Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy

David describes the three assumptions of the Interpersonal TEAM Therapy: We cause the very relationship problems we are complaining about , but don't realize this, so we blame the other person and feel like victims of his or her"badness." David describes a man who endlessly complained about his wife during therapy sessions--she didn't like having sex with him, she spend money behind his back, and...

First in a series of podcasts on how to transform troubled relationships into loving ones—if that's what you want to do! David begins with the story of how he got into working with troubled couples as well as individuals with troubled relationships shortly after his first book, Feeling Good , was published. Because cognitive therapy was beginning to generate excitement worldwide as the first drug-...

A listener named Benjamin asks about procrastination. He wrote: "The live therapy with Marilyn was very interesting - like other listeners, I was impressed by her character and strength. "Towards the end of this most recent podcast, you were musing on what topics to cover in future podcasts. I would love to hear about how you treat people suffering from chronic laziness ("Do Nothingism"). In parti...

The responses to the Marilyn session were extremely positive. At the start of the podcast, Fabrice reads a response from a listener who was moved and inspired by the work Marilyn did. David and Fabrice discuss two questions commonly raised by people who have seen David's live demonstrations with individuals experiencing severe depression and anxiety. Since the change in Marilyn's scores were so fa...

Crushing Negative Thoughts In this third and final podcast featuring live therapy with Marilyn, David and Matt move on to the M = Methods phase of the session along, and encourage Marilyn to challenge the Automatic Negative thoughts on her Daily Mood Log using techniques such as Identify the Distortions, the Paradoxical Double Standard Technique, the Externalization of Voices, and Acceptance Parad...

The Hidden Side of Depression, Anxiety, Defectiveness, Hopelessness and Rage We nearly always think about negative feelings, such as moderate or severe depression, as problems that an expert must try to fix, using drugs and / or psychotherapy. There are a multitude of theories about why humans become depressed, including, but not limited to: We get depressed because reality sucks. We believe our m...

The Dark Night of the Soul (Part 1) The first live therapy podcasts with Mark (the man who felt like a failure as a father: podcasts 29 – 35) were enormously popular, and many people have asked for more. David and Fabrice were delighted with your responses, so the next three podcasts will feature a therapy session with Marilyn by David and his highly-esteemed colleague and co-therapist, Dr. Matthe...

A reader ask how to handle relapses following recovery from depression. David emphasizes the importance of this question, since there is a 100% probably that every patient will relapse following recovery. And if the patient has not been properly prepared, the relapses can be disastrous. But on the other hand, if the patient has been prepared, the relapses do not have to be problematic. What is a r...

The title of David's TEAM-CBT eBook for therapists is Tools, Not Schools, of Therapy . David explains that the field of psychotherapy is dominated by numerous schools of therapy that compete like religions, or even cults, each claiming to have the answer to emotional suffering. So you've got the psychodynamic school, and the psychoanalytic school, the Adlerian school, the Beckian cognitive therapy...

The Beatles tell us that all we need really need is love, and in her famous song, "People," Barbara Streisand proclaims that "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." But is this really true? Fabrice asks David whether love is a human need? David describes hearing Dr. Aaron Beck proclaim that love is not an adult human need, and feeling shocked, during one of Dr. Beck's cognit...

Fabrice begins with another question on OCD—if you successfully extinguish the symptoms with Exposure and Response prevention, would they just resurface in some other form, such as worrying, or some other anxiety disorder. David agrees, and describes the solution to this problem. Then David describes his treatment of a pregnant woman with OCD who was afraid her baby would be switched at the hospit...

David describes his treatment of a physician with OCD who was tortured by the fear that he would impulsively throw his newborn baby over the railing of his second-floor apartment. He also describes a psychologist with OCD who washed her hands more than 50 times a day for fear of contamination. In addition, she spent hours every day making sure that nothing in her house was arranged in groups of th...

Listeners submitted questions on OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder): Is it an organic illness? Are drugs necessary in the treatment? What's the best book to read if you want to heal yourself? What's the prognosis? Drs. Nye and Burns begin by explaining OCD and answering the questions. David emphasizes the importance of using four treatment models when working with OCD—the cognitive model, the mot...

The late Dr. Albert Ellis developed a technique 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 co...

The third uncovering technique is called the "What-If" Technique, developed by the late Dr. Albert Ellis. The What-If Technique can will help you identify a terrifying fantasy under the surface that fuels your fears. David brings this technique to life with an inspiring story of a woman from San Francisco suffering from more than 10 years of mild depression and paralyzing Agoraphobia—the intense f...

The Roles and the Rules—Psychoanalysis at Warp Speed! Most of us run into conflicts with other people from time to time, or even frequently. In this podcast, you will discover precisely why this happens, and how you to change the beliefs that get you into trouble, if that's what you want to do. Psychoanalysts sometimes help people discover what they call "core conflicts." According to the highly r...

What are the root causes of depression? Anxiety? Relationship problems? In this, and the next two podcasts, you will discover the answer! Cognitive Therapists believe that negative thoughts, or cognitions, can exist on two different levels. When you're upset, you'll have Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANTs) in the here and now, and they'll usually be something like this: Depression : You may be tell...

A listener named Daisy describes her despair at being unable to have a baby, despite intensive efforts at a fertility clinic. She gets well-meaning messages from friends, family and support groups that she really needs a baby in order to feel truly happy and fulfilled, and these messages make her feel anxious and depressed. But she wonders whether this is really true. Does she really need a baby t...

"My problems are real! The world really IS screwed up! And that's not a distortion. So what can I do about my severe depression and anxiety?" David and Fabrice discuss two questions submitted by Feeling Good Podcast listeners. #1. Shari writes: "I read your book Feeling Good and now I am reading your book When Panic Attacks --thanks to April's podcast with you. I still struggle but recently our cu...

A blog reader made a fairly strong and impassioned comment that sometimes asking the patient to examine ways she or he may be contributing to the problem may be a mistake when the patient really IS a victim, and cautioned against blaming the victim. David's goal is never to blame patients, but rather to empower you. David and Fabrice begin by discussing the fact that sometimes people vacillate bet...

This is the last live therapy podcast with Mark, the physician who was convinced he was a failure as a father because of his difficulties forming a close, loving relationship with his oldest son. Although the session appeared to go well, we can't be sure until we see Mark's end of session mood ratings on the Daily Mood Log and on the Brief Mood Survey and and Evaluation of Therapy Session. David e...

Using the Externalization of Voices, which is arguably the most powerful Cognitive Therapy technique ever created, David & Jill continue encouraging mark to challenge his negative thoughts. The goal of the Externalization of Voices is to create genuine and lasting change at the gut level. Although it is one of the first cognitive Therapy techniques Dr. Burns created, it is rarely used by cognitive...

David and Jill begin using M = Methods to challenge the Negative Thought Mark wants to work on first: "There must be something defective in my brain that prevents me from forming a loving relationship with my oldest son." You may recall that Mark believed this thought 90%. Do you know what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for feeling emotionally upset? The necessary condition is that yo...

Jill and David encourage Mark to develop his list of positives. Mark draws a blank at first. This is very common among patients and therapists alike. Most of us have not been trained to think about depression, anxiety, shame, defectiveness, hopelessness and anger as being good or positive. In fact, we think of them as symptoms of "mental disorders," according to the DSM ( Diagnostic and Statistica...

In the early days of my career, I (Dr. Burns) would have assumed that Mark definitely wanted to change--after all, he'd been in a lot of pain for a long time, and he came to the session because he wanted help. So, following the empathy phase of the session, I would have jumped in with a variety of cognitive therapy techniques to help Mark challenge his Negative Thoughts, such as "I've been a failu...