108: Do You Have a "Self?"

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

🗓️ 1 October 2018

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

David emphasizes that there are two issues. First, can your “self” be validly judged as not good enough, as inferior or even worthless? Or, can your “self” be validly judged as more worthwhile, or even superior? And is it really true that some people are more worthwhile, or less worthwhile, than others? Do more worthwhile, or less worthwhile human beings exist?

Second, do we even have a “self?”

Fabrice talks about the history of the concept of ego. For example, Freud divided the human mind into three parts: the id, ego and superego. Do these really exist as “things,” or are they just concepts, or metaphors for talking about the mind? When you try to think about the “ego” or the “self” as a thing, that’s when you get in trouble.

David argues that if you believe that someone people are “more worthwhile” or “less worthwhile,” you’d have to define what a of worthwhile human being is.

Transcript

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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. He is an emeritus adjunct clinical professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School
0:43.0	of Medicine.
0:44.0	Welcome to episode 108 of the Feeling Good podcast.
0:48.8	And we have a special topic today.
0:52.9	David, you've been talking on occasion about this concept of no self, and people have
1:00.7	picked up on it.
1:01.5	In fact, I've been wanting to discuss this.
1:04.6	We have an email here from a listener named Chuck, who said, I'm enjoying going over the older episode of your
1:13.9	podcast. In number 53 on procrastination, you and Fabrice mentioned in passing the concept of
1:21.2	no self, and that you might do a podcast on it someday. Well, no, today's the day. I can't see that that ever happened. So I'd like to
1:31.0	ask you to consider that as a topic for a future podcast. It's a confusing concept. I've been doing
1:38.8	a little bit of casual study of Buddhism lately when it comes up occasionally. I would
1:43.8	especially like to hear what the practical importance of the concept is.
1:48.2	So thank you, Chuck, because we've been discussing doing this for a while,
1:53.7	and I think we got our chops up today to finally do it.
	...

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