David D. Burns
David D. Burns
David D. Burnsis an adjunct professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the author of the best-selling books Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy and The Feeling Good Handbook. Burns popularized Aaron T. Beck's cognitive behavioral therapywhen his book became a best seller during the 1980s...
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absolutely delighted heart horrible patient rare session three wonderful
It's very rare to have a patient who isn't absolutely delighted when you say, 'I read your feedback. The session didn't go well. You actually got more upset, and I made about three really horrible errors.' If you do that from the heart and not as a gimmick, boy, it's a wonderful thing.
change patients
What saddens me is seeing patients who have been going to therapy for years and years with no change, but they keep going to the same therapist. To me, that's not right.
appear change ends feeling frustrated head patient persuade pinpoint resistance reverse therapists work
Most therapists do not appear to know how to pinpoint and reverse therapeutic resistance - to head it off at the pass. Instead, they try to persuade the patient to change, or to do the psychotherapy homework, while the patient resists and 'yes-butts' the therapist. The therapist ends up feeling frustrated and resentful, and doing all the work.
cancer depression hope loved patients seem terminal worse
Depression can seem worse than terminal cancer, because most cancer patients feel loved and they have hope and self-esteem.
powerful guilt behavior
Guilt serves a powerful social function in terms of policing our behavior.
personal-accountability forgiving guilt
Forgiving yourself, not guilt, increases personal accountability.
hard-work people leader
People who are prone to guilt tend to work harder and perform better than people who are not guilt-prone, and are perceived to be more capable leaders.
lying thinking opportunity
People who expect to feel guilty tend to be more sympathetic, to put themselves into other people's shoes, to think about the consequences of their behaviour before acting, and to treasure their morals. As a result they are less prone to lie, cheat or behave immorally when they conduct a business deal or spot an opportunity to make money, studies suggest. They are also likely to make better employees because people who think less about the future results of their actions are more likely to be late, to steal or to be rude to clients.
responsibility self views
Surprisingly, it's forgiveness, not guilt, that increases accountability. Researchers have found that taking a self-compassionate point of view on a personal failure makes people more likely to take personal responsibility for the failure than when they take a self-critical point of view. They also are more willing to receive feedback and advice from others, and more likely to learn from the experience.
attitude behavior-change self
More often than not, the belief that you are bad contributes to the "bad" behavior. Change and learning occur most readily when you (a) recognize that an error has occurred and (b) develop a strategy for correcting the problem. An attitude of self-love and relaxation facilitates this, whereas guilt often interferes.
guilt helping should
Guilt doesn't help. What should fill in for it? Remorse. Remorse is when you feel bad about what you did. Guilt is when you feel bad about who you are.
powerful pride winning
Despite their differences, pride, shame, and guilt all activate similar neural circuits, including the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, amygdala, insula, and the nucleus accumbens. Interestingly, pride is the most powerful of these emotions at triggering activity in these regions - except in the nucleus accumbens, where guilt and shame win out. This explains why it can be so appealing to heap guilt and shame on ourselves - they're activating the brain's reward center.
mistake guilt way
Guilt is not the best way to remedy your mistakes.
sometimes humans persons
You're not a bad person. But you sometimes do bad things. You know what that makes you? Human.