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

073: Ask David — Implementing the Five Secrets

We address five questions submitted by listeners who listened to the recent series of podcasts on the Five Secrets of Effective Communication.

072: Secrets of Weight Loss — Make Good on Your New Year's Resolutions!

You definitely do NOT want to lose weight. You probably DO want to be thin and attractive, and in great physical condition, but you DON'T want to lose weight. Do you know why? There are only two things that you can do to lose weight--diet and exercise. And they both suck! David describes two new, powerful techniques he has created for resolving this dilemma--the Double Paradox and Devil's Advocate Technique. David and Fabrice bring these techniques to life for you. If you are interested in losin...

071: Ask David — Expressing Anger, Narcissistic Bosses, Social Media Bullying

What do I do if I am using the Five Secrets and I feel angry? If I use the Disarming Technique, isn't there a danger that I might not express my own feelings? And isn't this the same as your "Hidden Emotion" Model, where we don't express our feelings due to excessive niceness? How would you use the Five Secrets if you're attacked in public by a narcissistic boss? Should you use the Disarming Technique? Won't that make you look weak? Should you only use the Five Secrets in one-on-one situations? ...

070: The Five Secrets (Part 6) — Stroking

069: The Five Secrets (Part 5) — "I Feel..." Technique

068: The Five Secrets (Part 4) — Inquiry

David and Fabrice discuss Inquiry, the third of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication . Inquiry means asking gentle, probing questions to learn more about what the other person is thinking and feeling. David encourages listeners (that includes you!) to try using Inquiry five times each day, even in superficial interactions with people in any setting, such as the grocery store, and gives examples of how to do this. Although this will not be the deepest application of Inquiry, the practice w...

067: The Five Secrets (Part 3) — Thought and Feeling Empathy

David addresses a question submitted by a listener after he heard the introductory podcasts on the Five Secrets of Effective Communication. He questioned the value of the Disarming Technique, and protested that every time he "turned the other cheek" he simply ended up with two sore cheeks! A great question, and David and Fabrice share their thinking. Many people, including therapists, are afraid of the Disarming Technique, thinking that something terrible will happen if they agree with someone w...

066: The Five Secrets (Part 2) — Disarming Technique

David, Helen and Fabrice focus on the Disarming Technique, which is the first of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication . The definition of the Disarming Technique is finding truth in what the other person is saying, even if it seems blatantly wrong, or illogical, or exaggerated. And it's based on the Law of Opposites.

065: The Five Secrets (Part 1) — Overview

Is there someone in your life who just won't listen? won't open up? always has to be right? always has to get his or her way? doesn't seem to understand how you feel? doesn't seem to care? is relentlessly critical? whines and complains endlessly, but always ignores your attempts to help? Would you like greater intimacy and respect, and more rewarding relationships with the people you care about? If so, this podcast series on the Five Secrets of Effective Communication will be right up your alley...

064: Ask David — Quick Cure for Excessive Worrying!

How would you treat excessive worrying? a listener asks. David describes a new patient who had struggled with 53 years of failed therapy for excessive, relentless worrying, and describes how she was "totally and irreversibly cured" in just two therapy sessions, which was the "good news." The Hidden Emotion Technique was the key to her remarkably rapid recovery. David explains that the "even better news" was that her relentless worrying would come back over and over in the future, and that this w...

063: Ask David — What's Good About Hopelessness or Addiction? What Is it to Be a Worthwhile Human Being?

Is there anything positive about hopelessness or an addiction ? What does it take to be a "worthwhile" human being, or to have a valuable life? In today's podcast, David and Fabrice address three questions submitted by listeners: Avi asks another great question about the importance of Positive Reframing in TEAM-CBT. But how can we possibly find something positive in the feeling of hopelessness. After all, Dr. Aaron Beck has taught us that it's the worst emotion of all! Avi asks a similar questio...

062: Ask David — The Five Secrets of Effective Communication & Psychotherapy Homework

Will people manipulate you if they catch on to the fact that you're using the Five Secrets of Effective Communication? Is it fair to ask depressed patients to do psychotherapy homework between sessions when they're already struggling with a loss of motivation? In today's podcast, David and Fabrice address two questions submitted by listeners: Robert asks whether it would be a problem if you are using the Five Secrets of Effective Communication (the Disarming Technique, Thought and Feeling Empath...

061: Ask David — Test Validity, Uncovering the Negative Thoughts, Benefits of Laziness, and More...

We address a number of excellent questions submitted by listeners: Are the scales on your Brief Mood Survey reliable and valid? How can I identify my Negative Thoughts when I'm upset but I can't figure out what I'm thinking and telling myself? I have social anxiety and don't want to get out of bed. I'd rather just lie in bed and watch Game of Thrones. Help me! What should I do? I saw an article in the paper that claimed that bacteria in the gut cause anxiety. Is this true? If not, what does caus...

060: Self-Monitoring

David describes one of the more obscure methods called "Self-Monitoring". He thinks of it as "Meditation in Daily Life." The whole idea is to note a negative thought that suddenly pops into your mind, and then to track it, or count it, with some type of counting device, list the wrist counters golfers wear to keep track of their scores, and then to simply let go of the thought and continue with what you were doing, instead of dwelling on the thought and getting distracted and upset. David explai...

059: Live Session (Marilyn) — 8-Week Tune-up

This podcast was recorded eight weeks after the initial session with Marilyn. As you may recall, Marilyn became severely depressed when she discovered that she had Stage 4 Lung cancer. In spite of that horrific and real trauma, she completely overcame her negative feelings in the first session, which was broken down into a series of three consecutive podcasts, with commentaries as the session unfolded. Sadly, Marilyn experienced severe pain in her left rib cage from a metastasis from her lung ca...

058: Ask David — Third-Wave Therapies & Exposure for OCD

David and Fabrice begin by reading several incredibly touching reader comments on the live therapy with Marilyn. Marilyn experienced a severe depression relapse eight weeks after her initial session with Matt and David, because of a painful metastasis to her rib cage which frightened and demoralized her. She graciously agreed to come in for a tune-up with David and Matt which will be published as a special podcast within the next week or so. You will not want to miss this session! David addresse...

057: Interpersonal Model (Part 4) — "And It's All Your Fault!" The Relationship Journal

David emphasizes that the goal of the RJ is not simply to learn how to transform troubled, adversarial relationships into loving ones, but also how to achieve Interpersonal Enlightenment, which is the empowering but shocking realization that we are creating our own interpersonal reality—for better or worse—at every moment of every day! And although the reward of the RJ is greater love and joy in your daily living, the price is steep—it requires the death of the ego, which the Buddhists have call...

056: Interpersonal Model (Part 3) — "And It's All Your Fault!" Interpersonal Decision-Making and Blame Cost-Benefit Analysis

Bob, a psychiatric resident named was treating a divorced woman who complained bitterly about her ex, and constantly argued with him whenever he came to visit with the children. Their relationship was clearly acrimonious, so Bob asked the woman if she wanted some help with the way she was communicating with her ex. She bristled and said that she was an attorney and that she could communicate just fine, thank you ! Bob's error was the same that many therapists make—of thinking that people with tr...

055: Interpersonal Model (Part 2) — "And It's All Your Fault!" Three Basic Assumptions

David describes the three assumptions of the Interpersonal TEAM Therapy: We cause the very relationship problems we are complaining about, but don't realize this, so we blame the other person and feel like victims of his or her"badness." David describes a man who endlessly complained about his wife during therapy sessions--she didn't like having sex with him, she spend money behind his back, and never bragged about him when they were out to dinner with friends. He had even taken notes for years ...

054: Interpersonal Model (Part 1) — "And It's All Your Fault!" Healing Troubled Relationships

First in a series of podcasts on how to transform troubled relationships into loving ones—if that's what you want to do! David begins with the story of how he got into working with troubled couples as well as individuals with troubled relationships shortly after his first book, Feeling Good , was published. Because cognitive therapy was beginning to generate excitement worldwide as the first drug-free treatment for depression, everyone thought it might also be effective for other kinds of proble...

053: Ask David — "I don't feel like doing it!" Quick Cure for Procrastinators

A listener named Benjamin asks about procrastination. He wrote: "The live therapy with Marilyn was very interesting - like other listeners, I was impressed by her character and strength. "Towards the end of this most recent podcast, you were musing on what topics to cover in future podcasts. I would love to hear about how you treat people suffering from chronic laziness ("Do Nothingism"). In particular, there seems to be a strong potential of a Catch-22 with Process Resistance: The patient canno...

052: Your Responses to the Live Work with Marilyn — Are People Honest in Their Ratings, and Do the Improvements Stick?

The responses to the Marilyn session were extremely positive. At the start of the podcast, Fabrice reads a response from a listener who was moved and inspired by the work Marilyn did. David and Fabrice discuss two questions commonly raised by people who have seen David's live demonstrations with individuals experiencing severe depression and anxiety. Since the change in Marilyn's scores were so fantastic, some skeptical listeners have asked, "Was this real, or was it staged?" Others have asked i...

051: Live Session (Marilyn) — Methods, Relapse Prevention (Part 3)

Crushing Negative Thoughts In this third and final podcast featuring live therapy with Marilyn, David and Matt move on to the M = Methods phase of the session along, and encourage Marilyn to challenge the Automatic Negative thoughts on her Daily Mood Log using techniques such as Identify the Distortions, the Paradoxical Double Standard Technique, the Externalization of Voices, and Acceptance Paradox. Marilyn emerges as a powerful partner and begins to crush the negative thoughts that had seemed ...

050: Live Session (Marilyn) — Agenda Setting (Part 2)

The Hidden Side of Depression, Anxiety, Defectiveness, Hopelessness and Rage We nearly always think about negative feelings, such as moderate or severe depression, as problems that an expert must try to fix, using drugs and / or psychotherapy. There are a multitude of theories about why humans become depressed, including, but not limited to: We get depressed because reality sucks. We believe our mood slumps result from the circumstances in our lives, such as being alone following a rejection, ex...

049: Live Session (Marilyn) — Testing, Empathy (Part 1)

The Dark Night of the Soul (Part 1) The first live therapy podcasts with Mark (the man who felt like a failure as a father: podcasts 29 – 35) were enormously popular, and many people have asked for more. David and Fabrice were delighted with your responses, so the next three podcasts will feature a therapy session with Marilyn by David and his highly-esteemed colleague and co-therapist, Dr. Matthew May. These three podcasts will include the entire session plus commentary the session unfolds. We ...

048: Relapse Prevention Training

A reader ask how to handle relapses following recovery from depression. David emphasizes the importance of this question, since there is a 100% probably that every patient will relapse following recovery. And if the patient has not been properly prepared, the relapses can be disastrous. But on the other hand, if the patient has been prepared, the relapses do not have to be problematic. What is a relapse? David defines a relapse as one minute or more of feeling crappy. Given that definition, we a...

047: Tools... not Schools of Therapy

The title of David's TEAM-CBT eBook for therapists is Tools, Not Schools, of Therapy . David explains that the field of psychotherapy is dominated by numerous schools of therapy that compete like religions, or even cults, each claiming to have the answer to emotional suffering. So you've got the psychodynamic school, and the psychoanalytic school, the Adlerian school, the Beckian cognitive therapy school, the Jungian school, and tons more, including EMDR, behavior therapy, humanistic therapy, AC...

046: All You Need Is Love... or Do You?

The Beatles tell us that all we need really need is love, and in her famous song, "People," Barbara Streisand proclaims that "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." But is this really true? Fabrice asks David whether love is a human need? David describes hearing Dr. Aaron Beck proclaim that love is not an adult human need, and feeling shocked, during one of Dr. Beck's cognitive therapy seminars in the 1970s. Although initially skeptical, David did a number of experiments t...

045: More on OCD — Cognitive Flooding

Fabrice begins with another question on OCD—if you successfully extinguish the symptoms with Exposure and Response prevention, would they just resurface in some other form, such as worrying, or some other anxiety disorder. David agrees, and describes the solution to this problem. Then David describes his treatment of a pregnant woman with OCD who was afraid her baby would be switched at the hospital so that she'd end up with the wrong baby. Although she rationally recognized that this fear was i...

044: Can OCD Be Cured?

David describes his treatment of a physician with OCD who was tortured by the fear that he would impulsively throw his newborn baby over the railing of his second-floor apartment. He also describes a psychologist with OCD who washed her hands more than 50 times a day for fear of contamination. In addition, she spent hours every day making sure that nothing in her house was arranged in groups of three—including furniture, table settings, decorative objects, magazines on tables, and so forth. Arra...