016: Ask David — How can I cope with a complainer? How can I help a loved one who is depressed?

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

David Burns, MD

Clinical, Therapy, Anxiety, Psychotherapy, Depression, Health & Fitness, Cognitive, Mentalhealth, Mental Health, Behavior, Education, Self-improvement, Psychology, Relationships, Addiction, Happiness, Personalgrowth

4.4 • 856 Ratings

🗓️ 26 December 2016

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How can you help a depressed friend or family member? You may be surprised to discover that the attempt to “help” is rarely effective, and may even make the problem worse. In contrast, the refusal to help is nearly always helpful. But to understand that paradox, you’ll have to give a listen to this fascinating edition of "Ask David!"

David and Fabrice also address a related problem nearly all of us confront from time to time: How do you deal with a friend who is a relentless whiner and complainer? When you try to help them or suggest a solution to the problem, they just say, “That won’t work” and keep complaining. You end up feeling frustrated and annoyed, because the other person just won’t listen! David and Fabrice illustrate a shockingly easy and incredibly effective solution to this problem.

Finally, David discusses some disturbing recent research indicating that the ability of therapists—as well as friends or family members—to know how suicidal someone is, is extremely poor. David and Fabrice explain how to assess how suicidal someone actually is, and what to do if you discover that he or she really is at risk of a suicide attempt.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Feeling Good podcast.
0:12.4	I am your host, Fabrice Knight.
0:14.7	And joining me here in the Murrieta Studios is Dr. David Burns.
0:19.0	Hi, David.
0:20.0	Hi, Fabrice.
0:23.8	Dr. David Burns has been a pioneer in the development of cognitive therapy, and he is the creator of the new team therapy. He is the author of
0:30.2	Feeling Good, which has sold over 5 million copies in the United States, and has been translated into
0:35.5	over 20 languages. He is an emeritus adjunct clinical professor
0:40.0	of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. So today we're going to look at some
0:47.4	listener questions. And we have two emails here that seem to be relevant to the previous two podcasts we did on the five secrets of effective communication.
1:04.1	So why don't I read to you the first one, okay?
1:07.9	Yeah.
1:08.3	So this is from Jinkia, and she says, Hello, Dr. Burns. I've been reading
1:15.0	Feeling Good, and though I haven't finished it yet, I can see the positive transition in my
1:20.8	behavior because of this book. I have one question, though. I would really appreciate if you could
1:27.0	personally answer it with your recommendations.
1:30.9	Before the actual question, I'll give you a brief background about me and my family.
1:36.8	I've been suffering from anxiety, OCD, and depression since the last five years.
1:42.8	And my mother is also having these disorders.
1:45.0	While I'm finding help online and through books, she is helpless, and this is eating me inside out.
1:52.0	I really want to help her. She's being in deep depression and anxiety since the last few years.
1:59.0	Now she also has physical symptoms such as high blood pressure and
	...

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