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I thought of you when I read this quote from “Feeling Great: The Revolutionary New Treatment for Depression and Anxiety” by David D. Burns –

“At the start of the session, I listened and provided empathy while Maria described how rough the last couple of months had been for her. Although empathy is rarely ever curative, it is important to create trust and bonding. Then I asked Maria if she wanted some help with her negative thoughts and feelings and if this would be a good time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. She said she did want help and was ready to get started. Next I asked Maria the miracle cure question: If a miracle happened in today’s session, what miracle would she be hoping for? She said she wanted her negative thoughts and feelings to disappear so she could enjoy her baby daughter and her role as a new mother without feeling miserable all the time. I asked her to imagine that we had a magic button and that if she pushed it, all of her negative thoughts and feelings would instantly disappear, with no effort at all, and she’d immediately feel joyous, even euphoric. Would she push the button? Maria said she’d definitely push the button. Almost everyone says that!”

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I thought of you when I read this quote from “Feeling Great: The Revolutionary New Treatment for Depression and Anxiety” by David D. Burns –

“POSITIVE REFRAMING

What I’ve shown you so far—how to identify the distortions in your negative thoughts—is powerful and exciting, but it’s not new. What is new is this: Your negative thoughts and feelings are not, in fact, the result of what’s wrong with you (as the American Psychiatric Association would have us believe) but what’s right with you. In the DSM-5, various forms of human suffering, such as unhappiness, worrying, or shyness, are transformed into a series of “mental disorders” with names like major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and social anxiety disorder. This classification system creates the impression that if you’re feeling depressed or anxious, you’re defective in some way and need fixing. In fact, your doctor may even tell you that you have a “chemical imbalance” in your brain and that you need medication to try to correct the imbalance.* But what if Maria’s suffering—and your suffering as well—was not the result of what’s wrong with you but what’s right with you? What if your depression and anxiety were the expression of what’s positive and beautiful about you rather than what’s negative and broken about you? Then you could be proud of your negative feelings instead of feeling ashamed of them. That would be quite a switch, wouldn’t it? And here’s the really cool thing: The moment you see the positive side of your negative thoughts and feelings, you suddenly won’t need them anymore, and your recovery will be just a stone’s throw away. In fact, many people recover really fast! How fast? I’m talking minutes, as opposed to months or years of traditional talk therapy or treatment with antidepressant medications.”

Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/jiuchXv

I thought of you when I read this quote from “Feeling Great: The Revolutionary New Treatment for Depression and Anxiety” by David D. Burns –

“I’m not arguing that every time you think you’ve failed, you’re fooling yourself. We all have our share of real failures and setbacks. I know for sure that I do. I’ve actually had the opposite experience at times as well—workshops that I thought were fantastic when I got slammed in the evaluations. And that can be pretty painful. What I am saying is that your feelings will result from your thoughts and not from what actually happened. And when you’re feeling depressed and anxious, your thoughts will almost always be negative and distorted. But here’s the good news, which I’m repeating: When you CHANGE the way you THINK, you can CHANGE the way you FEEL. And this can happen really fast.”

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I thought of you when I read this quote from “Feeling Great: The Revolutionary New Treatment for Depression and Anxiety” by David D. Burns –

“Cognition is just a fancy word for a thought. It’s the way you think about what’s happening. Right now, you’re probably having some thoughts about me and what you’re reading, and possibly some thoughts about yourself as well. Your thoughts create your feelings every minute of every day.” [1]

“Do you see what I mean? Everyone reading this book is reading the exact same words, but how they feel about this book can differ greatly. Your feelings result entirely from how you’re thinking right now. It is your thoughts, and not the circumstances of your life, that create all of your feelings. You FEEL the way you THINK. Sometimes, though, we think about ourselves and our lives in ways that are pretty illogical and even unfair to ourselves. We make interpretations about what’s happening that are twisted and misleading, but we don’t realize it. That is what cognitive distortions are: a highly misleading way of thinking about yourself and the world. It’s a way of fooling yourself. And when you feel depressed and anxious, you will nearly always be fooling yourself. This means that your negative thoughts do not reflect reality. Depression and anxiety are the world’s oldest cons.” [2]

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I thought of you when I read this quote from “Feeling Great: The Revolutionary New Treatment for Depression and Anxiety” by David D. Burns –

“The TEAM approach evolved from my clinical experience and research on how psychotherapy actually works. It preserves all the best elements of CBT described in my first book, but it works much faster. Here’s what the letters stand for:

T = Testing: My colleagues and I test our patients’ symptoms at the start and end of every therapy session to find out exactly how much they’ve improved or failed to improve.

E = Empathy: At the start of the session, we listen and try to form a warm, compassionate relationship with each patient without trying to rescue him or her.

A = Assessment of Resistance: We bring each patient’s resistance to change to conscious awareness and melt it away before trying to help the patient. When the resistance has vanished, the patient is usually super motivated. This allows us to work together as a fantastic TEAM.*

M = Methods: We show patients how to rapidly convert feelings of depression and anxiety into joy.”

Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/jkUrxv5