, who says participants will be introduced to Rational Emotive Education (REE).
 

“Stress can have a profound impact on college students’ well-being,” Kee said. “It is critical to be able to identify signs and symptoms of too much stress.
 

“This is not a psychotherapy group, but we will learn concepts based on cognitive behavior and rational emotive behavior therapies,” Kee said. “The central idea of REE is that our emotions and behaviors are strongly influenced by how we think. Therefore, changing our thinking can be a powerful way to change our emotions and behaviors.”
 

Kee completed one postdoctoral fellowship in Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy at the Albert Ellis Institute in New York, and another in Clinical Psychology at Baylor College of Medicine. He said students who participate in SOS will receive stress-management tips such as how to work off stress, balance work and recreation, take one thing at a time, talk about their worries, and more.
 

For more information about SOS, please contact Promise Garrison at 806-371-5191.