Josh
Appearances
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Go ahead and I'll wait.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Well, just to cut to the chase here a little bit, if you're on high doses of benzodiazepine, certainly don't try to treat yourself, but do it in conjunction with a medical doctor. What's the best way for you to taper?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
One other thing that you said that took me aback a little bit, you said, if I heard correctly, that if someone comes into the emergency room with a panic attack, instead of giving them a 30-day dose of benzos, you should refer them to a psychiatrist for CBT. And I don't think there are – there's only one psychiatrist in the United States who's good at CBT. And he doesn't do CBT anymore.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
He does team, which is awesome. And his name is Matt May. But I don't think there's a lot of psychiatrists who would – use psychotherapy rather than just more drugs.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And if I was in an emergency room, I'd want to be able to refer people with anxiety or depression to psychologists and clinical social workers and people who have expertise in team CBT or traditional CBT rather than people who were trained mainly to prescribe medications.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Awesome point. Let's look at Gray's intriguing question about music. And thank you for that detailed expertise, Matt. Much appreciated.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
No, it wasn't.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Josh. Well, thank you so much, Josh, for those kind comments. And I think we have a question from you, too, or maybe that's just the endorsement that I wrote. But it means a lot to get the question. Three is the Josh. Thanks, David, for techniques. And so maybe that's that that is that that third question there. But I really appreciate that.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Well, I'll give my answer first because it's very short. Usually I give my answer last. But I agree with Gray that music can be beautiful, especially the songs we love, the certain songs for each of us just fill our heart with so much peace or sadness or beauty. And And that can be a magical and emotional experience.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
I don't think we have to look for thoughts in the form of sentences to explain our reaction to music. I'm not aware of thoughts triggering the reaction to music. I once asked Beck, you know, aren't there perceptions other than like a sentence with a negative or positive thought that can figure our emotions? And he said, yes, cognitive therapy is not about thoughts. It's about perceptions.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And, for example, in anxiety, the perception that makes you anxious might be a picture in your mind. Let's say you have a fear of elevators. You may picture that elevator closing off. And so you're terrified of elevators, thinking that the walls are going to crush you or the oxygen is going to disappear or you're going to get trapped. And you kind of picture this.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And I thought that was very liberating that cognitive therapy is all about, it should be called perception therapy. And I guess you could say that music is a kind of auditory perception that can move our hearts or anger us to warfare, you know, that there's a lot of kinds of emotional reactions to music.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And that's about all I have to say, because I don't have expertise in this particular area, but I thought it was a really neat question.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And remember that we have a podcast on the four techniques for working with anxiety. The hidden emotion is certainly an important one, but it's only one of four. And if you want to get complete elimination of anxiety, and you may be doing this already, but you want to use not only hidden emotion model, but the motivational model, the cognitive model, and the exposure model. As well.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Maybe that book is good. When I hear a question like that, I have a very powerful answer. I don't know. Yeah. When people try to explain things in words that don't make any sense to me, I'd rather just say, I don't know. There's a lot of things we don't know. And just because we're a psychiatrist or a psychologist or whatever doesn't mean that we have special insights into everything.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah, that's right. There we go.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Right. That's a beautiful Buddhist thought. But what does it have to do with music? I know.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah. Okay. Well, let's bullshit on some other topic. By the way, I see that Josh's question, that was the beautiful endorsement you wrote, was the third question.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And I have an additional partial answer for Josh, and that you'd be welcome, because you are a mental health professional, and all strengths who are listening, whether you're a pastoral counselor, a psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker, whatever, if you're doing clinical work, You'd be welcome to join either my Jill Levitt and my Tuesday group at Stanford or Rhonda's Wednesday group.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Oh, in November.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
So, yeah. And then your group is once every other week. No, no. It's every week.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Did you think we were talking about you, Rhonda?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah. Well, you can give that information in a minute. But when is your group meet, Matt?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
So we'll put the contact information for all three of us. And Rhonda, you can add the contact information for your group, who is Anna Teresa. Is she still the contact person? Yes. Yeah. And we'll put that in. And then ours is Ed Walton for our Tuesday group for 5 to 7 p.m. That's the Stanford group. And Matt, you'll see his website and email too in the context.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
So if you are a shrink, we would love to have you join us for a period of time or a long period of time. And we practice team CBT techniques. Okay, on to question number four.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But thank you so much because we do share our best for free. And when someone like you writes in and says, hey, the message is getting through, thank you. That means a tremendous amount to all of us. So thank you so much.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Okay, I'll let you two take first crack at this, and then I'll come in at the end. If you like, if you want to answer it. I have some thoughts on that. How about you, Rhonda?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Okay, Matt, take it away. What's your thoughts for Harold?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
That's great. I love your answer, Matt. That's brilliant. I might add that if some of our listeners are interested in taking a look at the Feeling Great app, we have a class in there called Your PhD in Shoulds and talk about specific techniques to get rid of self-directed shoulds like I shouldn't be so screwed up, I should be better than I am, etc.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Other directed shoulds, when you're telling yourself person X, Y, or Z is a jerk, he shouldn't be that way, he's got no right to be that way. And then world directed shoulds, which is kind of like the ones you have, life shouldn't have so much suffering and so little joy. So that's my first point. My second... I mean, you really hit the nail on the head there, Matt.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
That was brilliant, what you said. I loved it. The second thing, I wrote back and told Harold, if he were in a session with me, how I would respond to him, or if we were just friends talking. And that's the... The Maury anti-moaner technique that is described in Feeling Good.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
When someone is just complaining, complaining, complaining, I respond with the disarming technique, thought and feeling empathy, I feel statement, stroking and inquiry. I don't try to help the person. And I give some examples in the show notes. Like if you be... In fact, let's just demonstrate it.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
I'll be Harold and one of you can be the friend and modify how to respond to a complainer using the five secrets. Does either of you want to give it a try?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
You know, life is just so much suffering and so little joy. That's so true.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Okay, what grade did you give yourself?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yes, I agree. And I thought that you didn't try to help. You were just a good listener. And the big mistake that everyone makes, except for you, Matt, and a few other people in the world, is they try to help the person or encourage the person or solve the problem. That forces the whiner, the complainer, just to keep going. To keep complaining.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
So that's how I would handle it on an interpersonal level. What I also said to Harold, and let me go back to my notes here, is that this is nearly always a hidden emotion problem.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
When someone is obsessing about the meaning of life or some vague thing, there's often something real in their life that they're upsetting about, that they're not confronting, they're not dealing with, and instead they're just kind of complaining about life in general. And the solution is often to find the thing that you're really kind of upset about.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And I exchanged a couple emails with Harold, and what turned out is he had made a kind of a common error in dating and got rejected. And what it appeared to be is that he was talking to some woman, and was saying, you know, would you like to go out sometime?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And she said, yes, but when he tried to pin her down, she said, oh, I have to check my schedule, and I'll get back to you in about a week or so. And he agreed to that. And she's really giving him the runaround, and he's falling for it. And I don't mean to blame women. Women will do that. Men will do that.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But that's something you don't want to fall for, that kind of thing, and get out of that situation. Because what happened then, that she just made him wait a week, and then she didn't contact him, and then he contacted her back. And then she said no at that point. And so he just kind of had a week of his life scooped out. And you don't want to give someone that kind of control over you.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And, you know, when people are having trouble with dating, you know, I sometimes suggest the book... intimate connections, which he'd actually said he'd read three times, which I was really, really proud of him.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And then maybe get a colleague or something, a therapist or a friend who's pretty good in the dating arena and learn a bit more about dating strategies, because there's a lot to learn about it and to focus on the real problems in your life. But there's a lot of other techniques one can use in addition to the ones we've talked about here.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
I want to say that I admire Harold because he's put in tremendous effort into his personal recovery efforts. And I've never met anyone who put in that kind of effort who didn't get really good results that just really trying will eventually open the door you're looking to. You're looking to get open. But it can be frustrating.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
I know I was really lame in the dating world myself for a long time and everything I did was incorrect. and eventually I kind of found a mentor who was, you know, well, let's say a shameless womanizer, so everyone will hate me for saying that, but he was. He was Palo Alto's, you know, most famous womanizer, and women used to say how awful he was.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
All he cared about was sex, but he used to go around just picking up women, All day long. And behind his back, they'd tell him, talk about how awful he was. But when he was around, they always wanted to be around him. And he was having a pretty good time.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Well, it's fun to get a note all the way from Bangladesh. It seems impossible, but life has gotten so amazing with all kinds of wonderful and awful as well, unexpected things happening all around the world. I'll give my answer quickly and then see what additional things Matt might have or... You, Rhonda, might have.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And he took me under his wing and kind of gave me a lot of pointers and tips on how you date and what that world is like and what works and what doesn't work. That was the thing I loved most. the most when I was in clinical practice because 60% of my patients were single and didn't know how to get into the dating scene.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And I learned so much from that fellow who in my book I called Bill to disguise his identity, but his real name was Michael. But I couldn't find him. You know, I know his last name, but I want to ask permission. And I called up a lot of people with his name, but it wasn't the same guy, so I never knew what happened to him. But we made a weird friendship. He lived with his mommy.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
He said he was a mommy's boy, and he had a part-time job at Bloomingdale's selling men's clothing, and he had a motor scooter. not a car that he rode around on. But there was something about him that women just found absolutely irresistible. And I kind of learned eventually how that works.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
So there is a lot to learn, and sometimes if you're too sincere and too nice, you get shot down, and that's true if you're a guy or a lady. And...
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Talk about that.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah. Well, it was a joy working with you, Matt. It's always been a joy knowing you as a friend and working with you as a colleague and formerly as a supervisor when you were a psychiatric resident. And it was just so much fun. And it's still so much fun.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But I'll never forget the night that you had gotten over all this anxiety and being jerked around by women and the shoe suddenly was on the other foot. And I remember you came to me once and said, David, I'm in terrible condition and I need your help. And I said, well, what's the problem? And you said, I got confused and made a mistake and I have three dates scheduled for tonight.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Oh, yes, that's right. Happy New Year. Happy Rosh Hashanah.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But there was a study, and this was, you know, it was a good 20 years ago, but it's still vivid in my mind. I don't even remember the reference to it, but I'm sure it exists somewhere on the web. But it was a study done at Harvard. And the conventional thing in going off of benzodiazepines, that's drugs like Xanax, Librium, Valium, Ativan, and that type of thing.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Well, what is the overwhelmingly main, massively important thing to do to help someone who's complaining about world events? Because there's plenty of world events to complain about. So let's say in the empathy phase, someone's upset about politics and the Ukraine and Palestine and Israel and Putin and Alzheimer's.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
all the awful things in the world, big and small, and you've empathized, and they give you an A in empathy. What is the overwhelmingly most important key to successful treatment, Rhonda, with that person?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Absolutely. That's it. And you don't get hooked into, you know, throwing help at people just because they're talking about problems. You know, if a miracle happened in today's session, what miracle would you be happy hoping for? Right. And we certainly can't end the war in Ukraine or, you know, cure the political quagmire in the United States.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But we have all kinds of ways to work with someone, but it depends on what they want help with.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah, it's a good one. And the next one is a great one. I'll be right back. Okay.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
I'll give you my answer right now. I have to take a pee, and so I'll be right back to give my answer.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah, I'm back. I think it just made us seem more human, but that's just my point.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Well, it's a short question, so let's push ahead.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah, now we're going to go on to question number five from Maritz.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Okay, I can give a quick first answer, but I have to correct one thing. You said real psychological disorders with known causes. All psychological disorders have unknown causes, but there are real brain disorders like schizophrenia and bipolar that are really due to some biological error in the brain that we don't yet know.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And at my hospital in Philadelphia, we developed a large cognitive therapy program for the people in our inner city neighborhood. And there were many of them had schizophrenia or bipolar. including some needing hospitalization kind of involuntarily because they were so severely out of control. But when I've worked with people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder,
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
They're all so-called, used to be called minor tranquilizers. is that a lot of them, like Xanax, go in and out of the blood very quickly. And so when it goes into your blood, you just feel wonderful. And all your cares are gone. And if it's evening, you can fall asleep and wake up feeling terrific. But the problem and your anxiety is improved or goes away completely.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
I've worked with them in the same way I would work with anybody. I don't try to treat schizophrenia. Sometimes people with schizophrenia need to have neuroleptics if they're in a state of acute, severe paranoia or psychosis. But the things that I would be helping them with, say, as an outpatient, is exactly the same. Is there something that you would like help with?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And generally it's with their moods, in which case we'd pull out a daily mood log and write down their negative thoughts and the event and the emotions and identify the distortions and talk back to those thoughts. And I've worked with many, many people with schizophrenia, but I'm not trying to challenge their delusions or paranoia, just give them a greater sense of self-esteem.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
People with bipolar, I've treated many people with bipolar disorder, And again, during the acute phase, they may get so, of mania, get so psychotic that they need one hospitalization to understand what they're dealing with and to get on some kind of mood stabilizer like lithium is the one I used. I think they're using some other medications that work fairly well.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But they need the same help as anyone with the feelings of depression. It seemed like bipolar patients often had a lot of perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking and thinking they had to be so great to be loved or to be worthwhile. And I found that helping them with that was life-changing for many of them. And some of my most patients I look back most fondly had bipolar issues.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And and and before I learned cognitive therapy or team therapy, I for a while I ran the lithium clinic at the VA hospital in Philadelphia. And all I had was drugs, drugs, drugs to offer. And those poor guys were going in and out of the hospital like a revolving door. And I can't remember a single one of them who seemed to have a decent adjustment to life, to be honest with you.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
There was a lot of alcoholism and a lot of unhappiness and a lot of pills that we were prescribing. And once I started doing my outpatient practice, I still got bipolar patients, but they did just fantastic because I had something to offer them by way of psychotherapy. I also would say that working with people with schizophrenia or bipolar, for all of us, the therapeutic relationship
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
is important. We all want someone to feel fond of us and to care about us and to approve of us and accept us. But I think that's especially true with schizophrenia and bipolar, that the kindness and warmth that you extend to people with schizophrenia or bipolar, many of them will never forget you. And it means so much. But you also want to have technical skills.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And let me say finally that at our hospital in Philadelphia, we had an inpatient unit for people with extreme psychotic episodes. And one of our clinical social workers created a series of cognitive therapy games. We didn't have team therapy yet at that time, but we had cognitive therapy And he created about 40 games. And he would have the patients on the inpatient unit play these 45-minute games.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Like instead of group therapy, you get together with a group and you kind of play a game designed to illustrate some aspect of cognitive therapy. Like there's the paranoia game and the high George game and things like that. And they really enjoyed playing those games, and they would learn about, like, the cognitive distortions, like mind reading, for example, the paranoia game.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But then when it goes out of your body, you go into a kind of withdrawal, which is the opposite. The anxiety comes back and you get insomnia. And the conventional wisdom was to convert patients on Xanax to a long acting patient. benzo like Klonopin, which has a long half-life, so it goes out of the blood very slowly, so you don't get those sharp withdrawal dips, which happen quickly and intensely.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
He would have all of them sit around a circle and give them an envelope with, if there were 12 patients with 12 pieces of paper, and say, I want you to write down one nice thing about each person here, and then fold it and hand that piece of paper to them. And then when someone gives you a piece of paper, put it in your envelope, don't read it.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And so they're all busy, you know, writing down nice things about each other and handing them around. And so it's not like typical, you know, inpatient treatment. Now, keep in mind, they're seeing a psychiatrist, they're getting medications that they might need, but they're playing these games all day long.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And so they hand them around, and then he would go around to them one by one and say, do you think you know what people said about you on those slips of paper in your envelope? And they'd say, oh, yes, I know exactly what they're saying about me because I can hear people's thoughts. and say, okay, what do you think they're saying about you?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And this one woman said, they're saying they think I'm a prostitute and they're scheming to try to get my gold. And then George said to her, how strongly do you believe that? And she said, I know that's, because I know that's what they're thinking because I can hear their thoughts. And he said, why don't you take and read them out loud one by one.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And then she took out the first one and it said, you know, Rose, I want you to know that you're the person on the inpatient unit who's helped me the most, even more than the doctors and nurses, because when I'm upset and I talk to you, you really listen. God bless you, Rose. I can't thank you enough.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And every piece of paper had some beautiful comment by someone, and tears came to her eyes because when people have schizophrenia, they're often hard to relate to, so they don't hear a lot of affectionate and kind comments from other people. We get kind of frustrated with people with schizophrenia, and we argue with them about their hallucinations and delusions.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And this was a very different way of connecting. And we didn't have the goal of curing anyone with schizophrenia, but just helping them develop joy and self-esteem given their severe condition.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
biological problem and I used to see they would show me letters that they got from families or patients who had been discharged from our inpatient unit just saying and they were often written in kind of broken English you know not very extremely articulate but things like God bless you for the helping me so much or helping my my son so much on the inpatient unit and things like that and
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And the neighborhood really, really appreciated our programs. They even had a feeling good day every six months at the hospital. They'd give out feeling good T-shirts. They started a feeling good jazz band. And it was quite the thing. But it was really based on bringing compassion to a group of people who had very few resources.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Well, the question is just how do you help someone with bipolar or schizophrenia, so-called real brain disorder, as opposed to just depression or anxiety? Right, yeah.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And so they randomly assigned... People who had dependency on, I think it was Xanax was the one that they were using. And they first switched them over to Klonopin. And there were two groups, random assignment groups for the patients. And one group just got the traditional Xanax.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
I had a young teenager referred to me who had one of the... severe brain disorders more in the area of limited intelligence. I'm trying to think of which one. It might have to do with your brain getting squashed during the birth process. I'm not sure. But she had very, very limited intelligence.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
mental functioning, and she was in a high school, but in the special classes for people with severe mental, you know, cognitive impairments. And she had been getting all A's, but she got mad at her teacher, so she refused to study for some quiz, and she got an F. And And then she became suicidal because she flunked that quiz. And her parents brought her to me.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And I asked her, just as I would with anyone, you know, what are your thoughts? What are you telling yourself? And she said, because I flunked that test, I'm going to flunk everything from now on. And that's just the same kind of thought that anyone would have. She just put it in her own words. But, you know, it's an overgeneralization, all or nothing thinking, discounting the positive thinking.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
You know, mental filtering, fortune telling, emotional reasoning, self-blame, you know, should statements, all of that stuff. But I worked with her in a very simple way. I just said, the issue here is what grades did you get, you know, in your quizzes before this one? She said, I always got an A.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And, um, and then I would ask, uh, do you, do you think it's possible that if you start studying again and maybe talk to the teacher, what you were so mad at him about that, that then you could start getting A's again. Um, and, and, and then she would say something like, are you saying that I, it's not necessarily true that I'm going to flunk everything, uh, for the rest of my life.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And I said, yeah, that's what I've been hinting at, uh, And then she would say, could you explain that again? I'm trying to understand this. And we'd go through that 30 times in a row, the exact thing. And then by the end of the session, she said, are you saying that even though I flunked this one quiz, it doesn't mean I'm going to flunk all of my quizzes from now on?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And I said, that's what I've been trying to hint at. And she said, oh, I got it. I'm feeling so much better now. And so it was the same thing. It's just presenting things in a way that people can understand.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And again, it was sad because the goal wasn't to remove her severe brain damage, whatever it was that caused her very tragic and horrific cognitive impairment, but it was just to give them the gift of self-love and joy and self-esteem.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And it was using exactly the same kind of techniques, but delivering them in a way that someone can understand that takes into account who the person is, what is their social functioning, what are their religious beliefs, their religion, their race, their social structure. How can you explain these things in a way that someone will understand from their point of view?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
withdrawal, slow withdrawal, like over a period of weeks, you know, switch them to Klonopin and then slowly withdraw the Klonopin by expert psychopharmacologists at Harvard. And the other group got the same exact pharmacologic treatment, but they also had a group cognitive therapy group every week.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
The principles are always the same.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
We can. One is just John expressing gratitude to us for our answers on positive reframing, which I have in the show notes that people can read if they like. That was from a previous episode. Okay, why don't I read that? Well, I was going to say we could skip it and go on to the last question, number seven.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
It's actually not at all complicated, number seven.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
No, it's only 30 seconds.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And the upshoot of it, as I recall, and I don't recall the details exactly, but there was a massive difference between the groups. And most of the patients, a good 80% of the patients in the cognitive therapy group were able to withdraw successfully from benzodiazepines. And in the pure psychopharmacology withdrawal group, only like a minor percentage
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
What Rhonda is this?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Okay.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah, I love your, okay. I love your questions, Rhonda. And you want to know what are the four feared fantasy techniques. And there's four of them. For the approval addiction, they're for self-defeating beliefs. And if you're working on the approval addiction or perceived perfectionism, then you do the I judge you feared fantasy technique.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
If it's the achievement addiction, you do the high school reunion feared fantasy. If it's the love addiction, you do the rejection feared fantasy. And if it's submissiveness, you do no practice. And now you know the answer.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And we could go on much longer on this and other role-playing techniques, but it is Rosh Hashanah, the first chapter. day of the Jewish New Year, if I understand it correctly. And our love goes out to everyone who's celebrating Rosh Hashanah. You won't hear this until much later. It'll be like four or five weeks from now.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But we still want to send our love and warmth and best wishes to all people in our podcast fans and people all around the world of the Jewish faith. Our love and Our hearts are with all of you. And we're so sad at so much trauma now in the world affecting Jewish people and the country of Israel. And I at least want to express my love and support.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah, me too. Okay.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
OK, goodbye, everybody. Thank you for listening. We really appreciate all of you. We love all of you. And we're so glad you join us here on the podcast, sending your questions and criticisms and your praise. And and we just we love having the dialogue and turning it into a dialogue.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah, that's right. Trialogue. Yeah, that's right. OK, so.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
fraction of them like 20 percent or 25 percent only were able to to to withdraw and so the moral of the story was that the cognitive therapy support greatly at least in that one study that i saw enhanced the success in withdrawing from benzos and i've also had some uh personal experience with this, not with that exact approach.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But when Xanax came out, the drug companies make a lot of claims initially for drugs that turn out not to be true. six months after the drug has been on the market. And when Xanax came out, they claimed it was not addictive and that it was helpful for depression and anxiety.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And so I thought, you know, sometimes I was having trouble getting to sleep at night, so I thought, well, I'll take the smallest dose, a one-quarter milligram of Xanax, and I would fall asleep, you know, quickly. and wake up the next morning feeling fantastic with no side effects or anything. And I thought, man, this is a magic bullet, this drug.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But then after being on it for a number of weeks, I realized that I was getting addicted to it and wanted to take two of them rather than And one of them. And I thought, this sucks. This is not good. And so I stopped taking them. And I went into withdrawal, which lasted about three weeks. And the withdrawal consisted just of, you know, anxiety and difficulty sleeping.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
But I just kind of toughed it out because I understood that that was just, you know, the natural chemistry happening in my brain. And after that, I was fine. And I think I probably did a gradual. I probably went from a full pill to a half a pill for a few days and then to a quarter pill for a few days and then no pill.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah, and then there was one pill I took once. I didn't do a lot taking this kind of pill, but another one came out that was touted for sleep. And it was also a more potent benzo that put you right to sleep. And I took one pill on one occasion, and I went into severe withdrawal from that. It put me to sleep, but as it went out of my blood, I got really wired up, something pretty intense.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
It was awful. And so I never took it again. Matt, you might remember the name of that.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
No, uh-uh. I don't remember the name of it. Klonopin or Klonazepam? Did you say Klonopin?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
I was just talking about Klonopin, the study at Harvard. Oh, okay. Maybe you didn't tune into that, but I'm very familiar.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah. David, you're very boring. Yeah.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yeah. So I don't prescribe them for anything. My colleague, Henny Westraw, a number of years back, and I think I put this reference...
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Yes, in the show notes, but she reviewed the entire world literature on treating anxiety, and she concluded that benzodiazepines not only are not effective in the treatment of anxiety, they always make anxiety worse because you just get dependent on them, and then they make it almost impossible to recover anxiety.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
And she said the most effective treatment for anxiety is cognitive therapy with no medications. And that's how I've always treated anxiety for the past 25 or 30 years. So now I will shut up and give it over to my better angels, you might say, Rhonda and Richard.
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Great. What do you think, Matt?
Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
422: Ask David: Getting off Benzos; Music and Emotions; Negative Thoughts about the World; and more
Or Xanax.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Protect Your Time, with Christy Wright (Business, Time Management, Success, Author)
If time is finite and it's the one thing that we all have the same amount of and you can't create more of, then why do you think some people accomplish more things and influence more people? So what's the explanation for that?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Protect Your Time, with Christy Wright (Business, Time Management, Success, Author)
So when it comes to saying no, when I really think about that, a lot of times we know we get asked to do something, we really don't want to do it, and we feel this guilt. What would you say to somebody who struggles with saying no and the guilt or the fear that they maybe feel to go, I really want to say no, but I'm having a hard time doing it?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Protect Your Time, with Christy Wright (Business, Time Management, Success, Author)
I'm so excited to introduce to you Christy Wright, and she is inspiring and enthusiastic. She educates and entertains audiences all across the country. She speaks at business conferences, Fortune 500 companies, some of America's top universities. And so, Christy, I'm so excited to have you. Thank you for being here.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Protect Your Time, with Christy Wright (Business, Time Management, Success, Author)
Yeah. So how do we avoid overcrowding the schedule?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Protect Your Time, with Christy Wright (Business, Time Management, Success, Author)
So you talk about boundaries. What do you see as the connection between boundaries and your calendar?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Protect Your Time, with Christy Wright (Business, Time Management, Success, Author)
So, you know, when we talk about time management, why do you think that is so important today? Why is that whole conversation such a big deal?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Protect Your Time, with Christy Wright (Business, Time Management, Success, Author)
So, you know, one of the things that's just heartbreaking for me is when people, you know, they have kids and they feel so like helpless, like, oh my gosh, how do I keep up with the spouse and my job and I have kids and all this sort of stuff. Have you seen any sort of common characteristics or traits of people that really do that effectively? Yeah.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Protect Your Time, with Christy Wright (Business, Time Management, Success, Author)
I love that. So Christy, thank you so much for being here. We wish you the very best.