Rhonda and David interview Garry, a veteran who David treated for PTSD several years ago at a trauma workshop in Michigan. Garry describes how a repressed horrific memory from his childhood suddenly and forcefully re-emerged when he smelled some Queen Anne’s Lace that were in blossom. He suddenly remembered how a school bus he was riding home on hit a horse with a boy, Tommy, who was riding bareback, when the horse suddenly lurched in front of the bus. Tommy was Gary’s classmate.
The bus driver said, “Don’t look!” But Garry watched as his friend, who was trapped under the dead horse, “bled out” and died.
Once this totally forgotten memory re-emerged decades later, roughly 18 months prior to Garry’s session with David, it constantly intruded into Garry’s every interaction for the next year and a half. Garry says,
“I was seeing Tommy all the time, and having symptoms of anxiety, intrusive memory and dissociation experiences. I would often see the image of Tommy lying on the pavement superimposed over conversations I was happened with people in an intimate way. It was quite disturbing and anxiety provoking.”
Garry tearfully describes what he experienced during his TEAM-CBT session with David, including his dissociation at one point during the session, and the profound changes he experienced by the end of the session.
Can severe PTSD be treated in a single therapy session? Did Garry really improve? Were the changes real? Did they last? And how did the therapy work?
You’ll find out when you listen to this amazing and inspiring interview! We are incredibly indebted to Garry for his courage and openness to share this experience with all of you!
You can reach Dr. Burns at david@feelinggood.com. Dr. Rhonda Barovsky practices in Walnut Creek, California, and can be reached at rbarovsky@aol.com.
If you like our jingle music and would like to support the composer Brett Van Donsel, you may download it here.
If you have not yet registered for this year’s summer intensive in Calgary, you’re in luck! I have just learned of a special $50 discount if you register online using this code: BURNSSAVE50. This discount is for online registrations only.
The Calgary intensive could be one of the most rewarding training experiences of your career! You will learned radically new and WAY more effective ways of treating depression, anxiety disorders, and addictions. You will also learn how to stop making the most common errors that nearly all therapists make nearly all the time!
I hope you can join us. We’ll have a ton of fun, and you’ll learn a tremendous amount. Plus, we’ll cry, laugh, hike and eat together every day!
This year’s summer intensive in Calgary (or San Francisco) will be your chance to learn state-of-the-art TEAM-CBT techniques for the treatment of depression, anxiety disorders, and habits and addictions.
TEAM-CBT has evolved from cutting-edge research on how psychotherapy actually works, and includes many radical treatment innovations. These include new ways to track patient progress (T = Testing), advanced E = Empathy techniques, powerful, new techniques to melt away the patient’s conscious and subconscious resistance (A = Paradoxical Agenda Setting), and more than 50 M = Methods to crush the demoralizing negative thoughts that cause depression and all of the anxiety disorders, as well as the positive, tempting thoughts that trigger habits and addictions, like binge eating, procrastination, and more.
On the morning of day 1, I will show an inspiring video of a single-session treatment of a woman struggling with post-traumatic stress so you can see exactly how these new techniques work. In the afternoon, I’ll show you how to transform therapeutic failure into success, even with angry, oppositional, relentlessly critical patients (as well as critical colleagues, friends and loved ones) using new, sophisticated empathy techniques. You’ll have the chance to practice and refine your skills in small group exercises with immediate feedback.
On the morning of day 2, I’ll do a live demonstration with a depressed or anxious volunteer from the group, along with my co-therapist, Mike Christensen, so you can see in real time how TEAM can trigger amazingly rapid changes in depression and anxiety. In the afternoon, I’ll show you how to bring Outcome and Process resistance to conscious awareness, as well as how to eliminate them quickly with resistance-busting tools that can revolutionize your clinical work.
On days 3 and 4, I’ll illustrate at least 25 methods to crush the thoughts that trigger depression, anxiety, and addictions. You’ll also learn how to pinpoint and modify the self-defeating beliefs that lead to mood and relationship problems, like perfectionism and the love addiction. At the end of the program, you’ll learn how to do Relapse Prevention Training for lasting results.
You’ll also have chances to do some of your own personal work, so you can leave the workshop on a high, feeling professionally and personally refreshed, with new tools and feelings of joy. Together, we’ll challenge the negative thoughts that sometimes trigger your own feelings of insecurity and self-doubt, like “I’m not good enough or smart enough,” or “I’m a fraud.”
My annual Canadian intensives have been peak experiences pretty much every year for the past ten years or more, and I’m incredibly indebted to Jack Hirose for giving me so many wonderful opportunities to teach in Canada, which I absolutely love. I’m also thrilled that I’ll be joined again by the brilliant and wonderful Mike Christiansen, who is a dear friend and one of Canada’s leading experts in TEAM-CBT.
And here’s one of the best parts. Since there are no evening sessions, I will offer optional evening hikes, followed by dinner, for those of you who want some extra time, attention, and exercise during the intensive. On the hikes you can do personal work, ask questions, do difficult case consultations, and practice the techniques that interest you the most.
And, here’s something else that’s totally cool. Our special guest on the hike on the evening of day 1 will be the woman you’ll “meet” in the video in the morning of day 1, along with her husband. So, you’ll have chances to ask questions and to get some follow-up data several years after the actual session you will witness on the video.
People have sometimes told me, “Oh, your live demos couldn’t possibly be real. They have to be fake. People simply cannot recover that fast! And even if they do, the results can’t last.” Well, here’s your chance to find out!
I hope you can join us this year! I know that a four-day intensive is a huge investment of your time, money, and energy, but the personal and professional payoff can be tremendous. I suspect we may cry a bit together, and I know that we’ll laugh a lot together. Laughter can be SO healing!
And you can be certain that I’ll do everything I can to make this one of the finest and most exhilarating training experiences of your career!
July 15 is coming soon, so register now!
High-Speed Treatment of Depression
and Anxiety Disorders
If you have ever dreamed of bringing extremely rapid healing to your patients, this is a workshop you won’t want to miss. David Burns, MD, will present TEAM-CBT: a new, powerful treatment approach that can produce extremely rapid and lasting changes in severe depression and anxiety. Lectures and demonstrations by a master therapist followed by the opportunity to practice the techniques with your colleagues will leave you with a deeper, richer appreciation of the practice of psychotherapy as well as a variety of tools you’ll be able to apply right away to your work. In addition, you’ll have the opportunity to do your own personal work during the workshop so you can experience greater self-esteem and joy in your professional work and in your personal life.
High-Speed Treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders
The evening sessions on days 1 and 3 will add another dimension to your workshop experience, and are nearly always the most highly rated workshop segments. You’ll be tired, but joyous, by the end of your intensive, and you’ll leave with a renewed session of joy and optimism!
A therapist emailed me to say he was very interested in the upcoming intensives, but wanted to know what he’d learn if he attended. Certainly, a great question, so I put together this list of some of the things I’ll be teaching at this year’s intensives. They’re organized around the T E A M of TEAM-CBT.
T = Testing
I’ll illustrate fast, accurate assessment tools that will show you how your patients really feel, and how they feel about you. You’ll also find out how effective you are at every session with every patient. This information may be shocking, but can transform your clinical work.
E = Advanced Empathy Training
Five Secrets of Effective Communication
Law of Opposites
How to transform therapeutic failure into success
The five most common empathy errors, and how to avoid them!
A = Assessment of Resistance: New, sophisticated tools that can quickly melt away therapeutic resistance and greatly boost patient motivation
Outcome Resistance tools
Straightforward Invitation
Paradoxical Invitation
Miracle Cure Question
Specificity
Magic Button
Positive Reframing
Pivot Question
Process Resistance tools
Dangling the Carrot
Gentle Ultimatum
Sitting with Open Hands
Fallback Position
M = Methods
Daily Mood Log
Recovery Circle
50 Ways to Untwist Your thinking, including
Identify the Distortions
Examine the Evidence
Be Specific / Shades of Grey
The Experimental Technique
The Pleasure-Predicting Sheet
The Paradoxical Double Standard Technique
Externalization of Voices
The Acceptance Paradox
Cognitive, Classical, and Interpersonal Exposure Techniques, including
Gradual Exposure
Cognitive Flooding
Memory Rescripting
Response Prevention
Smile and Hello Practice
Self-Disclosure
Talk-Show Host
Shame Attacking Exercises
The Hidden Emotion Technique
And more
Getting at root causes: How to pinpoint and modify Self-Defeating Beliefs
The Individual Downward Arrow
The Interpersonal Downward Arrow (psychoanalysis at warp speed!)
The Semantic Method
The Feared Fantasy
How to overcome habits and addictions, including
The Habit / Addiction Log
The Paradoxical Cost-Benefit Analysis
The Triple Paradox
The Anti-Procrastination Sheet
The “I stubbornly refused” Technique
The Devil’s Advocate Technique
Plus
Relapse Prevention Training for lasting results
Video of high-speed TEAM-CBT trauma treatment
The goals of TEAM-CBT include rapid, complete and lasting recovery from depression and anxiety. Teaching tools will include lecture, videos, live demonstrations, live therapy, and lots of small group practice with immediate feedback so you can refine your therapy skills.
You’ll also have the chance to do your own personal work if you want, so you can leave the workshop fueled with a renewed sense of excitement about your life and clinical work. I’ve always felt that effective personal work is tremendously important, since the challenges and pressures on therapists can sometimes be intense. When you’ve experienced your own personal transformation, you’re no longer a technician–you’re now a healer!
Finally, all three intensive provide CE credits plus credit toward certification in TEAM-CBT. In fact, you’ll be eligible for Level 1 TEAM certification just for attending!
Thank you so much for your interest!
David Burns, MD
* * *
This year, you have three great intensives to choose from!
The Calgary intensive will be similar to the SF and Atlanta intensives described below, but there will be no evening sessions. Instead, Dr. Burns will lead optional, informal evening hikes for those who are interested, followed by dinner. On the hikes, you can do personal work, ask questions, practice techniques, or just schmooze with colleagues and have fun!
This intensive is just around the corner, so act fast if you want to attend!
* * *
High-Speed Treatment of
Depression and Anxiety Disorders
A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive
with David Burns, MD
32 hrs of CE credit available
July 29 – August 1, 2019
South San Francisco four-day intensive Sponsored by Praxis
and
November 4 – 7, 2019
Atlanta, Georgia four-day intensive Sponsored by Praxis
This will be my first east coast intensive in more than 25 years/
The evening sessions on days 1 and 3 will add another dimension to your workshop experience, and are nearly always the most highly rated workshop segments. You’ll be tired, but joyous, by the end of your intensive, and you’ll leave with a renewed session of joy and optimism!
3. The Annual South San Francisco Intensive
August 10 – 13, 2020
Small Group Practice with Personal Feedback and Mentoring, and Chances for Personal Work and Healing
