Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy

AI and Psychotherapy: Doomsday or Revolution? Drs. Jason Pyle and Matthew May discuss the future of AI in psychotherapy. They explore the potential benefits and concerns of integrating AI into therapy, the safety of AI in therapy, and the role of AI as a therapy agent. They also discuss the health equity issue in mental health and the upcoming conference on team therapy.

Topics covered in this podcast include the effectiveness of writing down negative thoughts, anxiety and depression as forms of hypnosis, overcoming resistance to self-reflection, exploring emotional distress and change, the power of fast change in therapy, the influence of ancient and modern philosophers on CBT, and discussing a best-selling book and Karen Horney's impact.

David, an expert in self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-acceptance, discusses the difference between these terms. He believes self-confidence is the conviction of winning, self-esteem is the decision to love oneself regardless of outcomes, and self-acceptance is crucial. They also explore helping people with depression and strategies to overcome resistance. Coercive therapy, improving communication, and taking responsibility for improving relationships are other interesting topics discussed.

Shoulds and More with our Beloved Fabrice! Three little words that will make your life miserable are “shoulds,” “wants,” and “needs,” says Dr. Fabrice Nye, the father / creator of the Feeling Good Podcast several years ago. But for the purpose of this episode, we’ll add a fourth word, “Musts,” which was popularized by Dr. Albert Ellis, who referred to it as “Musterbation.” Fabrice says that, “Shoulds are a trap. . . . There’s no such thing as a should, except for the laws of nature. For example, if I drop my pen, it “should” fall to the floor because of the effects of gravity. And sure enough, it does! “But when I say, ‘I should get an A on my upcoming exam,’ i may just be setting myself up for frustration. That’s because there’s no laws of the universe saying that people will always get As on their exams. "Similarly, if I say it SHOULDN’T be raining today, I'm involved in fiction, not reality. The clouds don’t obey our whims, they are just obeying the laws that govern the weather.” Fabrice explained that when you apply shoulds to some past event, telling yourself that your shouldn’t have made some mistake, you just make yourself guilty because it sounds like you’re scolding yourself. Again, you’re living in some fictitious reality where things are always the way you want them to be, because it’s impossible to change the past Fabrice reminded us that the Anglo-Saxon origin of the word, “should,” is “scolde.” So when you “should” on yourself, you’re actually scolding yourself. Fabrice also explained that the concept of “needs” can also get us into emotional hot water, since we sometimes tell us that we “need” things that we may want but don’t really “need.” So, if you tell yourself that someone “needs” to do something for you, you are simply applying pressure to the situation. For example, you might want or prefer for the person to be on time for appointments or planned activities, but you don’t “need” them to be on time. Similarly, you might want to find someone to love, or someone to love you, but you don’t “need” love, according to Fabrice. . . . and David agrees! It has been shown in research studies that infants and young children need love to grow and develop in a healthy way, but love is not an adult human need. According to the Buddhists, “needs” are not real. They’re just cravings, or intense desires that we’ve elevated to some godly state. Of course, there ARE things that we really do “need.” For example, we “need” to breathe to stay alive, and we “need” to have gas in the car if we want to drive to San Francisco. Those things are needed to fulfill a particular goal. So the key to an actual need is adding the phrase, “...in order to...” Fabrice also described some “want” traps. For example, you may sit at your computer cruising the internet or playing digital games, all the while telling yourself “I really want to get to work on my paper,” or taxes, or whatever. But in point of fact, you DON’T want to get to work on the thing you’re putting off. You WANT to be doing exactly what you are doing. Fabrice explains that we “trick ourselves into thinking we want something (like doing our taxes) when we really want to be doing something else (watching TV, playing computer games.) So, once again, we are telling ourselves stories that don’t map onto reality." Our real “wants” are the result of an unconscious cost-benefit analysis we make in our head, where the choice that comes out on top is our real want. It’s only when I really start doing my taxes that I’ll know this is what I want to be doing (probably because the urgency of the matter made the cost-benefit analysis tip in that direction). David was trying to see if this concept of “wants” can be helpful in therapy but had trouble seeing how this might help someone who’s procrastinating. Fabrice explained it like this: First, we need to realize that we are doing what we want in the moment; so, it’s a choice. Next, we can make our cost-benefit analysis conscious and see that we’re only considering short-term factors (e.g., it’s a lot more comfortable right now to be watching TV than doing taxes). Finally, we can develop some empathy for our future self (the one who will be pulling an all-nighter three weeks from now, or who will have to pay late fees) to reevaluate our cost-benefit analysis with more complete data. Fabrice also explained that procrastination can sometimes be difficult to treat because it’s an addiction. Rhonda also commented on the use of these concepts in therapy. Fabrice concluded the podcast by saying that he watches out for those three little words in his own thinking: “should, need, or want.” Thanks for listening today. Fabrice, Rhonda, and David

Menopause-- The End? . . . or the Beginning? Rhonda starts today’s podcast, as usual, with a warm endorsement from Sally, a podcast fan who really liked Podcast 355 on the topic of “Relationship Problems: Be Gone!” She said the role-play demonstrations were “incredible” and especially helpful. We’ll keep that in mind and see if we can do some more role-playing demonstrations in future podcasts, along with instructions so you can practice at home, as well. This can be extremely helpful if you want to master the techniques we describe. They may sound simple, but they’re not! In our recent podcast on free practice groups (put LINK), you can find many virtual practice groups you can join from home to practice many of the techniques in TEAM-CBT with like-minded colleagues and become part of the growing TEAM-CBT community. We now have many excellent and free practice groups for the general public as well as and training groups for shrinks. Today, Mina returns to the show with a new problem—pre-menopausal symptoms that are scaring her and casting a shadow on her future as well as her marriage with her husband, Maurice. Menopause is a topic that freaks many people out, due to feelings of anxiety and shame which can sometimes be intense. Today, menopause will be out in the open and front and center. However, Meina is confused because so many problems and feelings are swirling around in her head, and she doesn’t quite know where to start. At the start of the session, Mina's Brief Mood Survey indicated mild depression, severe anxiety, moderate to severe anger, and greatly diminished feelings of happiness and relationship satisfaction, thinking of her husband, Maurice.f If you review Mina’s Daily Mood Log. you can see that the Upsetting Event is irregular periods due to menopause. You can also see that Mina is struggling with fairly feelings of depression, anxiety, shame, inadequacy, loneliness, embarrassment, hopelessness, frustration and anger, and she’s giving herself some intensely negative messages, like “My body is falling apart,” and “My husband will leave me,” and “I’ll get osteoporosis and die in pain like my grandmother,” and more. During the initial Empathy phase of the session, Mina described quite a lot of personal and professional concerns, as well as somatic complaints of various kinds. Sometimes, in the past, Mina has developed numerous somatic complaints that terrify her, because she has interpreted them as possible serious diseases, like multiple sclerosis. However, excellent physical evaluations rarely or never provide any medical evidence or explanation for her symptoms. This pattern of obsessing about somatic symptoms is actually quite common. Many general practice doctors report that as many as a third of their patients complaining of pain, dizziness, and so forth do not have any medical disease that could possibly explain the symptoms. In fact, in his classic book, Caring for Patients, the late Dr. Allen Barbour from Stanford reported that about half of these types of patients experience a disappearance of their somatic symptoms when they identify some conflict or problem that they've been avoiding, and then take steps to express their feelings or solve the repressed problem. Pretty much every time, this has been true of Mina, too. It often turns out that she is upset about something she is sweeping under the rug, and the Hidden Emotion Technique has proved extremely helpful in pinpointing the hidden feeling or conflict. Then, as soon as she acts on this information, and expresses her feelings, the somatic problems immediately disappear. So, our first task in today's session was to see if the same thing was happening. It turned out that she was quite upset with her husband, Maurice, so we did a Relationship Journal to see if we could get a better understanding of what was going on. Her complaint was that Maurice did not want to talk about “difficult feelings.” Instead, he suggests they go for a nature walk or watch a movie. So, she felt sad, anxious, rejected, hurt, frustrated, and alone. But, as is the case nearly 100% of the time, when we examined a brief interaction between them—what did he say and what did she say next—it became clear that she was actually pushing him away and putting him down. This was understandably painful for Mina to see, and a bit embarrassing, but she was super brave, and saw how she could use the Five Secrets to respond to Maurice in a radically different and more inviting manner. As an aside, the person who seeks treatment for a relationship problem will nearly always discover that they have actually be causing the very problem they’re complaining about. If Mina’s husband had come to us for help, he would have made the exact same shocking discovery—that HE was causing the problem he was complaining about. I call this strange but fascinating phenomenon the “theory of interpersonal relativity.” Mina feared abandonment, but discovered that her real problem was that she was rejecting her husband, and forcing him to reject her! Although this type of sudden insight can be tremendously painful, it is also liberating at the same time. That's because people discover that they have far more power than they thought. Mina felt helpless, but was actually pulling the strings. Once you “see” this, you have the option of moving in a radically new and more rewarding direction. Mina promised to send a follow up once she’s had the chance to try a new approach during her interactions with Maurice. We have our fingers crossed! In addition, we worked with Mina's negative thoughts and feelings on her Daily Mood Log, starting with Positive Reframing, which she found helpful. What did her negative thoughts and feelings show about her that was positive and awesome, and how were they helping her? Then we did several rounds of Externalization of Voices and she was quickly able to knock her negative thoughts out of the park, with incredible results that you can see if you examine the emotions goal and outcome columns on her emotions table HERE. As you can see, there was an immediate and dramatic reduction in all of her negative feelings. We publish these TEAM-CBT sessions because we believe that the vast majority of mental health professionals do not know how to trigger rapid and extreme changes in how people think, feel, and interact with others. It is our hope that these podcast live therapy sessions, in conjunction with our weekly training groups, will make mental health professionals aware of what’s now possible, and how TEAM-CBT actually works. We try to make it look simple, but it requires tremendous training, practice, and commitment. Rhonda and I have strong, tender feelings toward our dear colleague, Mina, and we are deeply indebted to her for making herself vulnerable in a public forum so that we can all learn and feel much closer to one another. Personal work is one of our finest teaching tools. In addition, feelings of respect, love, and connection are so often missing in our embattled and hostile political and world environment these days. We cannot change the world, but we can definitely make our own small ripples in the pond, and work on changing ourselves. If you'd like, you can take a look at Mina's Brief Mood Survey and Evaluation of Therapy Session at the end of the session.  Thanks so much for listening today! Rhonda, Mina, and David

Dr. Angela Krumm and Zane Pierce discuss cultivating delight in daily life, inspired by Ross Gay's book 'Book of Delight'. They explore the possibility of cultivating joy, reasons against it, experiment results on boosting happiness, and finding delight in simple accomplishments. They also discuss enhancing the human spirit through techniques for anxiety and depression, expressing gratitude to the listeners.

In this podcast, Dr. David Burns and Dr. Rhonda Baravsky discuss the progress made in a therapeutic intervention, rebuilding communication and understanding with children, and the impact of empathy. They also delve into moments of enlightenment and shifting perspectives, the importance of analyzing conflict in relationships, and overcoming defensiveness to build healthy relationships.

359: The Story of Indrani “Why can’t I get close to my daughter who I love so much?” Today, we present the awe-inspiring work that David and Jill did with Indrani in the Tuesday group at Stanford. Indrani was a mother with a heart-breaking but all-too-common story of a conflict with her daughter. Sometimes, we love someone tremendously, but every time we try to get close, they seem to push us away. The story should ring true and be helpful to so many people, as nearly everyone runs into conflicts at times with our family members, including our parents, siblings and children. And, as usual, the solution often involves attending to your “inner” dialogue, which is the conversation you’re having with yourself about the conflict, and the “outer” dialogue, which is what happens when you try to get close to the person you love. And today’s session illustrates not one, but two forms of enlightenment. The changes in the inner dialogue involves challenging and crushing the negative messages you’ve been giving yourself about h problem with the person you love so much. You can see Indrani’s Daily Mood Log if you click HERE. As you can see, she’s been telling herself that her daughter has shut her out of her life, and that she’ll die alone/ That’s incredibly sad! And she’s also telling herself that all of her friends have wonderful relationships with their daughters “and I don’t” and she’s blaming herself for the problem: “I deserve this treatment,” and “nothing I do pleases her.” You can also see the intensity of Indrani’s negative feelings, including sadness, anxiety, inadequacy, loneliness, embarrassment, discouragement, irritation, and more. You can also see a typical exchange with her daughter if you look at her Relationship Journal (RJ). As you may know, the whole theme of my interpersonal model in TEAM-CBT is that we create our own interpersonal reality at every moment of every day. In other words, we unknowingly create and cause the exact relationship problems that we complain about, but just don’t realize this, so we think there’s something wrong with the other person. But how can this be? If you look at Step 2 of Indrani’s RJ, her response to her daughter seems innocent enough! But stayed tuned, because Indrani makes a shocking and mind-blowing discovery during the session, and that discovery requires the exceedingly painful “death” of the “self.” But this “Great Death” is instantly followed by a “Great Rebirth.!” At the end of the session, a Tuesday group members named Keren, said this to Indrani: “You wowed me!” One of the men, Ed, could barely speak because he was sobbing. You may also be sobbing for joy when you listen to this heart-warming story. In part 1, today’s podcast, you’ll hear the initial T = Testing and E = Empathy. In part 2, in next week’s podcast, you’ll hear the M = Methods, including Jill and David’s incredible work with Indrani on her R and her rather sudden discovery, in Step 4, of exactly how and why she’d been driving her daughter away—and how to stop doing that and begin to communicate in a way with a far greater chance of enhancing closeness and love. The Jill and David turn to Imani’s Daily Mood Log so she can smash her distorted negative thoughts with the Externalization of Voices, and several role reversals illustrating the integration of Self-Defense, the Acceptance Paradox, and the CAT (Counter-Attack Technique.) You can see Imani’s initial and final Brief Mood Surveys plus her Evaluation of Therapy Session, We are extremely grateful to Indrani for giving us this very intimate glimpse into her inner life in a way that will illuminate and inspire every person with the good fortune to listen to Indrani’s amazing Journey this evening! Thanks for listening! Rhonda, Jill, and David

Topics discussed in this podcast include the nature of physical symptoms of depression, treating schizophrenia with TEAM-CBT, therapists using self-help techniques, and understanding the difference between healthy and unhealthy emotions. The hosts also discuss translating the book 'Feeling Great' into Korean, gratitude, unity, and the launch of Feeling Good TV.

The podcast discusses the speaker's experiences in the 1960s, including the hippie generation, LSD, encounter groups, and transformative therapies like psychodrama. They also explore the spiritual dimension and the importance of therapy. The hosts share personal stories about living in a cool building, residency in Philadelphia, and their long-lasting relationship. Reflections on past experiences during the Vietnam War protests and resources for therapists and non-therapists are also discussed.