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

David Burns, MD

This podcast features David D. Burns MD, author of "Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy," describing powerful new techniques to overcome depression and anxiety and develop greater joy and self-esteem. For therapists and the general public alike!

#4 in the Top 100 anxiety All time chart

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Top 10 Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

320 Help I'm Having Panic Attacks pt 1 of 2

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

11/28/22 • 57 min

When the Hidden Emotion isn't Hidden! Today’s podcast will feature a live therapy session on September 13, 2022 with Keren Shemesh, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and certified TEAM-CBT therapist. The entire session was recorded and will be presented in two consecutive podcasts. The two co-therapists are Jill Levitt, PhD, a clinical psychologist, and Director of Clinical Training at the FeelingGoodInsititute.com. Part 1 of the Keren session I will summarize the work that Dr. Jill Levitt and I did with Keren according to the familiar sequence of a TEAM-CBT Session: T = Testing, E = Empathy, A = Assessment of Resistance (formerly Paradoxical Agenda Setting), and M = Methods, with a final round of T = end-of-session Testing. In today’s podcast, we will include the T, E, and A. In Part 2, we will include M = Methods and the final T = Testing. T = Testing Just before the start of the session, Keren completed the Brief Mood Survey (BMS) which you can review at this link: Keren's Pre-Session BMS As you can see, her depression score was only 3 out of 20, indicating minimal to mild depression. There were no suicidal thoughts, and her anxiety score was 10 out of 20, indicating moderate anxiety. She was also moderately angry (7 out of 20) and her happiness score was 10 out of 20, indicating very little happiness. Her relationship satisfaction level with her mother was 19 out of 30, indicating lots of room for improvement. However, she rated “degree of affection and caring” at 6 for “very satisfied,” which is the highest rating on this important item. We will ask her to take the BMS again at the end of the session, along with the Evaluation of Therapy Session, so we can see what the impact of the session was on her symptoms, as well as how empathic and helpful we were during the session. These ratings will be important, because the perceptions of therapists can be way off base, but the perceptions of our patients will nearly always be spot-on. Keren also brought a partially completed Daily Mood Log, which you can see at this link: Keren's Daily Mood Log (DML) at the start of the session As you can see, the upsetting event was her mother’s visit from Israel. She had moderately to severely elevated negative feelings in nine categories, along with 17 negative thoughts, along with her rather strong beliefs in all of them. Most of her thoughts were of a self-critical nature, with lots of Hidden Should Statements as well. E = Empathy At the start of our session, which took place in front of our Tuesday evening training group at Stanford, Keren described her struggles like this: On Wednesday I woke up at 3 AM with panic attacks, one after another, and no way of getting back to sleep. I get somatic symptoms, I felt weak, nauseated, with no strength, almost paralyzed, and emotionally unstable. This was four days after my mother arrived form Israel. In the last 20 years, she and my dad visited me only once, on my graduation. I always had to visit them in Israel every year and was frustrated they none came to visit me in the Bat Area. On my last visit in May, I expressed my frustration about them not visiting me. They took it to heart and made plans to come for the Jewish high Holidays. My mom arrived first a few days ago and It’s my first time alone with her. She’s a Jewish mom and she stresses me out. Of course, I was really excited when she first arrived, but after four days I feel overwhelmed. This is SO MUCH WORK! I feel sad. I’m afraid I won’t be able to function. I just cannot seem to enjoy my time with her. I feel fragile, but I’m hiding it. She’s 73, and the signs of aging are obvious now. She needs more care, and it’s tough to see her aging. Dad has always been super athletic, and he’s in great shape, but she doesn’t exercise or take care of herself. She’s frustrated about aging and is angry with us for not accepting her as she is. I don’t want to seem unhappy. I’m overwhelmed and just feel bad! David and Jill empathized, and Jill emphasized how much her parents must love her, coming from such a great distance to be with her, but also acknowledged how hard it must be for them and for Keren to be living at such a great distance. Jill pointed out that one of the issues Keren may be struggling with is the belief that their time together should be fun and conflict-free, since the time is so precious. Keren continued: My biggest problem is that I feel I cannot be me when I’m around them . . . . They want me to be a different version of myself. . . . They want me to be a mother, and they want grandchildren. But I’m in the 5% of women who don’t have any interest in having children. I’m 46 years old now, and I guess I could see myself adopting, but having a family is a big job, and I’ve never had the passion. So, I feel like I’m a disappointment to th...

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264: How to Get Laid! (With a Little Help from the Five Secrets of Effective Communication)

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

10/18/21 • 69 min

How to Get Laid! (With a Little Help from the Five Secrets of Effective Communication)

One of our top TEAM-CBT teachers and therapists, Thai-An Truong, LPC, LADC from Oklahoma City, is featured in today’s podcast. Thai-An is the owner of Lasting Change Therapy, LLC, a TEAM-CBT group practice in Oklahoma that focuses on using TEAM-CBT to help women overcome depression, anxiety, and relationship problems, so they can live happier lives and have more satisfying relationships. She is passionate about working with postpartum women after overcoming her own personal struggles with postpartum depression and anxiety. She is also passionate about spreading TEAM-CBT and training therapists in this awesome treatment approach.

Thai-An suggested a podcast on how one could use the Five Secrets of Effective Communication to deal with critical comments from your spouse or partner during marital conflicts. She submitted specific examples from several troubled couples she has worked with, and Rhonda submitted an example as well.

Wife continues to bring up things that needs to be addressed, e.g., baby's medical needs, how he needs to set boundaries with his mom, precautions to take because of the pandemic.

Husband says: "All you do is talk about stressful things. You don't even care about being romantic anymore."

Wife’s typical response: "How can I be romantic with you when you aren't doing what you need to for our family?"

Sex often comes up with every couple, and the criticism is typically from the husband, as in the first couple and this second couple as well.

Husband says: "You never want to have sex. It's like we're roommates instead of husband and wife."

Wife’s typical response: "I'm tired, and I can't just get in the mood when you haven't been nice to me all day."

This couple had been trying unsuccessfully to have a baby.

The wife was very critical of her husband and said: “If it wasn’t for you, I’d have a baby. I should have married someone else."

Husband’s response: He said nothing and walked away.

Infidelity: In this couple, the wife had an affair three years ago and the husband continues to bring it up when they get into arguments.

Husband says: "Oh, you say I'm so bad because I did x. How about you cheating on me? You're the one who did the worst possible thing, and I can never trust you again."

Her typical response: "It's been 3 years, why can't you just let it go so we can move on with our lives? I'm tired of you throwing this shit in my face all the time."

During the podcast, we critiqued the responses to the criticisms in these four cases, using the EAR algorithm. It was easy to point out that the responses of the partner who was criticized typically failed in all three categories:

No effective E = Empathy.
No effective A = Assertiveness.
No effective R = Respect.

We also spelled out the consequences of these responses to criticism, and showed how the respondents were actually forcing their spouses to treat them in exactly the way they were complaining about.

Then we used the “Intimacy Exercise” to practice more effective responses, based on the Five Secrets. This is, by far, the best way to learn the Five Secrets.

Your Turn to Practice

Now, here’s another example that Thai-An provided, and you, the listener, can practice with it. This wife was talking about how her friend had hurt her feelings. The husband typically goes into the advice-giving and problem-solving mode.

Her criticism: "You suck at listening. I don't need you to fix it."

His typical response: "I'm just trying to help."

First, see if you can explain why the husband’s response was ineffective, using the EAR acronym.

Ask yourself:

Did he use E = Empathy and acknowledge how she was thinking and feeling?
Did he use A = Assertiveness and express how he was feeling at that moment?
Did he use R = Respect to convey some warmth, respect, or love during the heat of battle?

Next, ask yourself about the consequences of his response. What will his wife think? What will she conclude? How will she feel? How will she likely respond to his defensiveness?

Finally, put yourself in his shoes and see if you can write out a more effective response, using the Five Secrets of Effective Communication

Thanks!

Rhonda, Thai-An, and David

2 Listeners

301: Why am I like this? Live Work with Nazli! Part 1 of 2

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

07/18/22 • 48 min

In the next two podcasts, you will hear the live therapy session that Dr. Jill Levitt and I did with Nazli, a young woman from Turkey, at our recent “David Burns Live” workshop on May 22, 2022. Nazli has been struggling with intense performance anxiety and generalized anxiety, and generously who volunteered to be a “patient.” Jill and I are very grateful for Nazli’s courage in sharing herself so courageously with all of you, and hope you enjoy the session and learn from it. Although the facts of your life are probably quite different from Nazli’s, you may be able to identify with the almost universal theme of feeling like you are not “good enough.” The ultimate antidote to this type of suffering is simple, but so basic that you may not “see it” at first, especially when it comes to your own negative thoughts and feelings. Although we all have many flaws and shortcomings, our inadequacies are rarely or never the cause of our emotional distress. Our emotional distress, in terms of anxiety, depression, inferiority, loneliness, hopelessness, and anger, nearly always results from our thoughts, and not so much from what’s actually happening in our lives. In addition, the thoughts that trigger those kinds of feelings are almost never valid. Instead, they are loaded with cognitive distortions. As you probably know very well, I have often said that depression and anxiety are the world’s oldest cons. And here’s the really good news. The very moment you change the way you THINK, you can change the way you FEEL! Sounds wonderful. But isn’t it just a little, or a lot, too good to be true? And can you really trigger real change at the gut level by changing the way you think? Let’s find out! In today’s podcast, you’ll hear the first half of Nazli’s session, including T = Testing and E = Empathy. Next week, you’ll hear the exciting conclusion of her session, including the A = Assessment of Resistance and M = Methods, followed, of course by the final of T = Testing so we can see if Nazli really changed, and if so, by how much. We’ll also see and how she rated Jill and David on Empathy, Helpfulness, and more. If you’ve followed the Feeling Good Podcasts, you know that doing live therapy to challenge your own demons is part of therapist training in TEAM-CBT This experience greatly deepens your understanding of team and allows you to give this message to your ow patients: “I know how you feel because I’ve been there myself. And it will give me great joy to show you how to CHANGE the way you FEEL, too!” I think of this personal step as the transition from technician to healer. But you cannot take this step with credibility if you haven’t yet done your own “work.” At the start of the session, Nazli explained that she’s struggled with anxiety ever since she was a child, and that’s what triggered her interest in a career as a clinical psychologist. In my experience, this is true of many if not most mental health professionals. Although the general public often have the impression that shrinks have it all together, nothing could be further from the truth. Most went into the field hoping to find a solution to their own suffering, and a great many—probably nearly all—are still searching and hoping to find a their “cure.” After completing her master’s degree in counseling 10 years ago, Nazli got a job at a counseling center, and in spite of the fact that she received consistently good feedback, she quit after 2 and 1/2 years and took a job in administration. This was because of the intense anxiety she experienced during sessions, resulting from the constant and relentless bombardment with negative thoughts that popped into her mind when treating patients. However, she still yearned to do clinical work, so she decide to go back to clinical work several years ago and has been doing therapy for patients being treated for cancer. But the negative thoughts and feelings still continued to haunt her. You can review them on the Daily Mood Log that Nazli showed us at the start of her session. As you can see, when she’s treating patients, she feels severe depression, anxiety, shame and inadequacy. She also feels humiliated, hopeless, and discouraged, along with some moderate feelings of anger and resentment. Nazli explained that she has no fear of public speaking, but said that when she’s working with a client, she constantly criticizes herself for fear of making a mistake and tell herself:

I’m not doing a good job.
This job is not for me.
Should I just quit?
My friends are at a better place in life.
I’m 38 years old and missing out on a lot.
Why am I like this?

Recently, she went to visit one of her patients, a young woman struggling with lung cancer; but when Nazli entered the room, her patient said: “I don’t want to talk to you!” Nazli said, “I was...

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310: Blowing Away Social Anxiety

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

09/19/22 • 59 min

Smashing Shyness-- Shame-Attacking and Beyond Come to our Full-Day Workshop on Sunday, October 2, 2022 For therapists and lay people alike Click here for registration and more information Today we interview our beloved Jill Levitt, PhD who will be joining me in teaching the upcoming social anxiety workshop on October 2nd. Jill is the co-leader of my weekly psychotherapy training group at Stanford, and is the co-founder and Director of Training at the Feeling Good Institute in Mountain View, California. Social anxiety was one of the most frequent problems that patients sought help for when I was in private practice in Philadelphia. Because of my own severe and persistent social anxiety since childhood, it’s my favorite problem, too. Whatever you’ve had, I can tell you that I’ve had the exact same thing, too, and know how sucky it can be. I can show you the path to freedom from that affliction, and what a joy that will be! According to the DSM5, there are at least five types of social anxiety:

Shyness
Public Speaking Anxiety
Performance Anxiety. This a broad category that can include athletic or musical performance, or any time you have to demonstrate your skills in front of people who might judge you. For example, I had a severe camera phobia since I was a child, and only got over it a couple years ago!
Test Anxiety
Shy Bladder / Bowel Syndrome

In addition, other negative feelings typically go hand-in-hand with social anxiety, such as shame and loneliness, as well as depression and feelings of inferiority and even hopelessness. This workshop will focus on therapists looking for training. However, the general public are also included, since you will get the chance to practice and work on your own fears during the workshop. I (David) have noticed that feelings of social anxiety, especially performance anxiety, are almost universal among therapists, at least judging from those who attend our weekly TEAM-CBT training group at Stanford. So, come to heal yourself AND to learn how to heal your patients and loved ones. We will be covering not one, but four treatment models for social anxiety in the workshop: 1. The motivational model: Nearly all anxious individuals resist exposure, which is a crucial part of the treatment. Most therapists also resist exposure for a variety of reasons, thinking the patient is too fragile, or the technique will be too dangerous or upsetting for their patients. This is unfortunate, since this pretty much dooms the treatment to failure, especially if you are aiming for a “cure” rather than endless talk and hand-holding. 2. The Cognitive Model. Although usually not completely curative, the Daily Mood Log is essential to treatment, so you can find out exactly what patient are thinking and feeling at one specific moment when they were feeling anxious. I present the case of Jason, a young man feeling shy and anxious while standing in line to check his groceries one Saturday morning at the local grocery store. Many cognitive techniques are incredibly important and useful in the treatment of social anxiety, including Explain the Distortions, the three types of Downward Arrow (uncovering) Techniques, the Double Standard Technique, Externalization of Voices, the Feared Fantasy, and more. Although these methods are helpful and illuminating, they will rarely or never be quite enough for a complete cure. For that you will need: 3. The Exposure Model. In the workshop, we will be teaching:

Smile and Hello Practice: In today’s podcast Jill discussed the purpose of this technique, how to introduce this technique to your patients, and how to implement it. This is an example of the many techniques we will teach on October 2. David provided a dramatic example of how this humble technique changed the life of a young man from India.
Flirting Training
Talk Show Host
Rejection Practice
Feared Fantasy: We role-played how I used this humor-based technique in my work with Jason
Self-Disclosure
Survey Technique
Shame-Attacking Exercises.

We will also explain how to use several techniques crucial to the reduction of the patient’s resistance:

Dangling the Carrot
Gentle Ultimatum
Sitting with Open Hands
Fallback Position

However, many therapists have intense resistance to making patient accountable with these techniques that are absolutely central to TEAM-CBT, thinking they are cruel or crude or narcissistic, or some such thing. In the podcast, Jill illustrates a beautiful and gentle but firm way of introducing these techniques to patients, and emphasizes that they are actually ethical, therapeutic, and necessary for a good outcome. She also emphasizes, and I totally agree, the importance of going with the patient into the real world to do the Exposu...

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321: Help I'm Having Panic Attacks pt 2 of 2

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

12/05/22 • 104 min

Yikes! Do I REALLY have to share my feelings? Last week, we featured Part 1 of a live therapy session with Keren Shemesh, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist who began having intense panic attacks when her mother and father visited from Israel. Today, we feature the exciting conclusion of that session, with follow-up. If you are interested, you can listen to the follow-up with Keren and Jill who joined us st the end of today's podcast. They comment on the session as well as the details of what happened following the session. I (David) raised the question of why so many of us have trouble being honest and open with our feelings, especially anger. Jill suggested that it might be due to the false dichotomy people see, contrasting aggression with love. But you can be honest and loving at the same time, including when you express feelings of anger. Of course, we make the Five Secrets of Effective Communication sound easy, but these powerful tools actually require an enormous level of skill as well as commitment. Part 2 of the Keren session: M = Methods We began the Methods part of the session with a bit more Paradoxical Agenda Setting, and listed some really GOOD reasons NOT to open up more to her mother.

I want to protect her because it may be hard and upsetting to her.
I’m not used to being vulnerable with my parents.
I don’t want to rock the boat or change the status quo.
I’m not sure I want a closer relationship with my mother. NOTE: David and Jill were thinking that we often resist intimacy because we have negative pictures in our mind of what real closeness is. For example, if you think it means something yucky and upsetting, you obviously won’t want to get “close.” Jill tried to finesse around this by suggesting Keren might aim for a more “honest” relationship instead of a “closer” relationship.
There are things about me that they’ve rejected, like the fact that I don’t really want children. And I’m not so sure I want to make myself vulnerable and get rejected again!
I’m afraid I’ll get swallowed up and enmeshed.

We asked Keren what kinds of feelings she was hiding from her mother.

My feelings of nervousness and intense anxiety, and the intense somatic symptoms, like the knot in my stomach.
I am scared for her future, since she is not in good health and she’s not taking care of herself.
I have feelings of anger and resentment about the fact that I’m not the kind of daughter they wanted.
I’m sad about her health and seeing her struggle.
I feel hurt when I think how I have failed them and let them down.
I sometimes feel like I don’t really belong.

At this point, I became so absorbed in the session that I stopped taking notes, so you will have to listen carefully to the recording of the session which was fascinating. I do recall, however, that we began working on communication, using the Five Secrets of Effective Communication (LINK), as well as tips on how to proceed, taking it one step at a time and not trying to do it all at once, and role playing practice. Then we did some Externalization of Voices with the thoughts on Keren’s Daily Mood Log, using several strategies: Self-Defense, the Acceptance Paradox, and the CAT, or Counter-Attack Technique. You can see the Daily Mood Log she completed after the session, based on the work we did in the session, at this LINK. Keren's end-or-session Brief Mood Survey and Evaluation of Therapy Session In addition, Keren and Jill will be with us to record the follow-up. T = End-of-Session Testing You can review Keren’s BMS and EOTS (Patient’s Evaluation of Therapy Session) at the end of the session at this LINK. Keren's end-or-session Brief Mood Survey and Evaluation of Therapy Session As you can see, her depression score fell to 1, indicating substantial improvement, while her suicidal thoughts and urges remained at 0. Her feelings of anxiety vanished, but her feelings of anger remained fairly elevated, falling from 7 to 4. We would not expect further improvement in this dimension until she’s had the chance to share more of her feelings with her mom. Her feelings of happiness only increased from 10 to 13, again any further improvement would not be expected until she’s had the chance to do her “homework” following the session. However, her satisfaction with her relationship with her mom increased from 19 to 26 out of 30, which is substantial, while still leaving some room for improvement. On the EOTs, you will see that our Empathy and Helpfulness scores were perfect, along with our scores on the Satisfaction with Session, Commitment to homework, unexpressed Negative Feelings, and honesty scales. Here’s what she like “the least” about...

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330: Dor Podcast: TEAM with TOTS

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

02/06/23 • 72 min

Integrating TEAM-CBT with Martial Arts Training! Podcast Episode 330, Featuring Dor Star Our guest today is Dor Star. Dor is an educational counselor (MA) and a level 2 TEAM practitioner who works with children in Israel who have emotional and interpersonal problem. He works with children as young as four years old, but most of his work is with children ages seven to twelve years old. The children he works with experience various challenges and difficulties such as: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), learning disabilities, tantrums, outbursts of anger, all kinds of anxieties, social difficulty, bullying and much more. His work is unique because he works mainly in small groups (4-6 participants) using martial arts and sports as therapeutic tools. In his work Dor uses the TEAM model with some adaptation, because of the children’s ages and sports methods, with great success! In fact, one can say that he discovered for himself, and for his patients, a new way to use the TEAM model. He also teaches sports and martial arts trainers who are interested in entering the field of child therapy. Dor describes his first encounter with TEAM-CBT, which blew him away, but he was initially frustrated because he was thinking of his conventional ways of dealing with kids VS TEAM. But after a few weeks he discovered that he could use the TEAM structure to improve his approach, and wow, did he ever start to shine, as did his results with TEAM. Today’s podcast was really a breath of fresh air! Dor began with T = Testing, and describes how he developed simple assessment tools to rate how his children (aged 4 to 11) were feeling at the start and end of his classes, but also how they felt about him. He uses simple questions like “Did I understand you today? How well did I listen?” He also asks them, “How much fun was the session,” and “How did you grade yourself?” Then they grade him on a scale from 0 (the worst) to 10 (the best.) So, it’s quick, easy, and . . . shocking. Dor says: “I found out that I wasn’t nearly as effective as I thought. Sometimes the kids thought the class was fun, but I got really low grades on Empathy, as well as how depressed, anxious and angry they were feeling at the start and end of each group session. Essentially, I discovered that I wasn’t achieving almost any of my goals for my kids. This was disturbing at first, and I had to let my ego die. But I decided to try to view it as valuable information that I might be able to use to learn and grow.” For example, I had one of the most amazing sessions with an 11 year who was smiling the entire time. I was absolutely certain it was one of my best sessions ever. But when I asked him for my grade, he gave me a 3 out of 10! When I asked why, he explained that at the start I didn’t introduce myself or ask him about himself! So, in this simple but compelling way, Dor has used the T = Testing to transform the entire way he works with kids! I believe he’s had the same experiences I’ve had with the T = Testing component of TEAM. Dor has made his patients his teachers, and this has led to some amazing and revolutionary developments in his approach. Dor emphasizes the importance of E = Empathy, and says that “the Five Secrets of Effective Communication” are incredible! For example, if they’re having a rage attack, or a temper tantrum, you can tell them they are absolutely right in the way they’re thinking and feeling.” He also uses what he calls the Five Ways of Love.

Verbally expressing respect and liking
Giving service: tying a child’s shoes, giving them some water during the training. These small acts can create feelings of trust and connection.
Spending time with them, paying attention to them. This is especially important because so many are angry and try to push others away. They are good at getting other people to reject them and not want to spend time with them.
Giving gifts, something they can take home and show to their parents.
Making physical contact with them during the martial arts training, playing with them, having fun.

I (David) would note that physical contact might be something to be careful with. Of course, when you are teaching martial arts, it may be perfectly justified and desirable. I came from the psychotherapy perspective, and I have been trained that ANY touching of a patient other than shaking hands at the initial and final sessions is grounds for a malpractice suit as well as an ethics charge. Dor also made some really illuminating comments on the A = Assessment of Resistance (formerly called Paradoxical Agenda Setting.) At the initial evaluation, he talks to the teachers, parents, and students. The agendas from teachers and parents are things like “he has an anger problem” or a problem paying attention in class, or whatever. However, 90% of the time, the children frequently are unaware of those agendas, or have no interest i...

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302: Why am I like this? Live Work with Nazli! Part 2 of 2

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

07/25/22 • 113 min

Today, you will hear the the second half of the live therapy session that Dr. Jill Levitt and I did with Nazli, a young woman from Turkey, at our recent “David Burns Live” workshop on May 22, 2022. Nazli has been struggling with intense performance anxiety and generalized anxiety, and generously who volunteered to be a “patient.” Jill and I are very grateful for Nazli’s courage in sharing herself so courageously with all of you, and hope you enjoy the session and learn from it. Last week, we played the first half of the therapy session, including the initial T =Testing and E = Empathy. Today, you will hear the exciting conclusion, including A = Assessment of Resistance and M = Methods, and final T = Testing. As a reminder, you can review the Daily Mood Log and Brief Mood Survey (BMS) that Nazli filled out at the start of the session. Part 2 of the Nazli Session: A = Assessment of Resistance and M = Methods After a period of empathizing, Nazli gave Jill and David an A in Empathy, so we moved on to the Assessment of Resistance portion of the session. This often involves the following steps:

Invitation Step
Miracle Cure Question
Magic Button
Positive Reframing
Pivot Question
Magic Dial

Jill issued a Straightforward Invitation, asking Nazli if she was ready to get down to work, or if she needed more time to vent. She said she was ready to go to work, so Jill asked what changes she was hoping for during the session. This is the so-called “Miracle Cure Question.” This helps to focus the session on something specific. Nazli said that her hope was to reduce or eliminate the negative thoughts and feelings that were making her clinical work so stressful. And like nearly everyone, she said she’d eagerly press the Magic Button. Then Jill and David pointed out that although we didn’t have a Magic Button, we did have some powerful techniques that could help, but it might not be the best idea to use them. That’s because there might be some positives hidden in her negative thoughts and feelings, and perhaps we should first take a look. David and Jill asked Nazli these three questions: 1. Given your circumstances, why might this negative thought or feeling be totally appropriate and understandable? 2. What are some benefits, or advantages of this negative thought or feeling? 3. What does this negative thought or feeling show about you and your core values that’s positive, beautiful, or even awesome? This technique is called Positive Reframing. The goal of Positive Reframing is to reduce the patient’s subconscious resistance to change, along with their feelings of shame about their symptoms.. Paradoxically, the moment patients see the beautiful and awesome things about their negative thoughts and feelings, their resistance to change typically disappears. Positive Reframing is one of the unique features of TEAM-CBT and it opens the door to the possibility of rapid change. As an exercise, see if you can find some positives in five of Nazli’s feelings,

Anxiety
Ashamed, bad
Inadequate
Hopeless
Angry

Please do this on paper, and NOT in your head, using the blank Positive Reframing Tool you’ll find at the end of the Daily Mood Log. Getting it “right” isn’t important. What is important is trying. This will get your brain circuits firing in a new way. Then, when you see the work that we did with Nazli, you might have your own “ah-ha” moment, as well as a powerful new skill that may be helpful to you as well. Okay. Did you do that yet, or do you plan to look at the answer without doing the exercise? Oh! I see! You’re planning to look at the answer. If you want to learn at a deep level, whether you’re a therapist or lay person, do the exercise first! It may be challenging at first, but it will fire up your brain circuits, so when you look at the answer, you’ll suddenly have a new and deeper understanding of Positive Reframing. When you’re done, you can check this link to see the work that Jill and I did with Nazli. But either way, I’m grateful that you’re listening to these podcasts and reading the show notes! If you click on this link, you can find the Emotions table from Nazli's Daily Mood Log showing her goals for each negative feeling after we use the Magic Dial. After we finished the Magic Dial, we went on to the M = Methods portion of the TEAM-CBT session, and helped Nazli challenge some of her negative though...

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271: TEAM-UK, featuring Dr. Peter Spurrier

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

12/06/21 • 52 min

Today’s podcast features Dr. Peter Spurrier, a British physician who has founded TEAM-UK. Peter describes how he spent most of his career as a physician in general practice, but was forced to see patients for only ten minutes due to the British health system. He didn’t like the “quick fix” approach to patients with emotional struggles, and at the age of 55, five years before he retired from General Practice, he decided that he wanted to do something more meaningful, so he began to get training in CBT which “helped me listen better.”

However, CBT seemed stilted, and the outcomes weren’t very good, either. Then he attended a two-day “Scared Stiff” workshop I presented in London several years ago. The workshop was sponsored by my friend and colleague, Jack Hirose, from Vancouver, Canada.

I was not aware that Peter was in the audience, but was really happy to hear that he like the workshop. I had been pretty disappointed in it, since the attendance was light and I ran into quite a bit of resistance from the audience. This was a huge surprise, since I thought they’d be eager to hear about all the improvements we’d made in traditional “Beckian” CBT.

At the workshop, Peter purchased my Therapist’s Toolkit, but said “it just laid on my shelf for two or three years. Then, he began using it and decided to focus on TEAM-CBT full time.

He began listening to the Feeling Good Podcasts, starting from #1 and eventually caught up. He says that “along the way, I learned by practicing the techniques I was hearing about.”

He says he has always been a critical thinker, and initially was dubious about the T = Testing part of the TEAM treatment model. As a GP, he was required to use questionnaires for patients with anxiety and depression, but for some time he thought it wasn’t very accurate data. When he started using the Brief Mood Survey, he was shocked as he began to realize that this WAS good data, and that his reading of how his patients felt was frequently off-base. This, of course, is the foundation of the TEAM-CBT model, which is entirely and intensely data-driven.

Then he attended one of my four-day summer intensives at the South San Francisco Conference Center, and loved the warm and encouraging atmosphere, commenting on the friendliness and encouragement of Rhonda, whom he met, and Dr. Angela Krumm, from the Feeling Good Institute in Mountain View, California. They both reached out to him. He said it was actually great to get the chance to work with people, and he was delighted by a demonstration I did on public speaking anxiety and social anxiety, which captivated the audience.

After the intensive, Peter returned to London and founded TEAM-UK. He also looked up Dr. Stirling Moorey, who I’d mentioned in my first book, Feeling Good. I have also mentioned Stirling in numerous workshops, especially when teaching therapeutic empathy.

Although Stirling was my student, I learned a great deal from him, especially in the area of empathy. Peter described an outstanding chapter on empathy, written by Stirling in a book he has co-edited with Anna Lavender entitled The Therapeutic Relationship in Cognitive Behavior Therapy.

I got excited to hear this and hope we can feature Stirling on a podcast one day soon! I would love to hear about his journey since we first worked together more than forty years ago, when he was just a medical student. His particular interest has been the application of CBT to life threatening illness and adversity. He was one of the first therapists to develop CBT for people with cancer and is co-author, with Steven Greer, of The Oxford Guide to CBT for People with Cancer.

Peter wrote an article on TEAM-CBT for the newsletter of the British CBT group entitled “CBT Today.” He got zero response for several months, and then heard from Derek Reilly who uses TEAM-CBT in the treatment of pain patients. And, slowly, others began to join Peter’s TEAM.CBT.UK gr...

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387: The Acceptance and Resistance Survey, Part 2 of 2

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

03/11/24 • 79 min

Why Do We Resist Accepting Ourselves Other People, and the World? The Five Most Common Reasons!

Rhonda and David are joined in today’s podcast by Dr. Matt May, a super popular and loved guest on our show, to discuss the resistance findings in David's recent survey on acceptance and resistance. The following is a summary of some of the statistical findings, but the actual podcast dialogue was wide ranging and tremendously engaging, and won't require a lot of statistical smarts!

We also discussed the vitally important difference between healthy and unhealthy acceptance.

Healthy acceptance is accompanied by feelings of joy, lightness, and liberation. Unhealth acceptance is accompanied by feelings of unhappiness and despair.
Unhealthy acceptance is characterized by Should Statements and self-punishment for your failures and shortcomings.
Healthy acceptance is an expression of self-love.

The group brought the five most common reasons to life with engaging stories.

Why should you accept yourself? We are not saying that you "should," and it's really a decision. However, the statistical models the I (David) developed indicated that healthy acceptance can trigger a 49% reduction in negative feelings and a 39% boost in positive feelings, which is tremendous.

Matt told an inspiring story about two strategy for training the dolphins at SeaWorld. One strategy involved trying to shape the behavior of the dolphins with little shocks, in much the same way that some people train horses. Sadly, the dolphins went to the bottom of the pool and appeared depressed, not moving much. It was a complete failure.

Then they tried a radically different strategy--they gave a new group of dolphins fish to reward them for doing the things the trainers wanted them to do. This strategy was tremendously successful.

So, the question is whether you want to shape your own life with frequent shoulds and self-criticisms, which can have the effect of electric shocks every time you fail or screw up or fall short of your goals, or whether you want to shape your life with love and rewards. Some of us have discovered that acceptance is way more fun and vastly more effective!

Quick Bottom Line

The typical survey respondent endorsed 1/3 of the 12 Resistance Scale items, and seemed to believed that Acceptance would be foolish and lead to a life of misery and mediocrity. The actual causal impact of the Non-Acceptance and Resistance scales on positive and negative feelings was massive and appeared to be in the exact opposite direction.

Findings

The respondents in the Resistance survey endorsed an average of 33.8%. (+/- 0.1%) of the items, ranging from 0 to all 12. The most commonly endorsed was, “Acceptance is easy for rich and famous, but hard if you’re struggling just to pay the bills.” 47% (+/- 2%) endorsed this item.

The least endorsed was, “If I beat up on myself, people will love me more,” although 25% (+/- 1%) of the people endorsed this item, so it was fairly popular. The high scores on the resistance scale items is also pretty consistent with my experiences over the years—the people in the study, and the people I’ve worked with, have expressed MANY reasons to beat up on themselves.

You can see the list of the 12 Resistance Scale items below. I have bolded the five most often endorsed. As you can see, many people surveyed believed that acceptance is fine for people who are rich and famous, but terribly painful and foolish for people who struggle with real problems. Many respondents were convinced that acceptance leads to pain, robs you of motivation and does not make sense in a the world that’s falling apart.

If I accept my flaws and shortcomings, I'll end up with a second-rate life.
If I accept my flaws and shortcomings, I’ll lose all my motivation to learn
If I beat up on myself and work my ass off, people will love and admire me.
It would be tremendously painful to accept my flaws and shortcomings. That would be like giving up and having to live with a heavy load of inadequacies.
Life has many real disappointments and losses. I don't want to feel happy and chipper by “accepting” all those negatives when the world is falling apart all around me. That just doesn’t make sense!
I haven’t achieved many of my goals in life. I think it would be kind of pathetic to suddenly accept myself and feel enormous joy that I haven’t really earned or deserved.
I’ve often fallen short, and I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. Are you saying that I should be happy about that? Hell NO!
I am never going to accept myself as just another average or below-average person. That would be awful!
If I accept my flaws, failures, and shortcomings, I’ll just be like everyone else. I won’t be special, and I won’t have the chance to become special.
If I admit that I ofte...

001: Introduction to the TEAM Model

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

10/27/16 • 30 min

In this podcast, Drs. Fabrice Nye and David Burns discuss an exciting breakthrough in psychotherapy.

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Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy currently has 437 episodes available.

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The podcast is about Addiction, Health & Fitness, Happiness, Behavior, Psychology, Anxiety, Mental Health, Depression, Mentalhealth, Therapy, Podcasts, Self-Improvement, Education and Relationships.

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The average episode length on Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy is 56 minutes.

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Episodes of Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy are typically released every 7 days.

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The first episode of Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy was released on Oct 27, 2016.

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

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