Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

I am embarrassed about loving a self-help book, but I do.

This book is brilliant. Practical advice and steps to help you control your own thoughts.
Even if you think you are in full control of your own mind it will probably be interesting to you as it gives you some idea of how cognitive therapy works and why it is so much more effective than everything that came before.

I don't think he's right about every feeling you have being brought about by your thoughts but, regardless of that, controlling them can only be useful.

My mother got this book to deal with her anxiety, so I was curious and read it. For the most part, I think it's pretty silly, but it did teach me an important thing-- that everyone has control over their own emotional and psycological well-being. We're brought up to believe that mental illness is just that- an illness, completely out of our control.

But, not to denigrate anyone with mental illness, a great deal of it IS under our control- and that continuing to tell people that they have no control will contribute to their problems. Cognitive behavioral therapy won't work for everyone, but I think it's a very helpful approach which should definitely play a prominent role in psychology's extensive repetoire.

Feeling Good is both utterly brilliant and yet limited. To learn about cognitive distortions, I can't imagine a better resource. It's so good, in fact, that at least 6 scientific studies have been done just on this book, studying how well simply reading it does for reducing symptoms of depression. Bibliotherapy is a thing, and this is perhaps the book for improving your life simply by reading.

That being said, the book is limited (I believe) because its premise is an overstatement. CPT (Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy) - the subject of the book - is based on the idea that our moods are caused by our thoughts. Therefore, by controlling your thoughts, you will control you mood. Your first impulse, or at least mine, was complete skepticism. show more The more I read, the more convinced I became of my own cognitive distortions. In fact, you can rest assured that your cognitive distortions affect your moods (and your life) much more than you realize, or would like to admit. That is the brilliance and power of this book, and I can hardly recommend it enough.

That being said, I happen to follow this book with another, The Body Keeps the Score, to learn the brain is much more complicated than Feeling Good lets on. Our moods/feelings are often controlled and influenced by parts of the brain that are not rational.

For the rational person, and one lucky enough to avoid much trauma, it's a perfect a resource. Or if you're wanting to learn about CBT and your own cognitive distortions, it's great! For those with more trauma, I'd recommend The Body Keeps the Score or something like it. show less

Say you are depressed. Food doesn't taste good, the skies are always gray, you're sleeping badly and carrying a lump of lead in your chest all day every day. Take David Burns's well-researched and highly effective book daily for six weeks, and call me in the morning. Cognitive-behavioral approach works brilliantly with medication and therapy, but can also be surprisingly effective on its own. You heard it here first.

I have given away so many of these books! My daughter snagged this one at a book sale, and I'm hoping I can keep it at least for a few weeks.

I like this book a lot, and on an interesting note, you will find more fans of it in unexpected places. It's very strategic when it comes to how to rate your mood and other things from 1 to 9, and giving attention to those things that seemed more overwhelming. It makes you look in-depth at parts of your mood that you otherwise wouldn't see, and overall paint a picture of it. Overall a great read, and wouldn't mind recommending it.

The field of Cognitive Psychology is the underlying basis of this book on combating anxiety and depression. The first few chapters were very off-putting because the author tediously reiterated why buying his book was not a waste of money and then went on to give too much information about the development of cognitive psych. An additional oversight was the lack of explanation on whether anxiety is always an inextricable symptom of clinical depression. As a therapist, he could have explained simply and without all the self-justification that tainted the beginning chapters.

Once the reader has delved far enough into the book, around chapter 4, we get to the meat of the topic. These chapters were engaging and well-written. If one perseveres, show more genuine insights are available and the book becomes rewarding.

By comparison, other self-help books have more stringent editing with equally-effective techniques for self-help and education. It is always wise to read more than one author in a topic, as well. I recommend this book as worth your time, even if you skim a few of the irrelevant sections. For a comparison, check out The Body Keeps the Score (Bessel van der Kolk).

Note, the e-book copy of Burn's book (via Overdrive) was not formatted properly for either reading via a browser or an e-reader; if these display issues are an extreme irritant, I recommend borrowing the physical book. show less

This is a great introduction to the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy, but the author seems overly dismissive of drug therapy. I don't have the credentials of the author, but in my own experience, CBT was only half the solution to feeling good.