Scan barcode
A review by sourblanket
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns
4.0
If you are considering reading this book, I highly recommend choosing one of the techniques in it and applying to your situation. If you already have the book look at the pages with tables in it, you don't need to read about it, they are straight forward. Or you can google the names.
Before reading this book I was already familiar (as in applied and saw the benefits) with some of the tecniques ('advantages vs disadvantages') and was also familiar with stoicism which has the same approach: the things themselves doesn't effect you, how you think about them does.
I have mixed feelings, on one hand I think if I wasn't familiar with techniques I wouldn't think they would work, I had this feeling while reading some parts, If I haven't thought about this I wouldn't be convinced. On the other hand, I think this is a pretty good book. So I'm not sure, maybe examples weren't relevant to me or maybe the writing wasn't very convincing because at times it sounds like kind of an advice we all can see truth in it but no idea how to apply to our lives.
Then why it's good? Everything's very simple and easy to understand. There are many many examples. I said some parts were not very convincing but some parts were really good in that way. There was this girl who had depression and she wanted to commit suicide and argued that life weren't worth living. I really liked how Dr. Burns counteracted with some very good points.
'Don't have depression, can I benefit from this book?'
This book is depression centric but it explaines what is CBT and there are chapters (parts?) on self esteem, guilt, anger, being dependant on love or approval etc. See the contents.
Again, I highly recommend trying the writing exercises applying to your own situation. Other than that, even if you don't like this book, don't give up on cbt! It's like human 101. Communicating with yourself. Understanding your negative feelings and by taking a scientist approach, questioning them to see where your thinking failed logically. Sure we can't feel happy all the time, but prolonged negative feelings that cause suffering are probably caused by illogical thinking (at least this is what I got from this book).
Before reading this book I was already familiar (as in applied and saw the benefits) with some of the tecniques ('advantages vs disadvantages') and was also familiar with stoicism which has the same approach: the things themselves doesn't effect you, how you think about them does.
I have mixed feelings, on one hand I think if I wasn't familiar with techniques I wouldn't think they would work, I had this feeling while reading some parts, If I haven't thought about this I wouldn't be convinced. On the other hand, I think this is a pretty good book. So I'm not sure, maybe examples weren't relevant to me or maybe the writing wasn't very convincing because at times it sounds like kind of an advice we all can see truth in it but no idea how to apply to our lives.
Then why it's good? Everything's very simple and easy to understand. There are many many examples. I said some parts were not very convincing but some parts were really good in that way. There was this girl who had depression and she wanted to commit suicide and argued that life weren't worth living. I really liked how Dr. Burns counteracted with some very good points.
'Don't have depression, can I benefit from this book?'
This book is depression centric but it explaines what is CBT and there are chapters (parts?) on self esteem, guilt, anger, being dependant on love or approval etc. See the contents.
Again, I highly recommend trying the writing exercises applying to your own situation. Other than that, even if you don't like this book, don't give up on cbt! It's like human 101. Communicating with yourself. Understanding your negative feelings and by taking a scientist approach, questioning them to see where your thinking failed logically. Sure we can't feel happy all the time, but prolonged negative feelings that cause suffering are probably caused by illogical thinking (at least this is what I got from this book).