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David D., M.D. Burns, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
Feeling The New Mood Therapy by Burns, David D., M.D. [Harper, 2008] ( Paperback ) [Paperback ]
736 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published January 1, 1980
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October 20, 2025
Feeling Good - The New Mood Therapy by Dr. David Burns
Instead of a motto: Only One Person in this world has the power to put you down- and You are that person!!
For the last few months I have been reading Positive Psychology. This is another one of the excellent books written on the subject.
David Burns writes about the mistakes we make, such as magnification or minimization, another one being Emotional Reasoning: “I feel it, therefore it must be true”...Should statements: we try to motivate ourselves with shoulds and shouldn’ts as if we had to be whipped
Dr. Burns unveils a number of truths: your feelings are not facts
The key to releasing yourself from your emotional prison? Your thoughts create your emotions...your emotions follow your thoughts
A depressed self image can be characterized by the four D’s: you feel defeated, defective, deserted and deprived.
Freud was wrong: he believed that the therapist should agree that the patient is uninteresting, unlovable le, petty...
Another truth: achievements can bring you satisfaction but not happiness
At the bottom line, you need a transformation in the way you Think, Feel and Behave
Work at your self-image because only in this way can you achieve personal growth!
Talk back to your internal critic.
You can change the way you feel by changing the way you act
Inactivity will become frustrating
1375
Write plans hour-by –hour for what you would like to accomplish each day..it can be dress, lunch...
ONLY YOUR THOUGHTS can ever affect you.
Method of Habit Management through the power of Positive Suggestion…used for losing weight, calming down
Count what counts
Action must come first, and then motivation comes later on
Only One Person in this world has the power to put you down- and You are that person!!
Techniques when attacked:
1 empathy- see the world through the critics ‘eyes
2 disarming the critic-find some way to agree with him or her
3 feedback and negotiation- explain your position
What’s your IQ?
Doctor Burns means what is your Irritability Quotient- the amount of anger and annoyance you tend to absorb and harbor in your daily life.
· You may be convinced that other people’s stupid selfish actions make you angry. You are fooling yourself because other people really cannot make you angry.
· No matter how outrageous others may appear, they do not, never did and never will upset you
· You’re the one creating the outrage
· Anger, like all emotions is created by your cognitions
· Before you can feel irritated you must become aware and come to your interpretation
· The feelings result from the Meaning You Give to the event, not the event itself
For instance: a baby moving can be seen as a nuisance or a blessing. List the advantages and disadvantages of anger. You will gain inner peace and self-esteem. It is your choice.
Cool down and write down the various hot thoughts going through your mind. Substitute cool thoughts. Fantasize that the person upsetting you is walking in diapers in a supermarket
Mistakes we make:
1. Labeling is one of the mistakes we make. I do.
2. Another distortion is mind-reading you invent motives
3. Magnification is the third distortion, when you exaggerate the importance of the negative event
4. Inappropriate should and shouldn’t statements: when you tell people to do things your way-you think you are entitled to gratification, but other people don’t like being controlled
The perception of unfairness is the cause of most, if not all, anger. Anger is the emotion which corresponds to your belief that you are being treated unfairly. Fairness is relative to the observer: when a lion eats a sheep?? Justice doesn’t exist: robins eat worms, and then there are floods, tornadoes, etc…
Your sense of worth can go down only if you put yourself down.
The mental filter ignores the good points everyone has.
“What is the key to releasing yourself from your emotional prison?
Your thoughts create your emotions. Your emotions follow your thoughts
Rewrite the rules of the game
Learn to expect craziness
Reward the desired behaviour instead of punishing the undesired behaviour
Should reduction- your anger comes from should ideas- reduce them
When people are wrong:
1. Compliment them for what they did right
2. Disarm them finding a way to agree
3. Clarify your point
Try these techniques
Accurate empathy is the ultimate anger antidote- it is the highest form of magic in this book. Empathy is the ability to comprehend with accuracy the precise thoughts and motivations of other people, so that they will say: „yes, that’s exactly where I’m coming from!”
When you have this extraordinary knowledge, you will understand and accept without anger why others act as they do .”
Your thoughts create your anger, not that behavior.
Angry-prone people do not accept easily, because they have an urge to blame others and retaliate. You may need to change your expectations
1. The events of the world do not make you angry. Your thoughts create your anger. This gives you the chance to achieve Control
2. Most of the time your anger will not help you. It will immobilize you- think of one of the happiest moments of your life.
3. The thoughts that generate anger more often will contain distortions. Correct them
4. Your anger is caused by your belief that someone is acting unfairly. You perceive it this way
5. If you learn to see the world through other people’s eyes you will realize their actions are not unfair from their point of view..you have illusions-your views are not shared by all
6. Other people do not feel they desrve your punishement-your rage will further deteriorate the situation
7. A great deal of anger involves defense against loss of self esteem- only your thoughts can make you lose self-esteem
8. Frustration results from unmet expectations- from unrealistic expectations
9. It is childish to insist you have the right to be angry
10. You rarely need anger to be human
So your belief makes you feel good. There is some humor: suppose you were visiting the psychiatric ward of a hospital and a pacient comes and says : ‚you are wonderful, you are God’s Chosen One, let me kiss your shoe...”this approval will elevate your mood?-only your beleifs can affect the way you feel.
Secrets of making people feel attracted to you:
1. Don’t sell yourself short by looking down on yourself. Refuse to persecute yourself. Boost your self-esteem. If you love yourself, people will respond to this sense of joy you radiate and want to be close to you.
2. Express genuine compliments to people. Instead of waiting around to find if they like you, like them first and let them know about it.
3. Show an interest in other people by learning what turns them on. Get them to talk about what excites them most, respond in an upbeat manner.
Persevere and there will be people who find you attractive. Interestingly, Burns states that love is not an adult human need. Love or marriage are not sufficient either.
Treat yourself like a VIP, you are more important to you than any VIP.
Bipolar manic-depressive symptoms: euphoria with irritability, nonstop talking, racing thoughts that skip from subject to subject, grandiose delusions- a plan for world peace or increased happiness, implulsive behavior, excessive flirtatiousness...OMG, the medical student syndrom is upon me...
Distortions that lead to hopelesness:
1. All-or-nothing thinking- you think of yourself as completly happy or completly depressed; shedes of gray do not count
2. Overgeneralization – you see your current feelings of depression as a never-ending pattern of defeat and suffering
3. Mental filter- you selectively think of all the times you have been depressed and end upthinking your whole life will be bad forever
4. Discounting the positive- you insist that the times you were not depressed do not count
5. Should statements- you use all the energy saying you should not be depressed instead of working to overcome the feeling
6. Labeling- you tell yourself you are defective so you should not feel happy
7. Magnification or personalization can contribute too
Instead of a motto: Only One Person in this world has the power to put you down- and You are that person!!
For the last few months I have been reading Positive Psychology. This is another one of the excellent books written on the subject.
David Burns writes about the mistakes we make, such as magnification or minimization, another one being Emotional Reasoning: “I feel it, therefore it must be true”...Should statements: we try to motivate ourselves with shoulds and shouldn’ts as if we had to be whipped
Dr. Burns unveils a number of truths: your feelings are not facts
The key to releasing yourself from your emotional prison? Your thoughts create your emotions...your emotions follow your thoughts
A depressed self image can be characterized by the four D’s: you feel defeated, defective, deserted and deprived.
Freud was wrong: he believed that the therapist should agree that the patient is uninteresting, unlovable le, petty...
Another truth: achievements can bring you satisfaction but not happiness
At the bottom line, you need a transformation in the way you Think, Feel and Behave
Work at your self-image because only in this way can you achieve personal growth!
Talk back to your internal critic.
You can change the way you feel by changing the way you act
Inactivity will become frustrating
1375
Write plans hour-by –hour for what you would like to accomplish each day..it can be dress, lunch...
ONLY YOUR THOUGHTS can ever affect you.
Method of Habit Management through the power of Positive Suggestion…used for losing weight, calming down
Count what counts
Action must come first, and then motivation comes later on
Only One Person in this world has the power to put you down- and You are that person!!
Techniques when attacked:
1 empathy- see the world through the critics ‘eyes
2 disarming the critic-find some way to agree with him or her
3 feedback and negotiation- explain your position
What’s your IQ?
Doctor Burns means what is your Irritability Quotient- the amount of anger and annoyance you tend to absorb and harbor in your daily life.
· You may be convinced that other people’s stupid selfish actions make you angry. You are fooling yourself because other people really cannot make you angry.
· No matter how outrageous others may appear, they do not, never did and never will upset you
· You’re the one creating the outrage
· Anger, like all emotions is created by your cognitions
· Before you can feel irritated you must become aware and come to your interpretation
· The feelings result from the Meaning You Give to the event, not the event itself
For instance: a baby moving can be seen as a nuisance or a blessing. List the advantages and disadvantages of anger. You will gain inner peace and self-esteem. It is your choice.
Cool down and write down the various hot thoughts going through your mind. Substitute cool thoughts. Fantasize that the person upsetting you is walking in diapers in a supermarket
Mistakes we make:
1. Labeling is one of the mistakes we make. I do.
2. Another distortion is mind-reading you invent motives
3. Magnification is the third distortion, when you exaggerate the importance of the negative event
4. Inappropriate should and shouldn’t statements: when you tell people to do things your way-you think you are entitled to gratification, but other people don’t like being controlled
The perception of unfairness is the cause of most, if not all, anger. Anger is the emotion which corresponds to your belief that you are being treated unfairly. Fairness is relative to the observer: when a lion eats a sheep?? Justice doesn’t exist: robins eat worms, and then there are floods, tornadoes, etc…
Your sense of worth can go down only if you put yourself down.
The mental filter ignores the good points everyone has.
“What is the key to releasing yourself from your emotional prison?
Your thoughts create your emotions. Your emotions follow your thoughts
Rewrite the rules of the game
Learn to expect craziness
Reward the desired behaviour instead of punishing the undesired behaviour
Should reduction- your anger comes from should ideas- reduce them
When people are wrong:
1. Compliment them for what they did right
2. Disarm them finding a way to agree
3. Clarify your point
Try these techniques
Accurate empathy is the ultimate anger antidote- it is the highest form of magic in this book. Empathy is the ability to comprehend with accuracy the precise thoughts and motivations of other people, so that they will say: „yes, that’s exactly where I’m coming from!”
When you have this extraordinary knowledge, you will understand and accept without anger why others act as they do .”
Your thoughts create your anger, not that behavior.
Angry-prone people do not accept easily, because they have an urge to blame others and retaliate. You may need to change your expectations
1. The events of the world do not make you angry. Your thoughts create your anger. This gives you the chance to achieve Control
2. Most of the time your anger will not help you. It will immobilize you- think of one of the happiest moments of your life.
3. The thoughts that generate anger more often will contain distortions. Correct them
4. Your anger is caused by your belief that someone is acting unfairly. You perceive it this way
5. If you learn to see the world through other people’s eyes you will realize their actions are not unfair from their point of view..you have illusions-your views are not shared by all
6. Other people do not feel they desrve your punishement-your rage will further deteriorate the situation
7. A great deal of anger involves defense against loss of self esteem- only your thoughts can make you lose self-esteem
8. Frustration results from unmet expectations- from unrealistic expectations
9. It is childish to insist you have the right to be angry
10. You rarely need anger to be human
So your belief makes you feel good. There is some humor: suppose you were visiting the psychiatric ward of a hospital and a pacient comes and says : ‚you are wonderful, you are God’s Chosen One, let me kiss your shoe...”this approval will elevate your mood?-only your beleifs can affect the way you feel.
Secrets of making people feel attracted to you:
1. Don’t sell yourself short by looking down on yourself. Refuse to persecute yourself. Boost your self-esteem. If you love yourself, people will respond to this sense of joy you radiate and want to be close to you.
2. Express genuine compliments to people. Instead of waiting around to find if they like you, like them first and let them know about it.
3. Show an interest in other people by learning what turns them on. Get them to talk about what excites them most, respond in an upbeat manner.
Persevere and there will be people who find you attractive. Interestingly, Burns states that love is not an adult human need. Love or marriage are not sufficient either.
Treat yourself like a VIP, you are more important to you than any VIP.
Bipolar manic-depressive symptoms: euphoria with irritability, nonstop talking, racing thoughts that skip from subject to subject, grandiose delusions- a plan for world peace or increased happiness, implulsive behavior, excessive flirtatiousness...OMG, the medical student syndrom is upon me...
Distortions that lead to hopelesness:
1. All-or-nothing thinking- you think of yourself as completly happy or completly depressed; shedes of gray do not count
2. Overgeneralization – you see your current feelings of depression as a never-ending pattern of defeat and suffering
3. Mental filter- you selectively think of all the times you have been depressed and end upthinking your whole life will be bad forever
4. Discounting the positive- you insist that the times you were not depressed do not count
5. Should statements- you use all the energy saying you should not be depressed instead of working to overcome the feeling
6. Labeling- you tell yourself you are defective so you should not feel happy
7. Magnification or personalization can contribute too
Displaying 1 of 1 review