127: Communicating with the Opposite Side of the Political Divide

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

🗓️ 11 February 2019

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Can the Five Secrets of Effective Communication Help Us in this Era of Intensely Polarized Politics?

Clearly, the nation is intensely divided, and passions on both sides of the political divide are characterized by hostility, frustration, and mistrust. Can the Five Secrets of Effective Communication help us communicate with colleagues, friends and loved ones who may have radically different political beliefs?

Find out on this edition of the Feeling Good Podcast, as the David and Fabrice respond to Eileen, a podcast fan who kindly allowed us to share her intensely painful conflict with her mother with all of you. Eileen’s mother is an ardent Trump fan, and Eileen is an equally ardent anti-Trumper, and there have been plenty of tears on both sides of the aisle!

Eileen wrote:

“How can you talk to someone with whom you fundamentally disagree? My Mom is a big fan of the current regime (Trump) and I’m horrified by what’s happened in the past two years and what’s coming. It’s hard for me to get past my rage at her. . . intensely distorted and not-reality based beliefs, fed by right-wing media. To be clear, she thinks exactly the same about my beliefs and information sources. I feel so stuck. . . and I would love to repair this relationship with her before she dies.”

Can you identify with similar conflicts in your own family or circle of friends? I know that I can, and it’s quite painful. Fabrice and I will give you our take on a new approach to this widespread problem this Sunday!

While you're listening, you can take a look at Eileen's Relationship Journal. You may also want to review the Five Secrets of Effective Communication as well as the three advanced communication techniques we discussed in last week's podcast.

Let us know what you think after you've listened to the podcast!

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.
0:14.8	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
0:35.6	over 20 languages. He is an emeritus adjunct clinical
0:39.6	professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Welcome to episode 127
0:46.4	of the Feeling Good podcast. Before we start, David, you received a question from a listener from
0:53.7	Scott who said that your toolkit and podcasts have
0:57.1	been awesome. I'm so glad that Sharon Batista and Taylor Chesney introduced me to these sources because
1:03.7	my sessions have become really energized, so that's good. And then he's asking, it would be a
1:10.0	pleasure to join one of your intensive workshops.
1:13.0	Do you know when your next team CBT workshop in California will be?
1:17.1	Right.
1:17.6	Well, thank you.
1:18.6	Hello, everybody.
1:20.0	I'm kind of recovering from a computer crash, which had me feeling demoralized.
1:26.8	And I realized my computer finally just
1:29.3	longed itself back on. So did you do a mood journal on your computer? I didn't have time.
1:36.0	But it was very scary. Because as you remember, it's like PTSD. About two years ago,
	...

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