Dr. David Burns Helps Us Learn the Art of Feeling Good

Hello!  My name is Kimberley Quinlan and welcome back to Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast.

For those of you who are new, welcome!  Your Anxiety Toolkit is brought to you by CBTschool.com.  CBTschool.com is an online resource that provides evidence-based tools and resources for those who are experiencing anxiety, depression, or other mental health struggles.  CBT is an acronym for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.  CBT is made up of Cognitive Therapy and Behavioral Therapy.

Today, I am so excited to share with you one of the masters in our field of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dr. David Burns.   Dr. Burns has been a legend in my mind for many years.  He wrote the book Feeling Good, which I consider one of the most valuable books for the management of faulty and unhelpful thoughts.

Dr. David Burns is an adjunct professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine.  David Burns is also the author of the best-selling books Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy,  The Feeling Good Handbook, When Panic Attacks, and has a new book being written called Feeling Great (I cannot wait to read this one!).   Dr. David Burns brings Cognitive Therapy, Buddhist foundations and principals, and Behavioral Concepts into this amazing work.

Dr. Burns also created and copyrighted The Burns Depression Checklist, which is a rating scale for depression that I use very often in my office.

In our interview today, David Burns helps us by teaching how to better approach our faulty cognitions that cause depression.  Burns states that 50% of anxious people will be depressed and 100% of depressed people will be anxious.   He strongly believes that much of our depression is directly related to our faulty thoughts, which I am sure you will all find very interesting and inspiring.  What David Burns teaches us is how to correct our depressive thoughts and come up with strong, powerful statements to counter their incorrect content.  We talk about themes such as hopelessness, helplessness and worthlessness.

Please note, there are points made by Mr. Burns regarding medication, but I really encourage you to speak with your doctor to make sure your medical and medication plans are best for you.  Every person is different and needs specific care.

Dr. David Burns also addresses these topics during the interview:

• Thoughts are the cause for depression.
• If you can change the way you think, you will change the way you feel.
• Recent studies researched Feeling Good, to test if it clinically helps those who are experiencing depression, and results showed it is highly effective for those who suffer from depression.
• How he conceptualizes recovery as either 100% recovery (where all symptoms are gone) and 200% recovery (a stage and experience of enlightenment).