July 24, 2017 by Dr. Burns

Brief Intensive Preview Video!

Hi everybody,

My two esteemed colleagues, Angela Krumm, PhD and Jill Levitt, PhD, kindly made a brief video on the upcoming summer intensive. The intensive in Banff last week was blow-away, and I’m hoping the upcoming intensive in Burlingame, California will be as good!

Here’s the video:

Here are the details:
High Speed, Drug Free Treatment of Depression and Anxiety
A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive
July 31 – August 3, Burlingame, California
For more information, click here
phone: 800-258-8411

There will be many cool helpers from my Tuesday group at Stanford helping out with the small group exercises.

If interested, move quickly as the date is fast approaching and the event is almost sold out, only a couple openings left, as attendance is strictly limited. I hope you can join me, and look forward to getting to know you if you attend!

All the best,

David

If you are reading this blog on social media, I appreciate it! I would like to invite you to visit my website, http://www.FeelingGood.com, as well. There you will find a wealth of free goodies, including my Feeling Good blogs, my Feeling Good Podcasts with host, Dr. Fabrice Nye, and the Ask Dr. David blogs as well, along with announcements of upcoming workshops, and tons of resources for mental health professionals as well as patients!

Once you link to my blog, you can sign up using the widget at the top of the column to the right of each page. Please forward my blogs to friends as well, especially anyone with an interest in mood problems, psychotherapy, or relationship conflicts.

Thanks! David

July 15, 2017 by Dr. Burns

Summer Intensives Coming Immediately!

Here’s a little slide promo for my upcoming intensives! There’s no sound–we’ll have to figure out how to add some cool music for the next one! I’m flying to Canada tomorrow, July 16th, for the Banff intensive, in fact. It’s right around the corner!

I am offering two four-day intensives for mental health professionals this summer, in Banff, Canada and Burlingame, California. These are always the most effective and rewarding training conferences of the year. Here are the details:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Four-Day Intensive Training

July 17 – 20, Banff, Canada

For more information, click here

Phone: 604.924.0296 Toll-free: 1.800.456.5424

High Speed, Drug Free Treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders–

A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive

July 31 – August 3, Burlingame, California

For more information, click here

phone: 800-258-8411

I hope you can join us!

All the best,

David

Thanks! David

July 7, 2017 by Dr. Burns

After 32 Years of Depression–Your Podcasts Helped!

Hi David.

My name is Hassan and I have been suffering from depression and anxiety for the last 32 years.

I am glad that after listening your podcasts and reading some of your other written materials, I have finally managed to reduced my mental suffering considerably. I am a math teacher and recently earned a degree in psychology, just to understand the causes of my mental disorders.

Could you kindly guide me on how I can take part in your workshops and other training sessions? I want to improve my learning in order to cure my psychological issues and help others in my country tackle anxiety and depression.

Hassan

Hi Hassan.

Thank you for your email. I feel sad you’ve been feeling depressed for so long, but I’m impressed by your hard work, and I’m sure it will pay off for you!

Here are several things might help, if you’d like to learn more about the new techniques I’ve been developing:

Attend any of my workshops, if you can. They are listed on the workshop tab on my website, feelinggood.com. The two upcoming 4-day intensives later this month (Banff, Canada and San Francisco) should be extremely helpful and fun. In the fall, I will also be offering two-day workshops on the high-speed treatment of individuals who have experienced trauma, with additional workshops on other topics in 2018.
You might benefit from my eBook, Tools, Not Schools, of Therapy. Order forms are on my website. This is a step by step guide in how to do TEAM-CBT. It is intended for therapists.
You could join one of the weekly online training groups, and you can find information about them on my website as well. These would be ideal for you, because you can join in from anywhere in the world, and the teachers are outstanding! There are small numbers of individuals in each group, so you get lots of individual attention and chances to actually practice the new TEAM-CBT techniques.
You can visit www.feelinggoodinstitute.com . They have a variety of online training groups, plus a TEAM-CBT certification program.
You can read any of my books for the general public. They seem to be helpful to therapists as well as individuals who are looking for help with depression, anxiety, or relationship problems. All should be available from Amazon.com and other online book sellers. Here are some of the titles:

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
Feeling Good Together
The Feeling Good Handbook
Ten Days to Self-Esteem
When Panic Attacks
Intimate Connections

If you are ever in the San Francisco area on vacation, you would be welcome to visit one of my free of charge Tuesday evening training groups at the Stanford Medical School. You would be welcome on one of the Sunday morning hikes as well. I know it is a long way from your home, but we actually had a visitor (a neurologist) from China recently! She also came to a summer intensive, and then married one of our Tuesday group members, and now lives with him here in California!

Good luck, Hassan, and thank you so much for your kind email. Fabrice and I appreciate hearing from folks who have been listening to our Feeling Good Podcasts!

David

My two four-day intensives for mental health professionals this summer are filling up fast, but there are still a few slots available in both. One is in Banff, Canada and Burlingame, California. These are always the most effective and rewarding training conferences of the year. Here are the details:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Four-Day Intensive Training

July 17 – 20, Banff, Canada
For more information, click here
Phone: 604.924.0296 Toll-free: 1.800.456.5424

High Speed, Drug Free Treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders

A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive
July 31 – August 3, Burlingame, California
For more information, click here
phone: 800-258-8411

If interested, move quickly. The dates are fast approaching and they often sell out, since attendance is strictly limited at both events. I hope you can join us, and look forward to getting to know you if you attend!

Thanks! David

July 5, 2017 by Dr. Burns

My Experience Resonates with Mona!

Hello Dr. Burns.

My experience resonates with Mona. Your book, When Panic Attacks, has helped me immensely. It was a turning point in my life. Now I am almost panic free and I am sharing my experience with others so that they can benefit from it.

I always wanted to thank you!

Himanshu

Hi Himanshu,

Thank you for your kind comments, and for giving me the permission to share them on my website. I greatly appreciated it!

David

Thanks! David

July 5, 2017 by Dr. Burns

Priceless and Beyond Valuable

Hi, Dr. Burns.

This is Mona, I’m writing to you the second time.

Not sure if you can remember my case with hypochondriasis. I was reading the What-If Technique in your book, When Panic Attacks, and did the exercise, starting with my Negative Thought, “I think I have Hepatitis C or HIV.” As you suggested, I asked myself, “If that were true, what’s the worst that could happen? What am I the most afraid of?” You said you could ask this question over and over, and it was a good way to get at the deepest core fears that fuel our anxiety.

It worked really well, and the end result was, “I’m gonna end up being alone and lonely,” which send tears streaming down my face. As a result, I had a conversation about my fear of rejection with my husband sitting next to me that made me feel very relieved.

Now the second very emotional moment came when I was listening to your podcast describing the case of Ralph which was EXACTLY identical to my case. I couldn’t hold back my tears listening to his struggle and couldn’t stop laughing with my tears coming down when you said the good news is that you’re going to experience the same whenever you have a Hidden Emotion.

I just wanted to let you know that these podcasts are all very constructive and I’d recommend them to anyone who is reading either Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, or When Panic Attacks. The podcasts really showcase each technique and make the points made in the books crystal clear.

Dr. Burns, I don’t know how to thank you for all these insights and I would like you to know that your contributions are priceless and beyond valuable.

I don’t really believe in God but if you do, God bless you!

Mona

Thank you, Mona! Your email means a great deal to Fabrice and me. We are so happy that people like the Feeling Good Podcasts and find them beneficial! They are fun to do because I really enjoy working with Fabrice, but I hear from many therapists and non-therapists alike who say they really help, and that is what we hoped might happen.

On one of the Sunday hikes, a young therapist who works with children and teenagers told me that he listed to one Podcast per day for 30 days, and this really boosted his understanding of TEAM-CBT. I could see that this was absolutely true, because he has only recently joined my free weekly training group at Stanford, but his psychotherapy skills are simply zooming forward.

Mona, all the very best to you!

David

Thanks! David

July 4, 2017 by Dr. Burns

Summer Intensives Coming Soon!

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Four-Day Intensive Training

July 17 – 20, Banff, Canada

For more information, click here

Phone: 604.924.0296 Toll-free: 1.800.456.5424

High Speed, Drug Free Treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders–

A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive

July 31 – August 3, Burlingame, California

For more information, click here

phone: 800-258-8411

If interested, move quickly as the dates are fast approaching and they often sell out, as attendance is limited at both events. I hope you can join us, and look forward to getting to know you if you attend!

All the best,

David

Thanks! David

June 22, 2017 by Dr. Burns

Another Cool Video for You! The “Niceness” Disease!

Here is another cool short video from Jill Levitt, PhD, who is the Director of Training at the Feeling Good Institute in Mt. View, California, and Taylor Chesney, PhD, who is he Director of Training at the Feeling Good Institute in New York City. But you might enjoy it more if you read the material below the video first!

Scenes from a Sunday hike:

I have always emphasized the importance of personal healing for therapists, as part of their development as psychotherapists and their growth as human beings. In this video, Dr. Taylor Chesney remembers one of my Sunday hikes when she did some personal healing and came to understand the Hidden Emotion Technique in much greater depth. Something sudden and unexpected happened that had a profound effect on Taylor’s life.

Because Dr. Levitt wasn’t there when Taylor and I were doing our work, I will share a tad of additional information that might illuminate Taylor’s experience while hiking. First, Taylor asked if I could help her with some sudden anxiety she had about transitioning to her private practice at the end of her post-doctoral training. She was extremely anxious and had negative thoughts like, “I won’t get any referrals,” and “My practice will be a failure,” and “I won’t be able to help anyone,” and things along those lines.

Taylor could easily identify the distortions in her thoughts, which included Fortune Telling (making arbitrary negative predictions), Discounting the Positive (since she was highly regarded by everyone in our training program and was already getting many referrals, and had tons of patients who were doing great because of her superb skills), Emotional Reasoning (I feel anxious, so I must be in danger,) and All-or-Nothing Thinking (viewing a private practice as either a smashing success or a total failure) to mention just a few of the cognitive distortions in her negative thoughts. However, Taylor simply could not come up with positive thoughts that effectively crushed the negative thoughts, so she continued to believe them, even though on some level she could see that the negative thoughts were simply not true. She kept clinging to the irrational belief that she’d get no referrals and be totally ineffective in her clinical work, and so forth.

Then I asked myself “why” Dr. Chesney was being so unreasonable, since she was really a sweet, smart, and enthusiastic individual. I began to think about the Hidden Emotion Model, which can be incredibly helpful in the treatment of anxiety, especially when patients seem stuck. The idea behind the Hidden Emotion Technique is that only “nice” people develop anxiety disorders, and it’s often because of some hidden feeling or conflict that the patient has not brought to conscious awareness. The Hidden Emotion or conflict is NOT something that’s buried in the past, it’s something that’s buried in the present–some ordinary thing that’s bugging the patient right now, but you can’t seem to “remember” what it is.

Sometimes the suppressed feeling is a negative one, like anger, but sometimes it can be a positive feeling, which turned out to be the case with Dr. Chesney. And usually, the anxiety is the symbolic expression of the conflict. Once you bring the Hidden Emotion to conscious awareness, and the patient deals with, you will nearly always see a dramatic and sudden reduction in the anxiety, or even a complete elimination of the anxiety.

Essentially, Dr. Chesney seemed to be saying, “private practice won’t work for me and you can’t convince me that I’ll be successful no matter what!” Could it be that some hidden feelings was getting in the way? If you haven’t yet watched the video, take a guess. Then watch the video and you’ll find out what the Hidden Emotion really was! After you’ve finished the brief video, you can link to my final comments if you’re interested in learning a little more.

You can also link to a previous blog on the Hidden Emotion Technique as well as two previous Feeling Good Podcasts on the causes and treatments for anxiety, including the Hidden Emotion Technique:

023: Scared Stiff — What Causes Anxiety? What’s the Cure? (Part 2)

027: Scared Stiff — The Hidden Emotion Model (Part 5)

David

Thanks! David

June 21, 2017 by Dr. Burns

Cool Video for You!

Here is a cool short video promoting my upcoming summer intensives from two highly esteemed colleagues, Jill Levitt, PhD, who is the Director of Training at the Feeling Good Institute in Mt. View, California, and Taylor Chesney, Ph.D., who is he Director of Training at the Feeling Good Institute in New York City.

This year, I am actually offering two four-day summer intensives for mental health professionals. One will be in beautiful Banff, Canada and the other will be in Burlingame, California. The only difference is that the Burlingame intensive will include two dynamic evening sessions, featuring live personal work, whereas the conference in Banff will feature optional hiking with David each evening.

The intensives are almost always the most effective and rewarding training conferences of the year. Here are the details:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Four-Day Intensive Training

July 17 – 20, Banff, Canada

For more information, click here

Phone: 604.924.0296 Toll-free: 1.800.456.5424

High Speed, Drug Free Treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders–

A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive

July 31 – August 3, Burlingame, California

For more information, click here

phone: 800-258-8411

All the best,

David

Thanks! David

June 19, 2017 by Dr. Burns

Summer Intensives Coming Soon!

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Four-Day Intensive Training

July 17 – 20, Banff, Canada

For more information, click here

Phone: 604.924.0296 Toll-free: 1.800.456.5424

High Speed, Drug Free Treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders–

A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive

July 31 – August 3, Burlingame, California

For more information, click here

phone: 800-258-8411

All the best,

David

Thanks! David

June 19, 2017 by Dr. Burns

042: Shame-Attacking Exercises

Making a Fool of Yourself — On Purpose!

In this podcast, David and Fabrice discuss a mind-blowing technique developed by the late Dr. Albert Ellis to help individuals struggling with shyness. It’s called Shame-Attacking Exercises. Essentially, you do something bizarre in public to overcome your fear of making a fool of yourself; and you will probably discover that the world doesn’t come to end. When used skillfully, this method can be incredibly liberating.

However, there are several ethical considerations. First, before therapists can ask their patients to do Shame Attacking Exercises, therapists have to do Shame-Attacking Exercises themselves! David explains his first, terrifying Shame-Attacking Exercise in a Chinese restaurant in New York after giving a talk at a workshop sponsored by Dr. Ellis.

In addition, therapists have to be careful in the way they use Shame Attacking Exercises, and who they use them with. You have to have an excellent therapeutic alliance with your patient, and the patient has to trust you. In addition, the exercises have to be in an appropriate location—for example, it would be disrespectful to do them in a hospital. And you have to be careful that the Shame Attacking Exercises is not aggressive or frightening to other people.

He also describes how Shame-Attacking Exercises helped a man and a woman he treated who were both afraid to flirt with people they were attracted to, and in both cases, he had to push fairly hard since the patients put up stiff resistance to the idea.

TEAM-CBT includes many powerful techniques, and while they have the potential to bring about rapid and often fantastic change, they also have the potential to hurt if not used skillfully and appropriately. Any listeners who are interested in using these techniques should first consult with a mental health professional to make sure the techniques are appropriate and likely to be helpful to you.

All that being said, you will (we hope) LOVE this podcast!

In upcoming podcasts, David and Fabrice will address questions on OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) submitted by several listeners. Is OCD an organic illness? Are drugs necessary in the treatment? What’s the prognosis? David will describe powerful, drug-free treatment methods based on the four models he uses to treat all anxiety disorders: the Motivational, Cognitive, Exposure, and Hidden Emotion Models.