The Feeling Good Handbook

Reading through some of the one star reviews I was surprised. Several of them seem to feel that Dr Burns is "victim blaming" when he points out that ultimately YOU are responsible for how you react to someone else. But it is a hard truth that too many people do not understand. Yes. When someone says something objectively cruel, it's no fun. But rather than being sad or angry, Burns teaches that we should ask ourselves "Is that a true statement?" Since most objectively cruel statements are not, we should be indifferent to it as we should be to all things not based on facts. On the other hand, if we have been depressed and perhaps not noticed our poor hygiene for a week and a stranger at a store says "You smell bad." We should acknowledge the objective truth of it. Whether the person meant to make us feel bad or were trying to help us is irrelevant to the truth of their statement. If it's true, a nice hot bath might make us feel a little better. No need to get angry or sad at their observation. In short, good mental health requires active participation by the patient. Some people will be helped by meds, others won't for various reasons, one of which is the person expecting the meds to be magical pills that fix everything with zero effort from the patient. A LOT of GP's prescribe anti-depressants without any therapy because the patients refuse to attend. Those folks fall into the aforementioned category. Burns says that patients HAVE to participate for long-term mental health. The book explains that being mindful that depression can cause your mind to literally lie to you and goes through ways to fight back. It has ways to help stop the "looping" that happens when the mind decides to compulsively make you think about something over and over. It has a workbook component that I see a LOT of people resenting. Seriously? The workbook was very helpful to me. The author even caught me trying to NOT take the it because I resented it at first. Instead of being resentful, I did the work and was the better for it. With my most recent purchase I have now bought 6 copies of this book for various friends fighting serious depression. The ones that actually did the workbook part of this book have thanked me. The others? They tossed it on their bookshelf and still show all the signs of being depressed. This is not a cure-all. It is not a talisman wherein the mere ownership induces good mental health. You have to read it, do the work book parts and then go out and do the work itself every day. Good luck.

Simple to read. Great content

For anyone interested in learning techniques to addressing their distressing thoughts, generally CBT and DBT are mentioned in the conversation. I believe most people present these techniques as a false-dichotomy and that both of these sets of skills can be used to reinforce each other and create a stronger, more disciplined mind. I've been focused more on DBT skills and techniques lately, and this book is an interesting contrast to the skills and techniques to the DBT school-of-thought. It is quite a lengthy read, but there are also a lot of CBT-oriented exercises available for the reader to complete as well.

Excellent book with practical techniques to identify and change very common self defeating thought patterns. Very effective if followed diligently. It was very useful to use these techniques to identify and challenge thought patterns and use my notes as discussions points for therapist appointments. Reading this book and following the techniques listed helped me make the best use of therapist sessions - as I could identify exactly what thoughts were leading to changes in my mood and feelings of sadness , stress or anxiety - something I do not think I could have done (or may have taken many many sessions to do) if not for the techniques listed in the book. The only 2 drawbacks I find are 1. at times Dr. Burns is a bit dismissive of issues and make everything seem very easy to solve, while in reality they may not be. However this is something I am willing to ignore given how effective the book is overall. 2. In the chapter on general anxiety I wish there had been some mention of anxieties resulting from worries about the future and anticipating / getting stuck in an outcome that may or may not happen. I find this to be the most common cause of anxiety amongst most people and surprisingly there were no examples or solutions for this specifically. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend this book, certainly for someone vulnerable to depression, anxiety or stress, but additionally also to anyone wanting to improve their thinking patterns and hence feelings, actions and quality of life.

Non sono riuscita a leggere ancora tutto il libro... i vari capitoli affrontano situazioni comuni in cui ci si può trovare in difficoltà e spiegano possibili metodi di gestione pratica. Dal mio punto di vista il libro può risultare utile se si hanno difficoltà emotive non troppo invalidanti. Diversamente le soluzioni proposte non risultano risolutive.

Doing the written work this time ; )

Encore plus que le "feeling good" original, ce livre donne des idées simples, pratiques et efficaces sur le rôle des pensées sur les émotions, sur le rôle des émotions pour établir le contact avec autrui. Il décrit deux pratiques, un journal de ses humeurs et de ses croyances et un agenda, que je recommanderai. Étant moi-même adepte de la communication non violente, ses pistes pour répondre à une personne (un client en l'occurrence) en colère me donnent des idées nouvelles (dire oui par exemple). Enfin, ses exemples finals sur comment motiver des clients qui s'autosabotent m'ont aussi grandement aidé. Bref, lisez-le sans plus tarder, même s'il a plus de 10 ans au compteur.

If you read one book to get well and stay well, this is the one! It is the product of decades of experience as a psychotherapist. Great read and very helpful!

Geniales Buch!