I just received an awesome article on antidepressants that my esteemed colleague, Professor Mark Noble, from the University of Rochester, sent to me. The authors seem to conclude that these drugs should not be prescribed for individuals struggling with depression! Although I have been leaning more and more strongly in this direction for decades, it is refreshing to see that some of the world’s top scientists have come to the same conclusion.
Check it out! Troubling, for sure, but super-important.
If you are interested in learning some powerful, drug-free treatment methods for depression and all of the anxiety disorders, my November 3 – 7 Atlanta intensive may be of interest to you. The intensives are the best psychotherapy training that I offer, and are tremendous opportunities for personal healing as well!
The intensive will feature powerful new TEAM-CBT techniques presented in a step-by-step way, with opportunities for small group practice with immediate feedback and mentoring from me and a number of expert helpers, as well as dramatic videos and live demonstrations. You will work super hard, with two evening sessions in addition to the four day sessions, and you will emerge exhausted, but hopefully filled with joy, many new skills and insights, and a much deeper understanding of the sudden, dramatic and lasting changes that can happen in effective treatment–even WITHOUT drugs or lengthy treatment.
I know you’ll learn a lot and laugh a lot, too, and I have no doubt we’ll shed some tears together, too. Many people have felt the intensives are among the most rewarding training experiences they’ve experienced. So I hope YOU can join us in Atlanta!
This will be my first East Coast Intensive in more than 25 years. l don’t travel to the east coast for teaching very often any more, as I just turned 77. But I’ve still got tons of energy and I still LOVE teaching, so I hope you can join us! David (AKA the elderly one)
* * *
Participant Feedback from this year’s San Francisco Summer Intensive. I will be presenting the same program in Atlanta.
Awesome
The intervention on anxiety was so inspiring. Very powerful . . . a healing and amazing experience!
I loved the Stage Fright demonstration. The stage was full of such beautiful people. I love your spontaneity, David, normalizing it with your nightmarish experience. Yeah! Celebrate!
Such a safe environment. Vicarious healing. Awesome!
Superb at all levels. Dr. Burns’ brilliance shines through even in the difficult moments.
The unplanned and spontaneous anxiety (fear of public speaking) group was a real WOW!
It was beautiful!
It was Fantastic to see all the people with public speaking anxiety get up on stage. Fantastic! They looked at the fear monster in the face and realized it has no teeth!!
The Externalization of Voices role-play was awesome.
Love the sensibility of joyous failure!
Fantastic training!
Amazing!
David’s integration of philosophy and spirituality into the TEAM-CBT model—absolutely brilliant! An amazing experience!
Today was very emotional for me. I didn’t have the courage to get up on stage and speak about my public speaking anxiety, but it was a wonder to watch the other participants share their own struggles. It brought tears to my eyes. Wonderful!
During the practice with the Externalization of Voices, I experienced a shift that I did not think would be possible.
Demos, role-plays. Helpers were fantastic, supportive. I learned a lot. Lots of tears. Facing my demons. Thank you, Dr. Burns!
I think these ideas are light years better than most things that typically happen in therapy! Very motivating!
We saw healing happen before our very eyes!
Wow, fabulous! To go through the whole exercise was rewarding. The helpers were awesome. Thank you, Dr. Burns, for your awesomeness and helpful, brilliant mind.
WOW WOW WOW! No words needed. AMAZING! Thank you for this experience!
Thrilling!
Superb!! Thank you, Dr. Burns!
Our helper was awesome. Loved the night session! A+!
In today’s podcast, Rhonda and I are super-pleased to interview Kyle Jones again. For some time now, Kyle has been telling me that he wants to talk about his psychotherapy training experiences on a podcast. This subject is near and dear to my heart, since I do a great deal of training, so Rhonda and I decided to do this second interview with Kyle, and it’s a good one, I think! You may recall our recent interview with Kyle on his interesting research and perspective on the treatment of LGBTQ individuals several weeks ago.
Kyle is a brilliant and super-friendly 5th year graduate student in clinical psychology at Palo Alto University, and has been a member of my Tuesday evening psychotherapy training group at Stanford for the past four years as well. Kyle now sees patients at the Feeling Good Institute in Mt. View, California. He has also been promoted to small group leader in our Tuesday group, and does superb work as a teacher.
During today’s interview, Kyle, Rhonda and I focus on many critically important training and treatment issues. Kyle states that he has been exposed to many fine teachers promoting a wide variety of popular treatment “packages” at the Palo Alto University and at his practicum sites, including traditional CBT, ACT, EMDR, psychodynamic therapy, and more. However, in all cases, the therapist was encouraged to “sell” this or that approach to the patient. Unfortunately, this has a tendency to trigger resistance, and is the main cause of therapeutic failure in clinical settings as well as controlled outcome studies as well.
Paradoxical Agenda Setting, which is the secret spice of TEAM Therapy, was never mentioned in his training at Palo Alto University. When you do Paradoxical Agenda Setting, you bring the patient’s subconscious resistance to conscious awareness, and then you melt it away with a variety of innovative techniques like the Magic Button, Positive Reframing, Magic Dial, Acid Test, Gentle Ultimatum and more. The rapid reduction the patient’s resistance often leads to the high-speed, mind-boggling recoveries we frequently see in TEAM-CBT.
Kyle emphasized that he has not see a single teacher or therapist even use the simple Invitation Step in therapy, in spite of the fact that it is so incredibly basic. Essentially, after empathizing with your patient, you ask if there is something she or he wants help with during the session, or if the patient needs more time to talk and get support. Most therapists wrongly believe that this question is unnecessary since the patient is coming to therapy, so he or she MUST want help.
But in fact, nearly ALL patients have some degree of ambivalence about recovery, and if this ambivalence is ignored, the patient may, and probably will, resist the therapist’s efforts to “help.” Rhonda enthusiastically agrees that the Invitation Step is incredibly powerful and admits that it took her several years to “get it,” and that she also resisted using the Invitation Step it at first, thinking it wasn’t needed. But she failed her Level 3 Certification Exam in TEAM-CBT because she didn’t know how to do it! Once she began using it, her practiced changed dramatically. And then she easily passed her exam with flying colors!
Intense therapist resistance to these new techniques is extremely common. I once supervised a clinical psychology post-doctoral fellow at Stanford who resisted using the Invitation Step with her patients for the first two months of our supervision. All she did was schmooze with her patients.
Finally, I asked her why she wasn’t using the Invitation Step. She told me she was afraid her patients would say, “Yes, I DO want some help with problem X, Y or Z.” And then she might not know how to help them solve whatever problem they had! She said, “As long as I just schmooze with my patients, I know that nothing will change, but they’ll think it’s good therapy!” Fortunately, after we discussed this dilemma, she began using the Invitation Step, along with many other Paradoxical Agenda Setting techniques, and her clinical work improved a ;pt.
Kyle also emphasizes the incredible value of the Brief Mood Survey and Evaluation of Therapy Session with every patient at every session, and yet most teachers and therapists in his graduate program, as well as those at his practicum sites, are not using these instruments. I think this is arguably an ethics violation, since therapists’ perceptions of how their patients feel can be wildly inaccurate. I predict that within ten years, all therapists will be required by licensing agencies and insurers to use these kinds of assessment instruments.
The importance of assessment instruments in clinical work and training was underscored by my experience several days ago with a patient who gave me incredibly poor grades on empathy as well as helpfulness at the end of a free, two-hour phone session. I had sensed the session had not gone especially well, but I didn’t realize just how awful it was until I saw my ratings! The scores on Empathy and Helpfulness were among the worst I’ve received in the past 25 years.
This was illuminating, but disturbing, as I’d been trying my best but I had clearly failed my patient in a big way, and he was ticked off! I would not have known just how angry and upset he was if I had not been using the Evaluation of Therapy Session.
I had a fairly sleepless night, and emailed him the first thing in the morning to find out what emotions I’d overlooked, and urged him to express his angry feelings toward me. This led to a tremendous and highly gratifying therapeutic breakthrough.
Kyle was generous in his praise for the training we do in our Tuesday group, and I feel extremely fortunate to have had the chance to work with Kyle! I am hopeful that the training methods my colleagues and I have been developing over the past 20 years will begin to catch on, but have to admit that I’ve run into fairly strong resistance from many therapists who fight and oppose our new training and treatment methods.
By the way, the Tuesday group is totally free for all clinicians in the San Francisco Bay Area, or from anywhere for that matter. We’ve had commuters and visitors from as far as Denver, Portland, and even China. If you want to dramatically improve your therapy skills, and have an interest in some of the new treatment and training methods we’re using, and want free personal work as well, this might be an option for you, and we’d be really happy to have you visit and maybe even join us!
David, Rhonda, and Kyle
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. Today’s featured photo of Kyle Jones is courtesy of Nancy Mueller–www.nancymuellerphotography.com.
If you like our jingle music and would like to support the composer Brett Van Donsel, you may download it here.
* * *
You may have missed the Calgary and South San Francisco intensives, but there will be two more awesome workshops
for you this fall.
High-Speed Treatment of Depression
and Anxiety Disorders
A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive
November 4 – 7, 2019
The Atlanta, Georgia Intensive
I also have a tremendous one-day workshop scheduled with my colleague, Dr. Jill Levitt, that will be potentially life- and career-changing (really!) You will learn powerful skills that will boost your clinical effectiveness and improve your relationships with friends, colleagues, and loved ones.
Advanced Empathy Tools for Connecting
with Challenging Patients,
Colleagues, Friends, and Loved Ones
With Drs. David Burns and Jill Levitt
Oct 6, 2019 | 7 CE hours, $135
Do you have a patient, colleague, friend or loved one who:
Complains endlessly but doesn’t listen to any of your good advice?
Appears irate, but insists s/he isn’t upset?
Refuses to express his / her feelings?
Never listens?
Argues, and always has to be right?
Always has to be in control?
Is relentlessly critical?
“Yes-but’s” when you try to make a point?
Insists you don’t really care—or understand—when you think you do?
Then you’re going to LOVE this workshop with David and Jill. You’ll learn about–
The Powerful “Law of Opposites”
How to find out how your patients really feel about you–if you dare!
How to transform therapeutic failure into success
How to talk to people who refuse to talk to you
You’ll also learn–
Why your worst therapeutic failure is actually your greatest success in disguise
The fine points of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication
Three Advanced Empathy Techniques: Multiple Choice Empathy, Changing the Focus, and Positive Reframing
And more
There will be lots of small group practice with expert feedback and mentoring to help you refine your skills!
Attend in person or from your home via Live Streaming
Sign up early because we always sell-out for the in-person seats. Of course, there will be lots of skilled trainers to help the online participants with the small group exercises, so you’ll have a great experience either way.
My one-day workshops with Dr. Levitt are usually pretty awesome! It is always an honor to teach with Jill!
David and Rhonda are joined today by David’s neighbor, friend, and hiking buddy, Dave Fribush. We thank Dave for his support of our podcasts!
We open the podcast with a wonderful email from a fan named Sushant who listened to Feeling Good Podcasts for nine hours during a rigorous hike to the “Tiger Monastery” in Bhutan. You can see Sushant and his phone, showing the podcast icon, just in front of the monastery.
Here’s his email:
Dear David,
Hope you are well. I am now on episode #104 of the podcast and your podcast and books have impacted my life in a big way. I wanted to share a picture with you that I have attached to this email. This picture was taken while trekking up to the “Tiger Monastery” in BHUTAN. It was nine hours of rigorous trekking while I thoroughly enjoyed listening to your podcasts all through the day.
Regards,
Sushant
Rhonda encourages podcast fans from around the world to send photos of yourself listening to the Feeling Good Podcast in additional unusual or exotic locations! Might be fun to see what you send to us!
Here are the questions for today’s program:
Ann asks: Loved your podcast (on the exposure model, #26)! But I do have a question – I have suffered from panic attacks for years – the past 2 years I’ve become agoraphobic and don’t want to be far away from my house. So, my phobia is now “having panic attacks.” Does that mean I just need to go out and have a bunch of panic attacks in public to get over my fear? The thought seems terrifying.
Also, I am severely claustrophobic which affects me anytime I feel trapped (elevators, small cars, traffic, tight spaces, etc.) Is there a protocol you used to treat patients with this? Just wanted to suggest perhaps a podcast on this subject, or agoraphobia, as it does affect many people worldwide.
Nathan asks: Dear David, Love your podcasts. I am currently preparing a lecture for psychology honors students here at Monash University on assessment of depression and anxiety. In your podcasts you mention that you conducted a “study on the psychiatric inpatient unit at the Stanford Hospital, in which I evaluated how accurate therapists’ perceptions of patients were after an interaction. Student researchers interviewed patients for several hours as part of a research study on psychiatric diagnosis.”
I was wondering if you could provide me with a reference to this study? I could not find a specific reference in your website and I would like to be able to highlight to student’s the results of your research.
Richard asks: I listened to your podcast on being worthwhile and found it interesting. You say all people are worthwhile. This may be true but does the whole world think this?
If a person is worthwhile but the world thinks they are not worthwhile, isn’t this almost as bad as not actually being worthwhile. Don’t we have to play by the world’s rules, however bad, instead of our own or the Platonic rules? What do you think?
Robert asks: Dear David. I am up to podcast #108. I am heading to India next month for a three-week trek and am going to download the rest onto my phone. Perhaps by the time I get back, I will be up to date!
I have never heard you mention Tom Szasz, who, as I am sure you know, was making some of the same observations about the constructs of medicalizing you make back in the 1960s and maybe even in the 50s. In particular, his criticism of the psychiatric industry giving the names of diseases or syndromes to behavioral issues was very consistent with yours.
Robert also asks: My other question is an idea for future podcasts and it is…How about critiquing the therapeutic approach we see so often on television and in the movies? For the lay audience, these are probably the source of much of what they know about therapy. And because these therapists are well-known and fictional, it would give you an opportunity to make critiques without having to criticize an actual person. And it could introduce some levity into what can often be quite heavy.
Some of the Hollywood therapists people know best are:
Judd Hirsch as the shrink in Ordinary People
Lorraine Bracco as the shrink in The Sopranos
Peter Bogdanovich as the shrink’s shrink in The Sopranos
Billy Crystal as the shrink in Analyze This!
Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting
Kelsey Grammer in Frasier
I am sure there are many others. These are the ones who quickly came to mind
I just found an article about this that might help make the case that what the public sees on TV and in the movies is not really reflective of the therapeutic process or good therapy. Here’s the link:
Burns, D., Westra, H., Trockel, M., & Fisher, A. (2012) Motivation and Changes in Depression. Cognitive Therapy and Research DOI 10.1007/s10608-012-9458-3 Published online 22 April 2012.
Hatcher, R. L., Barends, A., Hansell, J. & Gutfreund, M.J. (1995). Patients’ and therapists’ shared and unique views of the therapeutic alliance: An investigation using confirmatory factory analysis in a nested design. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 63(4), 636 – 643.
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. She is a Certified TEAM-CBT therapist and specializes in the treatment of trauma, anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. She also does forensic work in family court, but finds TEAM-CBT to be way more rewarding!
If you like our jingle music and would like to support the composer Brett Van Donsel, you may download it here.
* * *
You may have missed the Calgary and South San Francisco intensives, but there will be two more awesome workshops for you this fall.
High-Speed Treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders
A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive
November 4 – 7, 2019 The Atlanta, Georgia Intensive
I also have a tremendous one-day workshop scheduled with my colleague, Dr. Jill Levitt, that will be potentially life- and career-changing (really!) You will learn powerful skills that will boost your clinical effectiveness and improve your relationships with friends, colleagues, and loved ones.
Advanced Empathy Tools for Connecting with Challenging Patients, Colleagues, Friends, and Loved Ones
With Drs. David Burns and Jill Levitt
Oct 6, 2019 | 7 CE hours, $135
Do you have a patient, colleague, friend or loved one who:
Complains endlessly but doesn’t listen to any of your good advice?
Appears irate, but insists s/he isn’t upset?
Refuses to express his / her feelings?
Never listens?
Argues, and always has to be right?
Always has to be in control?
Is relentlessly critical?
“Yes-but’s” when you try to make a point?
Insists you don’t really care—or understand—when you think you do?
Then you’re going to LOVE this workshop with David and Jill. You’ll learn about–
The Powerful “Law of Opposites”
How to find out how your patients really feel about you–if you dare!
How to transform therapeutic failure into success
How to talk to people who refuse to talk to you
You’ll also learn–
Why your worst therapeutic failure is actually your greatest success in disguise
The fine points of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication
Three Advanced Empathy Techniques: Multiple Choice Empathy, Changing the Focus, and Positive Reframing
And more
There will be lots of small group practice with expert feedback and mentoring to help you refine your skills!
Attend in person or from your home via Live Streaming
Sign up early because we always sell-out for the in-person seats. Of course, there will be lots of skilled trainers to help the online participants with the small group exercises, so you’ll have a great experience either way.
My one-day workshops with Dr. Levitt are usually pretty awesome! It is always an honor to teach with Jill!
I believe that some of the FB Live Videos I made last year may have value for you if you are looking for self-help, and for your patients if you are a therapist. There are more videos than these, so this is just a preliminary listing. Let me know if you have some other ideas about this. I want to thank Dr. Jill Levitt and Mike Christensen for brilliant and heart-warming contributions!
I also have a tremendous one-day workshop scheduled with my colleague, Dr. Jill Levitt, that will be potentially life- and career-changing (really!) You will learn powerful skills that will boost your clinical effectiveness and improve your relationships with friends, colleagues, and loved ones.
Advanced Empathy Tools for Connecting with Challenging Patients, Colleagues, Friends, and Loved Ones
With Drs. David Burns and Jill Levitt
Oct 6, 2019 | 7 CE hours, $135
Do you have a patient, colleague, friend or loved one who:
Complains endlessly but doesn’t listen to any of your good advice?
Appears irate, but insists s/he isn’t upset?
Refuses to express his / her feelings?
Never listens?
Argues, and always has to be right?
Always has to be in control?
Is relentlessly critical?
“Yes-but’s” when you try to make a point?
Insists you don’t really care—or understand—when you think you do?
Then you’re going to LOVE this workshop with David and Jill. You’ll learn about–
The Powerful “Law of Opposites”
How to find out how your patients really feel about you–if you dare!
How to transform therapeutic failure into success
How to talk to people who refuse to talk to you
You’ll also learn–
Why your worst therapeutic failure is actually your greatest success in disguise
The fine points of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication
Three Advanced Empathy Techniques: Multiple Choice Empathy, Changing the Focus, and Positive Reframing
And more
There will be lots of small group practice with expert feedback and mentoring to help you refine your skills!
Attend in person or from your home via Live Streaming
Sign up early because we always sell-out for the in-person seats. Of course, there will be lots of skilled trainers to help the online participants with the small group exercises, so you’ll have a great experience either way.
My one-day workshops with Dr. Levitt are usually pretty awesome! It is always an honor to teach with Jill!
In today’s podcast, David and Rhonda interview Dr. Lorraine Wong, a board-certified clinical psychologist, and her patient, “Anna,” who sought treatment recently for depression, anxiety, and self-image / self-esteem issues. But first, David and Rhonda answer a question submitted by Estafonia, a “public image consultant,” who asks about the treatment of a woman who sees herself as “fat.”
Estafonia wrote:
“Hi Dr. Burns,
“I am learning TEAM, CBT and implementing your techniques to help my clients change or improve their self-perception. In most cases, your techniques have been very effective. I am very grateful to you and I will happily join your list of fans!
“My question is this—What would be the best method to change someone’s self-image? How can you help people change the idea that they are fat for example?
“I have a patient who can’t defeat the thought, ‘I am fat.’ We tried the method called Examine the Evidence,” and she has already found 20 people who see her as thin. So, the evidence clearly did not support her belief that she is fat. But this did not help.
“We also tried the method called Let’s Define Terms, and we both concluded that she is not fat. But now she tells me, ‘I know I am not fat, but I can’t stop thinking about it.’
“We also did the Downward Arrow Technique to probe her deepest fears and Self-Defeating Beliefs, but that didn’t seem to help, either, and she keeps ruminating about being fat. I would greatly appreciate your guidance on how to help her overcome that thought!
“Thanks in advance! Estefania”
Lorraine, Rhonda, David and Anna quickly diagnose the most likely cause of Estefania’s stuckness—she is trying to “help” her patient without first melting away her patient’s resistance. This is the cause of practically all therapeutic failure, and you’re not really doing TEAM-CBT if you don’t know how to eliminate the patient’s resistance.
That’s because most people are ambivalent about change. As the Jesuit mystic, Anthony DeMello, has said: “We yearn for change but cling to the familiar.” Recognizing and modifying this inherent ambivalence is the heart of A = Paradoxical Agenda Setting, but you can also think of the A as standing for “Assessment of Resistance.”
How could we melt away this woman’s ambivalence / reluctance to stop bombarding herself with the message, “I’m fat”? It is important to realize that this self-critical thought, and, in fact, all of her negative thoughts and feelings have huge advantages for her, and also indicate some really beautiful and awesome things about her and her core values.
For example, telling herself “I’m fat” may motivate her to diet, to exercise, and to make extra sure that she doesn’t get complacent and gain a tremendous amount of weight. In addition, the thought, “I’m fat,” shows that she has high standards, and her high standards have probably motivated her success in many areas of her life. For example, she probably works really hard to stay in good health and in good physical condition.
The thought, “I’m fat,” also shows that she’s humble, and on and on and on. And that’s just one negative thought. But this woman probably has many negative thoughts and feelings, like anxiety, shame, inferiority and depression, and they ALL have tremendous advantages, and they ALL reveal what is beautiful and awesome about her and her core values.
In addition, the thought may be protecting this patient from things she fears, like intimacy. As long as she tells herself, “I’m fat,” she does have to risk trying to get close, or having sex, or risking rejection. So the thought, in a way, is a form of self-love and self-protection.
Once Estafonia and her patient list all these positives, Estafonia could ask her patient, “Given all these advantages and positive qualities, maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea to stop telling yourself, ‘I’m fat.’ This thought seems to be working for you in a really positive way, and also reflects your core values.”
That’s the essence of Paradoxical Agenda Setting. We try, in a genuine way, to honor the patient’s resistance, rather than trying to sell the patient on change. This is very difficult for therapists to learn because of the compulsion to save, help, or rescue the patient.
In addition, obsessions (recurring illogical negative thoughts like “I’m fat”) frequently result from the Hidden Emotion phenomenon, and this has to be dealt with skillfully when treating any patient with anxiety. Estafonia’s patient may be upset about something she’s not dealing with in her life, and bringing the hidden problem or feelings to conscious awareness can often be incredibly helpful. For more information, see my book, When Panic Attacks, which you can order from my books page (link).
After focusing on Estafonia’s excellent question, David, Rhonda, Lorraine and Anna talk about the emotional challenges that brought Anna to treatment, including severe feelings of depression which came on when Anna returned to the United States after 13 years working abroad. She was also feeling anxious, stuck, angry, and hopeless, and was comforting herself by binging on her three favorite foods.
Anna describes previous partial treatment failures, and explains that her previous cognitive therapist had “the empathy of a prison guard,” and contrasts those experiences with her successful experience with Lorraine. In fact, Anna describes the TEAM-CBT she received at the Feeling Good Institute as “cognitive therapy on steroids.”
I (David) loved hearing that because this is how I think about TEAM-CBT, too! TEAM really is CBT on steroids! But, I’ve been too embarrassed to describe TEAM-CBT in this way, fearing it might sound crass or unprofessional.
Anna and Lorraine explain why the T = Testing and E = Empathy of TEAM were so critical to the success of the therapy. Anna says that Lorraine was, in fact, the first therapist “who really got me, and really understood me!”
Anna emphasizes the enormous importance of the A = Paradoxical Agenda Setting (aka Assessment of Resistance) as well. Lorraine helped Anna discover what was beautiful and awesome about all of her negative feelings, including severe depression, shame, anxiety, anger, loneliness, and even hopelessness. She said, “My depression and feelings of loss when I moved showed that I really care about what I do, as well as the people around me.”
Anna also said that her anger showed that she was overly nice, out of her love for people, but that she had the right to set boundaries and stick up for herself, and didn’t always have to be a people-pleaser.
The Positive Reframing proved to be a positive shock to the system, and Anna’s symptoms started to improve significantly even before starting the M = Methods phase of the TEAM-CBT treatment.
The Positive Reframing made it relatively easy for Anna to smash the negative, self-critical thoughts that triggered her depression, anxiety, shame, and hopelessness, and then they moved on to other goals, such as using the Five Secrets of Effective Communication in her interactions with colleagues and friends.
Finally, they focused on self-image issues, which brings us back to the question Estafonia had posed at the start of the podcast: How you can help patients with self-image problems and addictions to eating?
Anna explained that when she was depressed, she had gained weight because of her addiction to salami (Mmmm!), ice cream (Yummm!), and rice and beans (WOW!) Lorraine used David’s “Devil’s Advocate Technique,” to help Anna challenge the tempting thoughts that always triggered her overeating.
Rhonda and I are incredibly grateful to Lorraine (aka Dr. Wong) and “Anna” for this opportunity to bring TEAM to life in a very real and personal way. Thank you, Lorraine and Anna!
Dr. Lorraine Wong is a certified Level 4 TEAM-CBT therapist and practices at the Feeling Good Institute in Mountain View, California. She specializes in the treatment of body image concerns and emotional eating, as well as depression and anxiety, with TEAM-CBT.
Thanks for tuning in!
David and Rhonda
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. She is a Certified TEAM-CBT therapist and specializes in the treatment of trauma, anxiety, depression, and relationship problems. She also does forensic work in family court, but finds TEAM-CBT to be way more rewarding!
Here are some photos from David’s famous Sunday hikes. You can see Professor Mark Noble, a neuroscientist from the University of Rochester, in three of the photos. Dr. Noble is writing a chapter on TEAM-CBT and the brain for David’s new book, Feeling Great!
If you like our jingle music and would like to support the composer Brett Van Donsel, you may download it here.
* * *
You may have missed the Calgary and South San Francisco intensives, but there will be two more awesome workshops for you this fall.
High-Speed Treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders
A Four-Day TEAM-CBT Advanced Intensive
November 4 – 7, 2019 The Atlanta, Georgia Intensive
I also have a tremendous one-day workshop scheduled with my colleague, Dr. Jill Levitt, that will be potentially life- and career-changing (really!) You will learn powerful skills that will boost your clinical effectiveness and improve your relationships with friends, colleagues, and loved ones.
Advanced Empathy Tools for Connecting with Challenging Patients, Colleagues, Friends, and Loved Ones
With Drs. David Burns and Jill Levitt
Oct 6, 2019 | 7 CE hours, $135
Do you have a patient, colleague, friend or loved one who:
Complains endlessly but doesn’t listen to any of your good advice?
Appears irate, but insists s/he isn’t upset?
Refuses to express his / her feelings?
Never listens?
Argues, and always has to be right?
Always has to be in control?
Is relentlessly critical?
“Yes-but’s” when you try to make a point?
Insists you don’t really care—or understand—when you think you do?
Then you’re going to LOVE this workshop with David and Jill. You’ll learn about–
The Powerful “Law of Opposites”
How to find out how your patients really feel about you–if you dare!
How to transform therapeutic failure into success
How to talk to people who refuse to talk to you
You’ll also learn–
Why your worst therapeutic failure is actually your greatest success in disguise
The fine points of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication
Three Advanced Empathy Techniques: Multiple Choice Empathy, Changing the Focus, and Positive Reframing
And more
There will be lots of small group practice with expert feedback and mentoring to help you refine your skills!
Attend in person or from your home via Live Streaming
Sign up early because we always sell-out for the in-person seats. Of course, there will be lots of skilled trainers to help the online participants with the small group exercises, so you’ll have a great experience either way.
My one-day workshops with Dr. Levitt are usually pretty awesome! It is always an honor to teach with Jill!
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
