In this Podcast, Dr. Burns describes the three basic principles of what has been called “cognitive therapy:”
- Negative feelings, like depression, anxiety, and anger, do not result from what happens to us, but rather from our thoughts about what’s happening. In fact, our thoughts, or “cognitions,” create all of our emotions, positive and negative.
- When you’re depressed or anxious, the negative thoughts that trigger your distress, like “I’m no good,” or “Things will never change,” are distorted or illogical. In fact, depression is the world’s oldest con.
- When you change the way you THINK, you can change the way you feel.
Dr. Burns describes a challenge he received in a thoughtful letter from a fan shortly after his book, Feeling Good, was published. The young man argued that when something horrible happens, the event itself can upset you, and asked, “Let’s say you’re trapped on a railroad track a a train is coming. Isn’t it true that you’d feel terrified, and the event would cause your terror, even without having time to put a negative thought in your head?”
Shortly after reading the letter, Dr. Burns stumbled across an elderly man about to be hit by a train. You may be surprised to find out what happened!
Dr. Burns also describes the powerful and painful impact of his own negative thoughts when he was a young psychiatric in training and he received a stinging criticism from his supervisor, Dr. Aaron Beck.
Wonderful! Enjoyed listening to it on my way back home from the mountains. Will post this week.
Lisa
Sent from my iPhone
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Thanks, Lisa! david
David D. Burns, M.D.
Adjunct Clinical Professor Emeritus
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Stanford University School of Medicine
From: lisakelleytherapy@gmail.com [mailto:lisakelleytherapy@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, August 07, 2016 10:04 PM To: Feeling Good ; david burns ; Fabrice Nye Subject: Re: [New post] Podcast #7: M = Methods â You FEEL the Way You THINK
Wonderful! Enjoyed listening to it on my way back home from the mountains. Will post this week.
Lisa
Sent from my iPhone
Hello, Dr. Burns. You’re an incredible inspiration. My question is whether you will ever release a book on habits addiction (which seem to be mentioned the least expensive on your blog and podcast), or whether you will have a podcast strictly on this subject? If not, any recommendations?
Also, how effrctive is T.E.A.M. therapy for habits and addictions? Is it anywhere close to its power for depression and anxiety?
Excellent Podcast..with one small exception: It seemed the interviewer was on a different page at times, and once even forgot what the game plan was, which made it hard for your to stay with the current line of thought. Other than that, It was A+ all the way. I can’t help but wonder how many lives you have changed besides mine; keep up the great work.
Your*
Glad you liked it, Patrick, and resonate with your thinking, being a minister’s son! There are tons of training programs, both free and paid, too. Check my website list of upcoming workshops, as well as introductory TEAM-CBT training classes at the FGI. Also, I offer two free weekly training classes for therapists via my volunteer work at Stanford, and I have free depression and anxiety classes for the general public or therapists on my website. david
Great Podcast! Many people have told me that depression is a product of one’s thinking but I never believed them. In fact, I followed a school of thought that said it was the product of chemical imbalance. Glad to hear that you, had said someplace (not here) that this is not true. I so look forward to hearing more. It is benefitting me personally as a therapist and as a married priest who stepped out of church of “Should’s and should not’s” amongst other things that have to do with “all or nothing thinking” . Looking forward to future podcasts. Pat
David very good podcast. Keep them coming they are so helpful
Thanks, Mary! s
You are an amazing person. You really love to help people and I admire that!
I am loving each of your podcasts. I’m learning so much from you. You are an outstanding human being. Definitely, you are being blessed with wisdom.
Thank you so much for your help.
Thanks! david
hi, doctor burn thanks for the great information thank you
Thanks, Joe! david
About writing down the thoughts: the poet William Blake, in one of his Proverbs From Hell, wrote, “One thought fills immensity”–
So in order to contain the thought, one can anchor it to a piece of paper, and examine its accuracy.
Right! Thanks, david
Hi David
I wonder if you could do a podcast on how to help someone who struggles with envy. I myself have realised that I struggle a lot with this and have noticed that it’s not exclusive to one person who triggers it in me. At the minute it’s my brother inlaw who has copied aspects of our life and done better. But reflecting on this now as I feel it’s consuming me I realise it’s people who I have in the past and now come into contact with that trigger me to feel inferior and because I feel they have things easier (my perception) and that pain comes when I feel I compare myself with others. So this has been going on although my life and caused a lot of low self esteem and resentment. This is a hard topic to talk about because I feel there is a lot of Shame attached to it, the shame of reflecting on the thoughts that you hope someone has a set back so you don’t feel so inferior. This is a really interesting topic for me and I’m working a lot on myself to improve my self awareness and personal development.
Thanks
Dale
Thanks, we’ve done a podcast on jealousy and envy. Use the search function on my website to find it. Also have one coming up, too, the live therapy with Sara. All the best, david
Do we have a thought everytime we have an emotion? Like if i see a car coming fast to me, even then i would have a fast automatic thought?
Thanks. I had a similar question nearly 50 years ago, and asked Aaron Beck about it during a seminar. I will make this an Ask David for an upcoming podcast and you can hear more there. Here’s the short response. The word “thought” is just a form of shorthand for perception. Perception can take many forms. When you see a car about to hit you, you already HAVE a negative and alarming thought! And yes, we create perceptions of danger and react strongly with incredible speed, and these reactions DO feel automatic. You can also read about the answer in my Feeling Good Handbook, in the story about the man driving down the railroad tracks with a massive freight train coming at him at 60 MPH. I barely saved his life! Best, david
Sadly, i can’t acces the book soon enough, but i understand that first we have a perception and then an emotion, but how about thoughts, like the ones we have in our day to day life, do we have them literally at every emotions? And i am curious if we have them even when we have a behavior (for sure we first have a perception, and then a behavior, but as i mentioned earlier, i am talking about thoughts, the ones like people have when they ruminate). Thanks in advance and i can’t wait to see the episode!
Cool question! Perceptions come in many forms and flavors, and they’re not always in the form of words and sentences. But you mut have a perception, an understanding or interpretation of what is happening, to have any kind of negative or positive feeling or emotion. Professor Mark Noble gives this example. Suppose an early human hears a tig snap behind him at the edge of the jungle at night and panics because he has the thought, “That might be a tiger!”
Then he turns to look and realizes it was just his wife coming to greet him. Now he has a new interpretation and his negative feelings of fear suddenly disappear.
We make these interpretations constantly, and they trigger a wide variety of emotional responses. In other words, we all create our own emotional reality at every moment of every day. Grasping this is one of four forms of enlightenment.
david
But i guess that most of the time, we have a thought (word/images) when we feel, that’s why perhaps distraction tehinques work on the short term.
Yes, thanks. You can see this with pain, too. When you get involved in something, totally absorbed, you often “forget” about the pain and temporarily do not notice it, or experience it consciously. I have not found that distraction is terribly effective. Albert Ellis felt that distraction was the mechanism that might bring temporarly relief in meditation. I’m not an expert in meditation so don’t know whether this is true, but sure seems reasonable! Best, david