Feeling Good
The good news is that anxiety, guilt, pessimism, procrastination, low self-esteem, and other "black holes" of depression can be cured without drugs. In Feeling Good, eminent psychiatrist, David D. Burns, M.D., outlines the remarkable, scientifically proven techniques that will immediately lift your spirits and help you develop a positive outlook on life. Now, in this updated edition, Dr. Burns adds an All-New Consumer′s Guide To Anti-depressant Drugs as well as a new introduction to help answer your questions about the many options available for treating depression.
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136recommend
258mentions
168people
2008–2026years
81% recommend19% neutral1% critical
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What Hacker News says
- > and depression :/
Regularly recommended on HN by folks:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46674.Feeling_Good
there's also a follow-up:
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54930681-feeling-great
- While I understand you have a professional helping you.. I really recommend the book 'Feeling Good' by Dr. Burns. The exercises in it, and the explanation of false labeling we do that causes us problems, are very helpful IMO. I once ruminated over a 4 year relationship, tons of details about it, probably for a year straight. I did one of the exercises ('... and if that were true, it would mean that....?' over and over to any response you have) til I got to the bottom of every negative thought I had about her, me, or the relationship. I am not joking when I say I woke up the next day and couldnt even REMEMBER 75% of the negative emotions I wrote down for the exercises. I was genuinely cured of 1 years worth of rumination in 2 hours of writing things down the way the book tells you to.
- Feeling Good and/or Feeling Great by David Burns. It should be on everyone's bookshelf, imho. It has the exact step by step process that you're looking for.
- Curious about that book - did it help you? Silly questions, but serious: How much did it help? What, specifically, did you get from it? Asking for a relative who has serious anxiety issues (no, really, it's not me... I have depression, and Burns' "Feeling Good" helped me substantially, specifically by identifying brain-spirals I get into, which lead to depression, and once known can be avoided). I'd love to recommend something good for them. Thanks!
- In the past I've been trying to adopt the stoic mindset, but always struggled. But I continued to read and learn about it.
Unrelatedly, I came across a recomendation for David Burns "Feeling Good" here on hackernews a couple of years ago.
Reading it with my interest in stoicism in mind, I honestly found it to be probably the best modern day handbook to actually adopting the stoic mindset - without ever mentioning it.
As far as I understand stoicism, it is all about seeing things as they are, and understanding that the only thing that we really control is our reaction / interpretation of events. And the CBT approach that is explained in Feeling Good/Feeling Great is exactly how you do this.
With this perspective Marcus Aurelius Meditations suddenly make a lot more sense. They are his therapy homework.
- There are indeed some form of serious depression that are non-responsive to psychotherapy alone. Those are however not the norm. Dr. David D Burns, practising psychiatrist and author of the book Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy has written a whole chapter in it on the appropriate use case and effectiveness of anti-depressants today. (If you are considering using anti-depressants, I urge everyone to get the latest revision of his book and read that chapter). He believes anti-depressant has its use during treatment but also shares studies that suggest modern psychotherapy, like Cognitive Therapy which he advocates, has now begun to surpass the effectiveness of anti-depressants in "curing" depression in the long-term.
A particular point he makes about depression in it is insightful: Although depression is conventionally viewed as a medical illness, research studies indicate that genetic influences appear to account for only about 16% of depression. For many individuals, life influences appear to be the most important causes.
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