On today’s podcast, we will be practicing the Disarming Technique and illustrate the Law of Opposites, using real examples with lots of potential for learning. We feature our good friend and esteemed colleague, Brandon Vance, MD, who is an advanced TEAM therapist.

Starting on November 5, Brandon will be offering a 6-week course on a Deep Dive Five Secrets Practice Group, meeting weekly from 12 to1:30, until December 10th. This course is strongly recommended for anyone who wants to learn and master the Five Secrets of Effective Communication. To learn more, you can 

Our goals for today's podcast will be to illustrate how to disarm, with role play examples, of any number of very challenging examples. Once we have done role reversals and developed a good or excellent response to the criticism, we will try to point out two things important for teaching the Disarming Technique.

1. The Law of Opposite: Here it is: When you humbly find the real truth in the criticism, even if it sounds exaggerated, distorted, unfair, or just plan wrong, it suddenly won’t be true anymore. This is a paradox!
2. In contrast, if you defend yourself from the criticism, which you WILL do, you will simply prove that the criticism is correct. This is also a paradox!

We will illustrate some strategies for how to disarm seemingly “impossibly wrong and unfair” criticisms.

We started with a classic example. Let's say a loved one angrily insists, “You never listen.”

Then we focused on a challenging clinical example, a patient who insists that “You’re to worst shrink I’ve EVER had! Where did you do your psychiatric training? At a veterinarian school?”

The exercise is fairly simple in structure, but quite challenging when you try it out in an actual role play exercise with a friend or colleague.

Step 1: Your colleague or friends hits you with one of the following criticisms listed below.

Step 2: You respond as effectively as you can, using the Disarming Technique and the rest of the Five Secrets of Effective Communication as needed.

Step 3. Your colleague gives you a letter grade along with what you did that was effective, and where you missed the boat.

Step 4. Do a role reversal and repeat the above steps. Continue with this process until you get an A in your response to the criticism.

I don’t have a full list of strategies for agreeing with impossible criticisms, but here are two:

continue editing here

1. Don’t respond to the criticism literally. Instead, try to “hear” what the other person is trying to say to you.

Example: Your patient says, “This is the second week in a row that you’ve been late to our sessions.”

Ineffective, literal response: “Yes, that’s true. I’ve been delayed by emergency situations both today and last week.” Explanation: This is harsh and literal, and misses the point entirely. This patient is trying to tell you that they feel ignored and uncared about, and this may in fact be a central dynamic in their life.

Somewhat more effective response: “Yes, I share your concern, especially since I have high regard for you and hate having to be late. I’m really worried it will come across as uncaring and irresponsible. In fact, I had unexpected emergencies with suicidal patients both days, and will certainly make up the missed time for you, and not even charge you for today’s session. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if you feel hurt and even a bit angry with me, and for good reason. Can you tell me how you are feeing?”

This type of response gives you the chance to turn your lemons into lemonade!

1. When you disarm, never say, “I can see how you might feel that way!” This is just a subtle way of sending this insulting message” ‘You’re wrong, and you’re making a misinterpretation because you’re a disturbed patient!”
2. If a psychotic individuals makes a bizarre-sounding criticism, listen to the music behind the words and respond to that in a disarming way. For example, imagine that your hospitalized inpatient with paranoid schizophrenia says, “I know you’re conspiring against me with the FBI.”

What is this patient trying to tell you? They are telling you, symbolically, something like this: “During our session yesterday, you were not trustworthy. I was anxious and still am!”

So, you might respond like this: “Jim, I am embarrassed to admit that I agree with you completely, and also feel bad about it. During our session yesterday, I did a lousy job of supporting you, and we just didn’t connect, which was my bad. I felt like an enemy, and not your ally, so I get what you’re saying. This is important because I care a great deal for you. Can you tell me what it was like for you yesterday?”

With this type of kindly, disarming, and non-threatening response, most patients will open up right away. 

This list of errors is not comprehensive. It’s just a started kit to point you, hopefully, in the right direction. You will get many of the fine points by listening to the live podcast.

You might enjoy reviewing the following list of difficult / impossible criticisms you might hear from patients or friends of family members. It can be really helpful to see if you can find a way to agree with these criticisms that’s genuine and effective.

• Burns, isn’t it true that you’re a total fraud and a worthless human being?
• You’re full of shit and you know it!
• I followed your suggestion on what to say to my relative, even using the 5-Secrets, and now they won't speak to me.

Rhonda says: Just to be clear, the following challenges from unhappy kids were not directed at me!

• I wish you had died instead of Mom. (We practiced this one on the live podcast.)
• Can you give me my inheritance now, so I don't have to see you ever again?
• You need to butt out of what you don't understand.
• All I remember from my childhood is how you weren't there for me.
• You should have protected me when I was a kid, but you didn't.

Here are some more from patients in various setting.

• A patient yells out as you pass on the locked inpatient psych ward: "Doctor, you're trying to kill me!"
• Or as a (non-suicidal) private practice patient said: "You probably wish I was dead!"
• Or "You like your other patients better than me"
• An angry patient says: "you've ruined my life!"
• An unhappy patient says: I bet you faked your diploma!

More personal / family examples

• A romantic partner says "you're gaslighting me".
• A friend says "you're flirting with my girlfriend - you're trying to steal her away from me!"
• Your wife says "you're having an affair" when you're not.
• Your teenage son says "I know I was an accident and you wish you never even had me."
• Your student catches you in the hallway and winks saying, "You like me better than the other students, right?"

Thanks for listening today!

Brandon, Rhonda, and David

Today's podcast features one of our favorite guests, Dr. Jill Levitt, who is one of the greatest psychology teachers on planet earth. We explore trauma, and how it is treated. We focus in particular on the unique features of trauma treatment using TEAM CBT.

Jill is currently the Director of Training at the Feeling Good Institute in Mountain View, California, but she has had intensive training in trauma treatment beginning during her psychology internship at the Cornell Medical Center (? is this correct) in 200? (dates please Jill) and continuing until (date please.) She worked with adults survivors of childhood physical and sexual abuse, as well as victims of the 2011 tragedy at the world trade center, which happened when she was working in New York. She got extra training from several outstanding experts in the treatment of trauma and anxiety, including the renown Dr. Edna Foa, from Temple University in Philadelphia, as well as (please list if you like, Jill!)

Rhonda also has extensive experience in the treatment of trauma since she worked for (x years, please fill in) at th San Francisco Rape and Trauma Clinical. Rhonda emphasized the importance of shame and toxic but high irrational self-blame so often seen in trauma patients of all ages, including, of course, children.

Jill and Rhonda emphasized the importance of the selective use of exposure techniques with trauma patients, and the unfortunate fear that many, and perhaps most, therapists have of these techniques, wrongly fearing that the patient will decompensate and that the therapist, too, will become overwhelmed when hearing the patient recount their horrific experiences in detail.

I, David, will add that I've never had a negative experience with the use of exposure techniques, like cognitive flooding, memory rescripting, and many more with any trauma patients. However, I always do E = Empathy first, as well as A = Paradoxical Agenda Setting, to guarantee that the patient and I will be working together as a collaborative team.

Rhonda asked us to talk a bit about "vicarious trauma" that the therapist might experience when working with trauma patients. Both Jill and David said they've never experienced this, and that only our thoughts, and not the experiences our patients describe, can upset us. We believe the concept of "vicarious trauma" is highly (but not intentionally) misleading and needlessly frightening to those working with trauma patients.

Of course, if a therapist does become triggered when working with any patient, including a trauma patient, that is grist for the mill for the therapist to work out with their own therapist, using perhaps the Daily Mood Log to explore and challenge the therapist's upsetting negative thoughts.

Perhaps the most important theme today focused on the treatment of trauma patients--as well as non-trauma patients--individually, using TEAM to pinpoint one moment the patient was upset, and exploring their negative thoughts and feelings with the help of the Daily Mood Log, as well as the other vitally important components of T E A M.

I (David) do not place much stock in treating patients with "formulas" based on their "diagnosis" or problem. I did 20 or more two day trauma workshops around the US and Canada several years back, and treated a volunteer from the audience at each workshop on the evening of day 1, using a two-hour TEAM CBT session. In all or nearly all of these sessions, the individuals experienced a triumphant and blow-away elimination of all their negative feelings by the end of the demonstration.

But here's the interesting thing: although I occasionally included cognitive exposure, it was perhaps the technique I used the least often with these individuals. Far more powerful for most were techniques like Explain the Distortions, the Paradoxical Double Standard Technique, and the Externalization of Voices. Sometime, an interpersonal technique, including the Five Secrets of Effective Communication, was helpful, even life-changing.

If you are interested, you can read about those sessions in Chapter X in my most recent book, Feeling Great, as well as illustrations of the data from all the patients, showing the dramatic changes in negative and positive feelings from the start to the end of the sessions.

Why did these individuals recover so dramatically and quickly--within a single session? I believe it was because I focused on what was upsetting THEM, and developing an agenda and selecting methods to focus on what they wanted. This, to my way of thinking, is different, even radically different, from imposing a pre-set agenda on patients simply because we think they have some type of trauma diagnosis.

David described the three elements of an "abuse contract" between the abuser and the victim:

1. I get to hurt or exploit you for my own pleasure.
2. The Blame will be 100% on you. I am a blameless, superior god.
3. We must keep this as a secret, even between us. If you violate this, I will hurt you very badly.

Thanks for listening today!

Jill, Rhonda, and David

The answers to today’s questions are brief and were written prior to the show. Listen to the podcast for a more in-depth discussion of each question.

This will be podcast #470 on 10/6/2025

Procrastination: Be Gone!

And Physician, Heal Thyself! Really? Why?

The answers to today’s questions are brief and were written prior to the show. Listen to the podcast for a more in-depth discussion of each question.

1. Rhonda asks: Why do people procrastinate?
2. Rhonda asks: Wouldn't you first deal with the negative thoughts that are a part of the procrastination before working on it?
3. Rhonda asks: Here is a question I have: You often say, "physician heal thyself," and encourage personal work by the therapist. Why does the therapist have to face their own issues to help someone else? A heart surgeon doesn't have to have heart surgery in order to conduct surgery on their patient. Why does a therapist have to do their personal work?

Rhonda writes:

I have been thinking a lot about procrastination since we met last week.  Why do people procrastinate?

It's one thing not to put away a stack of files on your desk, it's another thing to procrastinate on something major, like finishing your dissertation, doing your taxes, or some things that have a major consequence.  It's a habit like anything else so there is a cue, the pattern, and the reward.

Cue: I don't want to finish my dissertation because it's overwhelming and I don't think I am smart enough to finish it, and I don't want to face it.

Pattern: Procrastinate

Reward: Relief that I have avoided it another day.

So, wouldn't you first deal with the negative thoughts that are a part of the procrastination before working on it?

I've also been thinking a lot about positive reframing. I always do it, even with a client who has done it before, to remind people, and keep alive, their positive qualities, and to encourage more embracing/accepting of their symptoms as beautiful parts of themselves. With clients who have experience doing Positive Reframe, reframing their THOUGHTS, not just their feelings, can give a lot of insight.

Here is a question I have, you often say, "physician heal thyself," and encourage personal work by the therapist.  Why does the therapist have to face their own issues to help someone else?  A heart surgeon doesn't have to have heart surgery in order to conduct surgery on their patient.  Why does a therapist?

David replies

1. People procrastinate because they don’t want to do the thing they are putting off. There is no one reason, since we’re all different. And we all tend to avoid things that seem unpleasant, and gravitate towards things that are more pleasant. I classify it in the general category of “Habit / Addiction.”
2. For years I dealt with the reasons people procrastinate as a first step, including the thoughts they have at the moment they procrastinate. I thought my job was to “help” the person who was procrastinating. This was universally unsuccessful, and not their failure became MY failure. This allowed them to continue procrastinating, since the doctor was trying to help them, and responsible for helping them.

I decided, instead, to go with an approach that works. It took a number of years to figure that out! But it was a huge relief!

1. We don’t say that a psychiatrist or psychologist has to have schizophrenia or be cured of schizophrenia to help someone with schizophrenia. And we don’t say that a mental health professional has to have OCD to treat someone with OCD effectively. No one has ever claimed that.

What I am saying is that a heart surgeon has to have credibility and training in successful heart surgery to get the license practice surgery. But how does a mental professional get credibility?

Well, let’s say that you’ve once had severe public speaking anxiety, as I have had. And social anxiety as well. So, when a patient comes to me with social anxiety or public speaking anxiety, I can say, “Oh, I’ve had that too, and I know exactly how awful that can feel. And, it’s going to be a pleasure to show you the way out of the woods.”

This message is generally welcomed by patients because it conveys two messages:

1. I know how much you’re suffering, because I’ve experienced it myself.
2. I have the skills and the confidence to treat you successfully.

Would you want to go to a therapist for the treatment of your own public speaking anxiety, or shyness, if you knew that the therapist had these problems and still hadn’t found a cure for themself?

There are other powerful reasons for doing your own personal work:

1. You can see the impact of therapist errors if colleagues have tried to treat you without good empathy or methods.
2. You can see what recovery / enlightenment mean at a much deeper level!
3. You can see how and why certain techniques can be so critically important and helpful, and why many others will not be helpful.
4. Once you have done your own work successfully, and experienced your own “enlightenment” or “recovery” or whatever you want to call it, you are no longer a mental health professional / technician type of therapist. You graduate to the “healer” class!

During the live show, I went through the structure of the new approach to procrastination, and she sent this email right after finishing her “Mission Accomplished” or “I stubbornly refused” task.

Dear Matt and David!

Successfully completed!

Thank you,

Rhonda

Thanks for listening today!

Rhonda, Matt, and David

Recently, I got a cool question from Megan Morrone, a technology and science editor at Axios. She asked about job anxiety due to fears of AI taking over our work. Initially, I declined to speculate, since I’ve never treated anxiety due to AI stealing someone's job. But the more I thought about it, I realized I had quite a few, perhaps humble, things to say, so here it is, with help from Matt and Rhonda. I’ll include a link to her column at the end of these show notes.

She wrote: Dear Dr. Burns,

I’m a technology and science editor at Axios, working on a story about job anxiety and how it affects workers today.

Would have time to chat with me about it?

I’m hoping to schedule a brief phone or Zoom conversation before Tuesday. 15–20 minutes? We’d potentially discuss:

• Why job-related anxiety feels especially pervasive right now
• What strategies are most effective in managing it
• How CBT approaches can be applied in workplace or career contexts

Please let me know if you have availability.

Best,

Megan Morrone

She subsequently clarified her focus:

Hi! I'm looking at anxiety around AI stealing your job. Would you be able to speak to that? Any chance you're Monday between 7:30AM-9:30AM Pacific or anytime after 12:30pm Pacific time? I'd only need 20-30 minutes and we can do it via phone or video call.

David’s response

Hi Megan,

I thought of one point I could make if it would further your cause. Every negative emotion has a healthy and an unhealthy version. For example, healthy fear—when you’re facing a realistic danger—is not the same as a panic attack or a phobia or social anxiety, etc. Healthy fear, or healthy sadness, and so forth, or not emotional problems needing treatment, but realistic emotions telling us to take action.

Sadly, with AI as the latest revolution, lots will change, some good, some bad. And sadly, many will lose their work due to being taken over by AI. Our son, for example, used to get high paid work anytime he wanted in user interface work for companies with prominent web presences. But now AI does all of that, apparently. So, he has to look for something entirely different, and he’s tried a lot. With a wife and a baby, the financial issues are real.

Now, if someone starts getting overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety, self-criticism, and inadequacy, and hopelessness, that IS something I can help with—big time, Bu the practical problems in finding new and different work will remain even after the person has regained self-esteem and optimism.

So sometimes scrambling and being flexible, if possible, and getting coaching with an expert in jobs and career development, perhaps, on what might be practically possible, is called for, and not psychotherapy. I LOVE working with anxiety and can usually guide my patients to extremely rapid recovery, which is tremendously rewarding, for them and for me! But when the problem is real, my expertise does not match the needs.

Hope this helps in some small way. Of course, sometimes a good shrink can help with sorting out options in the real world, but that generally requires a different type of specialized training.

It is profoundly sad, and we have personally experienced it, that so many people are facing this tragic uncertainty and worry about making ends meet and finding themselves lost due to this overwhelming and unpredictable new revolution.

For what it’s worth, my book, when Panic Attacks, is a mass market paperback that has helped many anxiety sufferers and illustrate a great many methods. Also, our Feeling Great app is currently free of charge and causes dramatic reductions in anxiety, depression, and a host of other negative emotions in less than 90 minutes the first time people sit down and use it. It actually includes a highly trained AI designed to use the exact methods I use in my work, and our data suggests that it vastly outperforms most human therapists but will probably not replace them because some serious problems require human intervention.

Best, david

David responds to Megan a bit further

Wonderful, I had one or two additional thoughts for you. People faced with layoffs due to AI (or any reason) face two challenges: the inner challenge and the outer challenge. The outer challenge involves finding, of course, some new way to work and support yourself and your family. The inner challenge has to do with your thoughts. One of the Self-Defeating Beliefs behind a great deal of depression and anxiety is the Achievement Addiction, which means measuring your self-worth based on your work, your achievements, and so forth. This goes back to the Calvinist work ethic, as you know, which is one of the cornerstones of western civilization: you ARE what you DO. So if you do good things, you are a good person; but if you are not doing anything productive or constructive, you are worthless.

So it is super easy to fall into a pattern of self-critical (and distorted) negative thoughts when you lose your work, including “I’m worthless,” and “I’m letting my family down,” and “this is my fault,” or “it’s unfair,” and endless varieties of these themes that can trigger immediate depression, anxiety, shame, inadequacy, hopelessness, anger, and more. So that is the inner battle. And that’s where good psychotherapy CAN play a hugely important role, so you don’t have to double your trouble and face a loss of your job plus the loss of your self-esteem and dignity at the same time.

Thanks, and good luck with your article!

Warmly, david

We discussed a great deal more on the live podcast. Megan just emailed me again, and here’s what she said:

You’re way ahead of me! The story hasn’t been published yet. But you can plug our Axios AI+ newsletter

https://www.axios.com/signup/ai-plus

So, check it out!

And thanks for listening today!

Matt, Rhonda, and David

This is the third survey of our podcast fans since the first podcast was broadcast on October 27, 2016, and the most recent was roughly five years ago. Our awesome Director Marketing at the Feeling Great app conducted the survey and prepared the report which you can review if you

Essentially, we wanted to know a little bit about who you are and why you listen, and what you like the most, and least, and what kinds of changes you'd like to see. 183 of you graciously completed the survey. Thanks!

We discussed many of the findings on the podcast, and you can click the link above for the full report, but here are just a few highlights:

Roughly 1/4 of you are mental health professionals, and 3/4 are general public. Men and women were represented equally. 60% of you are from the US, and 40% of you are international listeners. The age range is heavily tilted toward the older generation, with 66% of you above 50 years of age, and not a single podcast fan less than 20 years old!

And why do you listen? Nearly 90% of you are listening to improve your emotional well-being. This was great to hear, and consistent with the many emails I receive describing the help so many of you have gotten from the podcast. In fact, one recent podcast fan fired their therapist due to lack of progress, having made much more progress from listening to the podcast.

Many of you listen in order to learn TEAM CBT techniques, including therapists who want to improve their clinical skills as well as individuals who want to learn techniques they can use in their daily lives.

Other reasons for listening include:

• Improve my own emotional well-being 87.1%
• Learn therapy techniques 57.9%
• Learn about mental health topics 53.4%
• Support friends/family 49.4%
• Entertainment 20.2%“

One respondent wrote: "The podcast helps me apply tools to real-life problems that day—whether loneliness, meaning, or mood swings.”

If you click on the survey, you'll find a plethora of interesting findings, clearly presented. Rhonda and I are grateful to you, Sevde, for compiling this information, and we are all very grateful to you, our loyal fans, for sticking with us all these years! We will try hard to be mindful of the take-home messages at the end, which included:

Key Recommendations 1. Keep Live Therapy and How-To episodes front and center 2. Reduce episode length & polish editing 3. Bridge podcast and app more clearly (especially in the U.S.) 4. Refresh branding and improve accessibility 5. Add diversity in guest speakers and clinical styles 6. Prioritize topics like perfectionism, trauma, resistance, and self-defeating beliefs 7. Keep posting webinar recordings as podcast episodes

Thanks for listening today!

Sevde, Rhonda, and David

The answers to today’s questions are brief and were written prior to the show. Listen to the podcast for a more in-depth discussion of each question.

Today’s questions.

1. Brittany says that her elderly grandmother has become very needy and demanding, and that her mom finds grandmother’s behavior irritating. She wants to know how she can help her mom / grandmom.
2. Jenny asks: How do we empathize with people we are extremely angry with, including prominent political figures?

1. Brittany says that her elderly grandmother has become very needy and demanding, and that her mom finds grandmother’s behavior irritating. Brittany wants to know how she can help her mom / grandmom.

Hi Dr. Burns,

A few months ago my grandma fell down her stairs and broke some ribs. She was in a nursing home for a short while since she needed physical therapy and assistance doing daily tasks. Before the accident, she lived alone and was completely independent.

During her recovery, she pretty much had round the clock visitors. More than any other person in the nursing home. My grandma complained constantly and anytime someone would say “you look good” or “you seem to be doing better” she would very quickly respond with how terrible she feels etc. Having listened to your podcast on how to deal with complainers, I could see it was because nobody was acknowledging her feelings. They just wanted to say things to cheer her up.

She is now recovered and back home, but she refuses to do things on her own again that she is capable of and the doctor cleared her to do. She has a terrible attitude and is constantly calling up family members and her friends to run errands for her. Example: my mom picked up some lettuce she asked for her. Then my grandma called her friend to go get her one afterwards, saying the one my mom bought was too small. She acts completely ungrateful. She texted me that she has been so lonely with no visitors but then my mom tells me that is not true. That she has had people coming over every day and taking her places.

My mom is at her wits end dealing with her demanding attitude and ungratefulness. I know Jill had an example before where her mom was saying how hard things are and nobody is there for her and Jill used the five secrets. This situation feels a little different. How can my mom get her life back and get my grandma to do things on her own again?

-Brittany

David’s reply

Hi Brittany,

How about including this as another Ask David? One problem, as I see it, is that your mom is not asking David for help. So I could only help you with your response to your mom, acknowledging how difficult things are for her. In other words, use the Five Secrets of Effective Communication. Of course, this assumes you want help with your interaction with your mom.

It can be hard not to "HELP" when a loved one, like grandma, AND your mom, are suffering and struggling. Sadly, I have learned that trying to help third parties is not satisfying or effective most of the time. But modifying the way I interact with people is almost always helpful.

Don't know if this make sense. Certainly we can see what Matt and Rhonda have to add / suggest.

Warmly, david

Brittany’s response to David:

Sure, I think it would be a great ask David. I would be interested in your approach if it were my mom asking you for help. What would you tell her and what your five secrets approach might be.

-Brittany

David’s response:

I always prefer have a specific example to a hypothetical question. I can only help you with YOUR responses to your mom, or to anyone. Can you give an example of something she has said to you that you want help responding to effectively?

Warmly, david

1. Jenny asks: How do we empathize with people we are extremely angry with, including prominent political figures?

Dear David and Rhonda, Your session on dealing with cancer was incredibly heart-warming and so compassionate. I will be sharing that with my sister who is in a similar situation and now completely healed from her cancer!

My question deals with anger. Many of us are dealing with anger and frustration at our country, president, and White House, who are taking rights away from us that we have earned over the past 80+ years. I find applying your positive ideas about anger to be very helpful: to view anger as having a high moral sense of justice and fairness, and to view frustration as keeping vigilant and to not get discouraged.

But I want to investigate further how these anger/frustration ideas can be applied to White Supremacists and Steven Miller. Because when you hear these people talk they are so incredibly angry, and are directing their anger at other people in destructive ways. How could we, if given the opportunity, talk to them and feel empathy with them?

Thanks so much, Jenny

David’s response: If you like, we can include your excellent and highly relevant question in an upcoming Ask David podcast.

Thanks for listening today!

Matt, Rhonda, and David

#466 Ask David: Is friendship a basic human need? Lost and alone—what should I do?

The answers to today’s questions are brief and were written prior to the show. Listen to the podcast for a more in-depth discussion of each question.

Today’s questions.

1. Zainab asks: Is friendship a basic human need?
2. Slash says: I’m lost and alone. I really don’t know what direction to take in my life. What should I do?

1. Zainab asks: Is friendship a basic human need?

Hello Dr. Burns,

I have a question that has been pestering me for years. I know you said you don't need romantic love to be happy, but I find it hard to believe that you can be happy alone without any friends. Humans are social creatures and there have been studies that said being alone is equivalent to smoking cigarettes - that's how detrimental it is to your health. Being alone can be very dangerous - that is why solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments given in prisons.

Best regards,

Zainab

David’s reply

However, the question, as I see it, would be whether adult, or romantic love as you call it, is a want or a need? Do we “need” it to feel happy?

What were your happiest moments, between 0 and 100?

I have had several incredibly happy moments that did not have anything to do with being loved or not being loved.

What, in your opinion, is the maximum happiness possible if you are alone or unloved? What, exactly, is the claim that you are making?

Have you ever intentionally spent time alone to check it out?

And if, just if, you did not “need” romantic love to feel happy, would you want to know that? Or would you prefer to insist that we “need” love for happiness, even if it isn’t true?

In my experience working with many patients, the “need” for romantic love can actually be one of the greatest causes of unhappiness, and one of the greatest barriers to love as well!

Best, david

PS Here’s another way to answer the question. What’s your definition of “need?” Or, to put it slightly differently, what is it that you think you “need” friendship for? It wouldn’t be a cup of coffee at Starbucks, for example, because anyone can walk in and purchase coffee.

And you don’t need friendship to breathe. Air is free.

And also, what, in your opinion, would be the difference between “wanting” friendship and “needing friendship?”

Also, what is your definition of “love.” Love has many meanings, and is not some precise “thing.” It’s just a word we use in a great variety of ways.

I love blueberry pie, but these days I avoid it because it is quite sweet, and I’m trying to avoid calories. I don’t “need” blueberry pie. It’s just a “nice to have” every now and then.

I promised to include the Pleasure Predicting Sheet in the show notes so you can do the experiment suggested on the podcast. So here it is!

Slash says: I’m lost and alone. I really don’t know what direction to take in my life! What should I do? 

Subject: Feeling Lost

Hi Dr. Burns,

I wanted to share some mixed feelings with you. Your podcasts and techniques have been very helpful, and I’m truly grateful for the comfort and hope they bring me.

I’ve been a shy, lonely person for most of my life, and only recently have I started to feel a little bit of confidence. Still, I worry a lot—just like my father. It’s 4 a.m. as I write this, and I keep asking myself, What should I do with my life? Sometimes I dream about learning music, sometimes I think about getting a job, but whenever I try, my anxiety takes over and I step back.

I often see myself as someone carrying many kinds of anxiety—social anxiety, constant worrying, nervousness about driving, blood phobia, and even anxiety that comes out of nowhere. I’ve also learned from you that hidden emotions can be powerful, and I’m beginning to notice that in myself.

Sometimes I go out with my friends, enjoy the moment, and feel lighter. But when I come back and look at my father, my uncle, and my grandfather, I feel a wave of sadness again. My father struggles with anxiety, my uncle (who once lived bold and fearless) now has schizophrenia and cannot work, and my grandfather, at 88 years old, still travels in crowded buses to support the family. Their struggles weigh on my heart, and I often feel I’m not doing anything meaningful in comparison.

Sometimes I even find myself seeing you as a grandfather figure, because your words carry so much wisdom and kindness. It feels strange to say, but I really don’t know what direction to take in my life.

If you could share even a little guidance, I would be deeply grateful.

Warmly,

Slash

David’s response

We can include this in an Ask David podcast if you like! Please advise. Warmly, david

We can use your first name or a fake name, whatever you prefer.

There are many paradoxes in TEAM! That's part of what makes TEAM challenging, but also exciting. Do you know what the plural of paradox is?

Paradise!

Sometimes, music allows us to "see" or "get" something that pure thinking struggles with.

Years ago, followers of the renowned but controversial Dr. Albert Ellis loved singing the famous and outrageous songs written by Dr. Ellis and featuring key ideas in the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) he created. They were popular because they captured his core messages, involving low frustration tolerance, whining and complaining, and more. Dr. Ellis wrote the words, and the music came from popular songs familiar to anyone, like Battle Hymn of the Republic, and many others.

If you like, you can hear a brief interview with Dr. Ellis, and listen as he discusses the dire “need” for love and sings one of his songs about the need (demand) for love

Although none of the REBT songs made the top list on the top ten charts, they brought tons of glee to his many fans, especially when the participants at his psychotherapy conferences would sing them together. His humorous music made it a little easier for some of us to recognize the absurdity in the intense “shoulds” we direct against ourselves when we fall short and a world that isn’t the way it “should” be, according to our narcissistic rules!

Today, we hear some of the music of TEAM CBT which seems to be increasing in popularity recently. However, the themes are quite different from the cutting and sarcastic music of the Albert Ellis era. Instead, they tend to focus on some of the more tender and inspiring messages of TEAM CBT.

For example, I’ve often described a key idea that I learned from my beloved cat, teacher, and friend, Obie:

“When you no longer need to be special, the world becomes special.”

The message focuses on the perfectionism and self-criticism that so many patients and therapists alike indulge in, criticizing themselves mercilessly for every error, failure, and shortcoming, thinking that if they work hard enough, they will achieve something tremendous and attain a lofty status of true “specialness.”

You will hear the song, “Am I Special?” on today’s podcast. The lyrics of “Am I Special?” were written by Angela Poch, the music was written by Shalynn Burton. Angela Poch put together the virtual choir featuring Rachael, Shalynn, Brandon Vance, Eric Burns and Heather Clague.

The Acceptance Paradox is at the core of that song and many TEAM CBT techniques—finding joy and enlightenment when you accept your shitty, below average self.

And here’s the essence of the Acceptance Paradox:

When you accept yourself exactly as you are, warts and all, everything suddenly changes. You perceive yourself and your world through new eyes, and you see that everything is actually quite different from the way you thought, and you experience a sense of freedom, liberation, and joy. David Burns, MD

This is a paradox because total acceptance and total change appear to be exact opposites! But in fact, their the exact same thing! Along the same lines, the so-called "Great Death" of the "self" is actually the "Great Rebirth," or a great "waking up" from a trance.

Much of today’s music revolves around those kinds of themes. And some of it focuses on the Five Secrets of Effective Communication and the Disarming Technique, which highlights another key paradox that I call the Law of Opposites:

When someone criticizes you with an unfair and untrue criticism, you will the overwhelming urge to argue and defend yourself. If you give in to this urge—and nearly everybody does—you will actually PROVE that the criticism was actually 100% valid, and the critic will continue to attack and criticize you.

That’s a Paradox!

And here’s the other side of that paradox: If you immediately, humbly, and genuinely agree with a criticism that sounds unfair and untrue, you will instantly put the lie to it, and the criticism will suddenly realize that the criticism simply isn’t true.

That’s also a Paradox.

So much for the background, and some of the philosophy behind the music you’ll hear today. First, here are the performers you’ll hear in today’s podcast, with brief bio sketches:

Mark Noble, PhD is a famed neuroscientist and recently certified TEAM CBT coach. Today, he sings three songs with guitar: Placebo, Mind Warp, and Song of My Self. You can contact him at [email protected]

Heather Clague, MD is a psychiatrist and Level 5 Advanced Master TEAM therapist practicing in Oakland, California. Heather and her colleague, Brandon Vance, MD, are the originators of the immensely popular Feeling Great and Feeling Great app book clubs. For more information, got to https://www.heatherclaguemd.com.

Brandon Vance, MD is also a psychiatrist and Level 4 Master TEAM therapist and song writer practicing in Oakland. For more information, go to https://www.feelinggreattherapycenter.com/brandonvance. He works with Heather on a variety of immensely popular Feeling Great book and app clubs.

Heather and Brandon sang the song Heather wrote, “TEAM Is Paradoxical.” In addition to singing, Heather plays the ukulele.

Erik Burns is the son of David Burns, MD. He lives with his wife and son in Santa Cruz, California, and practices hypnosomatic therapy for individuals struggling with anxiety as well as those with gastrointestinal complaints. He was recently featured on the Feeling Good Podcast (#435, February 10th, 2025: https://feelinggood.com/2025/02/10/435-meet-erik-burns/). You can learn more about Erik’s life and practice at https://www.instagram.com/erikburns.bloom/.

Shalynn Burton, ACSW is TEAM therapist who practices virtually throughout California at the Feeling Good Institute. She specializes in anxiety, dating/ relationship, race/ethnic challenges, social skills, self-esteem, and more. To learn more, you can check her out at https://feelinggoodinstitute.com/find-cbt-therapist/shalynn-burton.

Rachel Dillman is a singer / songwriter who creates music to help people build greater resilience. To learn more, check her out at www.linkedin.com/in/rachmd www.resilwave.com. She asked me to emphasize that that her songs help her memorize and put into practice important concepts, like the Five Secrets of Effective Communication. In addition, she is a strong believer that songs can influence our thoughts and emotions. You can hear her songs such as Change How You Feel, Five Secrets, and more at the link above!

Angel Poch is an immensely popular and talented TEAM CBT coach and teacher. She practices in Canada, and offers TEAM CBT training internationally through her many outstanding virtual classes and certification program for coaches. For more information, see https://angelapoch.com//

Angela also wrote the songs: “Feeling Great,” and “Tell Me the Truth.”

Thanks for listening today!

Rhonda, Angela, Rachel, Shalynn, Erik, Heather, Brandon, Mark, and David

Often, therapists are drawn to become specialists in the very area where they once suffered and felt most vulnerable. In Mike’s case, he describes his own feelings of failure, betrayal, bitterness and hopelessness in his early career, and how he found his way to become a star in the TEAM therapy firmament.

Today, he describes a breakthrough approach in the treatment of hopelessness as well, based on the A = Assessment of Resistance portion of TEAM.

Mike began by saying that treating hopelessness is always a challenge. . . in fact, I can vividly remember when I felt hopeless!

And of course, part of the challenge is the fear that hopeless patients may try to take their own lives. This is the “dark side” of clinical practice, and it is not often talked about because of the terror it strikes in the hearts of mental health professionals.

Mike started out with a bit of his traumatic personal history. He explained that he once owned and ran a bicycle shop in Canada when he was in his mid- to late-twenties.

“There was a fellow businessman in my town who was a bit older than me and somebody I really looked up to. He was successful, had a beautiful family, was well respected in the community and had some wonderful friends. One day I got a phone call from my wife and she said to me:  ‘Did you hear what happened to John? She went on to tell me that it was shocking and terrible because he was somebody who enjoyed hunting. One day he went out to the family cabin and took his shotgun and took his own life.

Mike said that at his funeral, “I can remember it like it was yesterday hearing his daughter's voice when she spoke and those words that she said.  “Daddy, why were you so sad?”

“A number of years later we had moved on, sold the business and our home and moved to another town to work in an organization supporting people. I had done my degree in theology with focus on youth and counseling and was working with young families. Unfortunately there were some real difficulties in the situation and it did not turn out very well after a little over a year. He felt betrayed, and ended up with no job. He was now in his mid to late-30s, and got a job in a hardware store. “I was really struggling with the sense of confusion, frustration, depression and hopelessness. Even though I had a supportive family, and had been successful in many areas of my life.

He recounts, “One day I looked in the mirror and as I was having those thoughts of hopelessness I was reminded of John, my business colleague who had taken his own life 10 years earlier and I thought about my 2 young daughters.  I could hear John’s daughter's voice: “Daddy why were you so sad”  in my head and I thought I have to get some help”

“My wife is a nurse and has a very wise family physician, Dr Mariette deBruin, who is incredibly skilled at empathy. Fortunately, she had been at a mental health conference earlier that year and heard this brilliant psychiatrist share a powerful approach to treating depression without medication. That psychiatrist was Dr David Burns.

She suggested I get a hold of the book, Feeling Good, and that was the start of my recovery in 2006. I went back to grad school  to do my Masters in Counseling Psychology and then attended my first workshop with Dr. Burns  in 2009.”

Looking back, I realized that hopelessness was actually my best friend. I was in a tremendous amount of pain. Here were some of the positives I discovered in my feelings of hopelessness:

1. In my previous work, I’d been hurt badly, stabbed in the back. My hopelessness was my way of punishing the people who’d hurt me. I was saying, “Look at me. I’m a broken shell.” I felt like this gave me some value. . . as well as a sense of revenge.”
2. I had placed a lot of value in my success in my life, three beautiful kids, and a great athletic career (biking), and my hopelessness protected me from the disappointment of dashed dreams in my new career. I felt I was being realistic.
3. Hopelessness validated how severe my problems were. Hope trivialized it.

When I'm working with practicum students or interns that are early in their counseling or therapy career, one of the greatest fears that they have is that one of their clients or patients will take their own life. Sadly, when you go into this line of work the reality is that at some point, someone we work with in some capacity will experience that level of hopelessness and so I have to inform them that “suicide is not if, but when.” This is why it's so critical for us to know how to  work with it.

He explained that “Hopelessness validated how I felt. People were all trying to cheer me up. That’s the WORST thing you can do.

“My TEAM training was pointing me in the opposite direction. Validating it and acknowledging it took the pressure off of it and began the process of bringing about tremendous relief.”

We discussed the power and value of Positive Reframing, even with the hopeless patient, as well as the value of empathy. He said the Positive Reframing shows that “you totally get what this is like for me.” The positive reframe serves as our most profound empathy tool. By enabling us to perceive the world through the eyes of our clients or patients, it eliminates their sense of isolation.

The hopelessness shows something beautiful and awesome about you.

He recalls his early training in TEAM, and the immense value of the Externalization of Voices and Feared Fantasy work he did with David to challenge his negative thoughts, including:

1. I really AM a failure.
2. David must be thinking that I’m an embarrassment to him.
3. David is also thinking, “I can’t believe I let you on this podcast.”

We illustrated the Externalization of Voices and Feared Fantasy live on the podcast, including the blow-away Acceptance Paradox. Because of that training, “I am no longer afraid of failure!”

Thanks so much for joining us today!

Mike, David and Rhonda

Last week, we published Part 1 of the two-hour webinar on techniques to defeat perfectionism. This week, in Part 2 you’ll learn many powerful methods to crush the distorted thoughts that trigger perfectionism, including

• Identify the Distortions
• Explain the Distortions
• The Externalization of Voices
• The Acceptance Paradox
• The Counter-Attack Technique
• The Feared Fantasy Technique
• Self-Disclosure
• Relapse Prevention Training
• And more!

You can take a look at the workshop handout if you CLICK HERE!

This live, practical training will equip you with powerful, research-backed techniques to help yourself and your clients transform perfectionism into peace, power, self-acceptance, and emotional freedom, all illustrated with dramatic video clips from an actual TEAM CBT session with a woman struggling mightily from brutal self-criticisms, self-doubt, and sleepless nights, due to the very perfectionism that has catapulted her into an incredible career.

Thanks for listening today! And please let us know if you like (or do not care for) these two part-podcasts based on one of my two hour webinars with Dr. Jill Levitt! 

Jill, David and Rhonda