063: Ask David — What’s Good About Hopelessness or Addiction? What Is it to Be a Worthwhile Human Being?

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

🗓️ 20 November 2017

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Is there anything positive about hopelessness or an addiction ? What does it take to be a "worthwhile" human being, or to have a valuable life?

In today’s podcast, David and Fabrice address three questions submitted by listeners:

Avi asks another great question about the importance of Positive Reframing in TEAM-CBT. But how can we possibly find something positive in the feeling of hopelessness. After all, Dr. Aaron Beck has taught us that it's the worst emotion of all!
Avi asks a similar question about an addiction. How can an addiction possibly be a good thing?
Eugene asks a tremendous question about a passage in Dr. Burns' book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, on the topic of what it means to be a worthwhile human being, and what it takes to make a life valuable. Eugene hints that Dr. Burns may have the wrong idea, and asks what he would say to a patient who doesn't "cry uncle!"

David and Fabrice love your questions so keep them coming!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Feeling Good podcast.
0:12.4	I am your host, Fabrice Nye.
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.
0:43.0	He is an emeritus adjunct clinical professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
0:44.7	Welcome to episode 63 of the Feeling Good podcast.
0:49.3	We are continuing on our Ask David series now and trying to go through the pipeline of questions we've been getting from our listeners.
1:00.0	And last time we had answered a question from Avi,
1:06.4	and we have another message here from Avi that sort of touches on a similar subject, but not quite.
1:14.9	So Avi says, I would like to elaborate a bit on my previous post.
1:20.0	I'm assuming that your answer might take the general form of finding the sublime quality
1:24.6	and the deep virtue of their resistance.
1:29.7	But in the case of hopelessness,
1:35.5	it seems hard to make a convincing case of something phenomenal in the person giving up,
1:40.9	something that will truly resonate with the struggling person and stir within them the awakening of resilience and coping.
1:47.5	Further, in the case of habits and addictions,
1:53.4	the suggested rationale for resistance was simply that the addiction is easy and pleasurable and concurring it is difficult and very demanding.
1:58.1	Where here can we find something beautiful and powerful in the addict's attachment to their addiction?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from David Burns, MD, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of David Burns, MD and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.