Feeling Good Podcast | TEAM-CBT - The New Mood Therapy
415: Ask David: TEAM on your own, Blushing, Positive Reframing, & Delayed Responses
Mon, 23 Sep 2024
Question #1: John asks: Can you do TEAM on your own? Question #2: John asks: Can you provide more insights or instructions on how to do Positive Reframing on your own? It seems to be an incredibly important key to TEAM-CBT. Question #3: Ann asks: What can I do when I blush and my face turns bright red? Question #4: Dylan asks: Can you have a delayed reaction to the CBT exercises? #415 September 23 Ask, New questions Question #1: John asks: Can you do TEAM on your own? Oh, one other point that occurred to me, the people doing personal work on your podcasts are generally TEAM CBT therapists or people familiar with the TEAM model. They are obviously very familiar with the steps and techniques in TEAM, and yet they seem to require the insight and guidance from yourself and Jill. Why do you think that is if they are so well versed in TEAM already? Does that mean that a person from the general public doing their own work using your books without the guidance of a TEAM therapist is futile? Or would you always recommend someone using a therapist? Kind Regards John David’s response Can we include it in another podcast? Would love to just read it and jam on it with R and M. Warmly, david Question #2: John asks: Can you provide more insights or instructions on how to do Positive Reframing on your own? It seems to be an incredibly important key to TEAM-CBT. On Mon, Aug 5, 2024 at 9:24 PM John Macken [email protected] wrote: Hey there David and Rhonda, I hope you're keeping well, this is John from Ireland, we had a previous correspondence on Should statements! David, thanks very much for asking for access to the beta app, I'm really enjoying the modules! I heard you say on one of your apps that you are planning some workshops in relation to the app, will they be available online do you think? Would love to tune in if possible! I am always grateful for your inspiring work! I love your passion for the work that you and Rhonda do and that comes across from both of you during every podcast episode. Your FG community sounds amazing! Who knows, maybe one day I'll ditch the corporate career and join the cult! I have another question on Positive Reframing! As someone who is still trying to find my own journey to enlightenment following many months of anxiety and depression, I feel I am falling at this positive reframing step. I still find I am bumping up against resistance and I feel that my positive values and benefits don't count. It’s almost as if there is some kind of discounting the positive going on like my negative points vastly outweigh my positive points. It’s like there is such a negative filter there is no space for recognizing positive qualities. I was listening to the beginning of Episode 310 where a listener had an excellent contribution on Positive Reframing from your live work with Nasli. That got me thinking, would it be possible to hear more insights and detail on how to perform your own Positive Reframing work? Or do you have guidelines or a worksheet anywhere? It feels like the most powerful of all the steps! Among the many incredible tools that have been created under TEAM it seems the Agenda setting piece is probably the most powerful and innovative. I have listened to many of your Live Sessions intently and it seems that your gift and that of Jill Levitt is in convincing the patient of the beauty of their depression and anxiety. It feels that they are almost recovered or very nearly once you go through that step. On the face of it, it looks like what you're doing is very simple but there is a nuance and complexity to it that is incredible and without sounding too grandstanding or over dramatic this "gift" seems to be where the healing power lies. If you could bottle that gift you would change the world or be a billionaire or both! It is astounding to listen to. I would love to hear more about your insights into this area and how people can unlock this for themselves. For example, I found podcast 387 on Acceptance and Daring to be average incredibly powerful and insightful and convincing and these are pieces I'm trying to implement in my life. Love and admire your work and would love to make it over to one of your in person workshops someday when they are available to the general public, Warm regards John David's response We will address positive reframing on the show. Question #3: Ann asks: What can I do when I blush and my face turns bright red? Dr. Burns, I hope you’re both doing well. I wanted to share with you that you have changed my life dramatically. I have always thought that everyone else had a problem as far as attitudes and behaviors. But you have taught me through all three of your books and podcasts that my thoughts are why I’ve been so anxious and depressed. I have been on medication since I was 20 years old. Now, I’m weaning off of my medication because of all of the work I’ve done with your book and a therapist trained in TEAM therapy. My relationship is much better with my husband and it was me that was pushing him away from me. Talk about enlightenment!? I’m anxious about getting completely off of my clonazepam because it helps me “control” my face from turning red. My red face makes me so anxious and I start sweating profusely whenever I’m in a situation that’s embarrassing. Thank God, my menopause has helped me with explaining why my face is so red. This has been going on since I can remember. I think I was 5 years old in school when it first happened. Most people stare at me because my face gets really red. I’ve repeatedly tried looking at people, while my face is turning red, to see if they are truly looking at me and sometimes they are and not. The redness lasts for around two minutes but if feels like hours. What can I do? I want to get off all of my meds but my psychiatrist says to do it slowly. I haven’t listened to all of your podcasts but I don’t think there’s one out there regarding a 49 year old lady suffering from a red face. Maybe an ask David? I hope I’ve been specific enough for you. I cannot thank you enough for everything you do for people. Thank you, Ann Zernone David’s response Yes, we actually had a podcast on this exact thing, and happy to add it to the next Ask David if you like. Best, david 88 Role Play Techniques: Feared Fantasy Revisited https://feelinggood.com/2018/05/14/088-role-play-techniques-feared-fantasy-revisited/ 168 The Blushing Cure https://feelinggood.com/2019/11/25/168-ask-david-the-blushing-cure-how-to-heal-a-broken-heart-treating-anorexia-and-more/ Question #4: Dylan asks: Can you have a delayed reaction to the CBT exercises? Hi David, I’m a big fan of your work. Quick question: do you commonly come across people who do CBT exercises and they don’t get their anxiety or depression levels reduced super low right after doing the exercises but a couple days later they experience the results? Dylan Aames Unfit Productions, LLC President @JohnnyPlissken-xs7hq • 12 hours ago David replies Will talks about having this same experience on the live show.
Hello, and welcome to the Feeling Good Podcast, where you can learn powerful techniques to change the way you feel. I am your host, Dr. Rhonda Borowski, and joining me here in the Murrieta studio is Dr. David Burns. Dr. Burns is a pioneer in the development of cognitive behavioral therapy and the creator of the new Team Therapy.
He's the author of Feeling Good, which has sold over 5 million copies in the United States and has been translated into over 30 languages. His latest book, Feeling Great,
contains powerful new techniques that make rapid recovery possible for many people struggling with depression and anxiety dr burns is currently an emeritus adjunct professor of clinical psychiatry at stanford university school of medicine hello Hi, David, and welcome to our listeners throughout the country, the universe, and the galaxy. This is the Feeling Good Podcast, and it's episode 415.
And I do have an endorsement to read, and afterward, we're going to do another Ask David. Just me and David. Sadly, May can't join us today. So this is from a really great team therapist, Dan Lenahan, and he wrote you. Hi, David. I was fortunate enough to be one of the original beta testers for the Feeling Great app and knew the potential it had.
I admittedly hadn't tried the app since the artificial intelligence or AI implementations. So I was eager for the final release. And wow. Talk about, as you would say, blowing it out of the water or knocking it out of the park. When I saw that externalization of voices was a technique, I wondered how could that possibly work? But wow.
Even the way it does, your whole, it's me, your negative thoughts again, just want to remind you, dot, dot, dot, then shows you the negative thought. And it even asks to do role reversals with you. The interactions are genius and have your essence ingrained in all of the chatbot responses. You have truly found a way to reach even more people than ever before and will continue to as it develops.
Congratulations on this great success, Dan Lenahan.
Yeah, that's so neat. Thanks, Dan. You really warm my heart. I sent that to all the members of our app team, especially Jason Minow, who's done so much groundbreaking work in developing our version of AI and training the AI. And it's just so gratifying to see that it's caught your fancy. And if there's any listeners out there who want to support us,
You know, go to feelinggreat.com, not my website, which is feelinggood.com. Go to feelinggreat.com and you can check it out there or go to either of the app stores, the Apple Store or the Google Play Store. Our app is in there, Feeling Great, and you can take a free ride on it and see what you think.
And if you find it helpful and exciting, tell your friends and colleagues about it, too, because you're our marketing team right now. And we're relying on word of mouth to get the word out that there's something really exciting that can help you change the way you think and feel and can happen very rapidly.
It's not just that they want to support you. It's that they want to, you know, overcome their symptoms of depression and anxiety.
No, that's not right. It's all about David. Yes, it's all about trying to help get the word out to more people who are suffering that these are some tools that you can use to actually change the way you think and feel. And there's the little chat box. which will talk to you in much the same way I would be talking to you in an actual therapy session. It's not actual therapy. It's a self-help tool.
We're not involved in doing therapy, but we do want to help you with your negative feelings and do that rapidly. So check it out, the Feeling Great podcast. in the stores, the app stores, or just go to feelinggreat.com and learn all about it. And let me know what you think, and we'll read your responses on the show. Yeah, that's fun.
Okay. Well, this is an Ask David episode, so let's dive in and ask David. Question number one. John asks, can you do team on your own? And this is a question we've answered many times, but there's a different twist in this. Oh, John says, one other point that occurred to me, the people who do personal work on your podcasts are generally team CBT therapists or people familiar with the team model.
They're obviously very familiar with the steps and the techniques in team, and yet they seem to require the insight and guidance from yourself and Jill. Why do you think that is, if they're so well-versed in team already? Does that mean that a person from the general public doing their own work using your books without the guidance of a team therapist is futile?
Or would you always recommend someone using a therapist? Kind regards, John
Well, John has given us many great questions and two questions for today's podcast. And this is the first of the two. And I'll spout out my quick answer and then get your input on that. But when I wrote Feeling Good, and that was 1978 I started writing it, and it was published in 1980.
One of the things that I did that was very important was to say, a lot of you reading this book, if you do the written exercises, you'll probably be able to get a real mood boost on your own, even without a therapist. But at the same time, it's really easy to get stuck. And in that case, two heads are often better than one. And there's no shame in going to a therapist to help you get unstuck.
And so I feel exactly the same way today. If you can use, say, my book, Feeling Great, or our new Feeling Great app, the odds are high that you'll be able to get some genuine change in the way you think and feel just by doing the exercises in the book or the exercises in the app. But sometimes it takes two heads to help you figure out why you're stuck and how to get unstuck.
And so, you know, I strongly encourage you to seek help, particularly if you're having severe symptoms or struggling with suicidal thoughts or fantasies. You definitely need to have face-to-face help. And you still might love the app or you still might love my books and find them helpful. But sometimes a human therapist is absolutely necessary.
necessary for you to be treated safely and effectively. My books aren't therapy and the app is not therapy. It's just self-help. And finally, you asked the really cool question, well, why do therapists, why are we therapists screwed up as our own patients? That's the question really that you're trying to ask. Because when we have therapists on as patients, I do that because
It's not considered therapy, and I'm no longer in clinical practice, but I do demonstration sessions with real people to show you how the techniques work with real people. But it's always easier to see how someone else's thoughts are distorted and have a blind spot about where we're fooling ourselves, even if you are a therapist.
And that's why even therapists sometimes, I would say frequently, need a little bit of TLC and help from a friend, in this case, David and Jill, or sometimes David and Rhonda working together to help you change the way you think and feel. And now Rhonda is going to give another extraordinarily important point.
You know, you used the word I was going to use. We all are blinded by our own negative thoughts. And we don't see all of our positive traits. One time in the Tuesday group when we were still meeting in person, I did some work with you and Jill. And when we were in the positive reframing, she asked me a couple of questions about
to get me to think about some of the positive aspects of what I was feeling. And that sparked insight that I don't think I could have gotten to by myself.
Yeah. And that moves us to John's second question, which is all about positive reframing. And we can maybe mention what there's actually three or four or five questions you can ask yourself when you're doing positive reframing. But let's read the question and tell people what positive reframing is and then answer John's question.
Can you provide more insights or instructions on how to do personal, excuse me, how to do positive reframing on your own? It seems to be an incredibly important key to Team CBT. Hey there, David and Rhonda. Hope you're keeping well. This is John from Ireland. And John wants to know, I'm always grateful for your inspiring work. I love your passion.
And I have a question on positive reframing as someone who is still trying to find my own journey to enlightenment following many months of anxiety and depression. I feel I'm failing at this positive reframing step. I still find I am bumping up against resistance and I feel that my positive values and benefits don't count.
It's almost as if there's some kind of discounting the positive going on, like my negative points vastly outweigh my positive points. It's like there's such a negative filter, there's no space for recognizing positive qualities.
Should we answer that question first? Yeah. Before we go on, I think that can be answered by doing a paradoxical cost-benefit analysis. And you can make a list of all the advantages and benefits of ignoring. Well, first of all, positive reframing isn't about your positive points. Or your positive qualities. That's called cheerleading, and everyone resists cheerleading.
So the reason you're running into resistance may be that you're trying to cheer yourself up by listing all the wonderful things about you. And I hate it when people do that. I've never once seen that be helpful, although we're doing some research on hypnosis, giving people positive suggestions, and maybe it will cheer them up.
In positive reframing, you start with a daily mood log in a situation where you're upset. And you didn't send that for us, so this is all going to be abstract and theoretical rather than a specific example, which would have been much more clarifying, I think, for you and for our audience, but it's still important. And then you list all of your negative feelings like...
Depressed, 80%, anxious, 100%, ashamed or guilty, 80%, inferior, 90%, whatever all of these are. And then your negative thoughts like, I'm a loser, I should be better than I am, and so forth. And when you do positive reframing, you ask yourself the following questions. Number one, you can say, is there some truth in these negative thoughts and feelings?
You know, are they appropriate given my situation? Like when I'm calling myself a loser or whatever it is, what is the truth in that? Is there some truth there? This is clearly not what you're doing, judging from the paragraph we just read. You're trying to build up your positives, and I'm saying let's build up your negatives.
And then the second thing you can do is say, and what are some values of beating up on myself like this and having these negative thoughts and feelings? And can they be motivating, for example? Can anxiety be helpful to you? Does it protect you from danger? Does it keep you vigilant, for example? And then a third question you can ask is what...
So what do these negative thoughts and feelings show about me and my core values that's positive and awesome? For example, if you're very self-critical, does this show that you're perfectionistic and have high standards? Mm-hmm.
And then finally, you can ask yourself the question, are there some bad things that would happen if I stopped beating up on myself and making myself feel depressed, angry, anxious, hopeless, and so forth? That's kind of the essence of positive reframing. Those are the kinds of questions you ask yourself.
And if you like, Rhonda, I don't know if that was helpful so far, but we can read the next three paragraphs of his question if you think that might be helpful.
Yeah, it is. You didn't include that last question, are there bad things or are there consequences that would happen if you gave up on the negative thought or the negative feeling or beating up on yourself? And I think since you added that, and I've been talking about that with clients, that's really powerful.
Yeah, you never know what kind of question is going to lead people to the insight where you have the aha moment, but we're trying to get to an aha moment. And the aha moment isn't you know, thinking you're some kind of wonderful person, but beginning to see the beauty in your negative self-critical thoughts and your negative feelings. Because most of the time, we feel ashamed of how we feel.
And one of the next questions, this woman is constantly struggling to keep herself from blushing, or you're trying to control your anxiety or your panic attacks. And that attempt to change and control things often just intensifies them. It's like trying to cheer up someone who's depressed. It never works.
When people are depressed, they want you to empathize and understand their pain and accept how they're thinking and feeling. When you try to cheer them up, it's just a patronizing insult, really.
Okay, here's his second part of his question. I was listening to the beginning of episode 310, where a listener had an excellent contribution on positive reframing from your live work with NASLI. That got me thinking, would it be possible to hear more insights and detail on how to perform your own positive reframing work?
Yes, John, it would. That's why we wish you would have given us an example. We'd be doing it right now.
Uh-huh. Well, do you have a guideline or a worksheet anywhere? It feels like the most powerful of all the steps.
Only the very detailed worksheets in my book, Feeling Great. And of course, we sent you a free ride on the app. And the app does positive reframing both with AI as well as in the classes and lessons. So those are some resources that might be helpful to you. Go ahead, Rhonda.
Well, you know, there are worksheets that you can copy from your book or make a tool on your own computer copying those. But, you know, even if you don't want to do that, you can just get a piece of paper and write positive reframe on the top and then. On the left side of the paper, write the feeling like sad, depressed, down, unhappy, whatever that feeling is.
And then to the left of that, write down the responses.
To the right of it. I'm sorry. Yes, to the right of it. To the left edge of the paper. Then if you go to the left, you'll be writing it on your desk. And you can do that too if you like.
Right. So I just visualized it all completely wrong. Yeah, you just write down the feeling and then you write down the responses. Is there some truth? Is it appropriate? What are the values? You know, what's the beauty in them? What are the consequences of not believing them and not feeling them any longer? So you don't actually need anything fancy.
Yep. All right.
Okay. So among the many incredible tools that have been created under team, it seems the agenda setting piece, which is where a positive reframing is included, is probably the most powerful and innovative. I have listened to many of your live sessions intensely, and it seems that your gift and that of Jill Levitt is convincing the patient of the beauty of their depression anxiety.
It feels that they're almost recovered or very nearly once you go through this step.
And quick, quick comment on that. Thank you, John, for that beautiful comment.
And that is true, that when you do the positive reframing skillfully, and we've been checking this out in AI because we can see now exactly where people change and a lot of improvement, not all the improvement, but a lot of improvement and negative feelings does occur during positive reframing that the AI is doing with you. And of course, if you try the AI that we sent you free.
It'll do it pretty skillfully with you.
Well, and one point I wanted to make, David, that we were talking about before is that you and Jill are not trying to convince the patient of anything. That would be like you talked about before, that would be cheerleading. What you're doing is you want the patient to do the work for themselves. So just like I talked about before with
Jill, she asked me some poignant questions because she is really brilliant. And that led me to have my own insight. And that's a lot more powerful than her telling me.
It was like the questions that I read, that we read just a couple minutes ago, right? Yeah.
Well, I think she wanted me to acknowledge that I was feeling that I valued being humble. Oh, yeah. So she asked me the opposite and she said, well, do you think you're a conceited person? Yeah. And I said, no. And she said, well, what do you think about conceited people? I said, oh, yeah, I don't really like conceited people. She said, well, how would you describe yourself then?
I guess I'm kind of humble. Yeah, you're right. And so that was helpful.
Yeah. Yeah. She's such a gem and a brilliant and kindly person.
But I wonder if she had said, Rhonda, do you think this thought or this feeling says that you're a humble person? I probably would have said, yeah, but I wouldn't really felt it as much as in the dialogue with her.
What I love about what you're saying right now is that there's a discovery that happens, and it's often an unexpected discovery when you're doing positive reframing. And if you're just doing it in a formulaic way, it doesn't work. It's like anything else. It looks like a simple tool, but, you know, like I guess taking a knife to a piece of wood and
It's simple, but some people can do that and make beautiful carvings and other people just like me, I would just be cutting up the piece of wood and it wouldn't look like anything.
Yeah, exactly. And it's really more exciting that, like you said, that aha moment. It's exciting when you have your own aha moment.
Yeah.
Okay. On the face of it, it looks like what you're doing is very simple, but there is a nuance and complexity to it that is incredible. And without sounding too grandstanding or overdramatic, this gift seems to be where the healing power lies. If you could bottle that gift, you would change the world or be a billionaire or both. It is astonishing to listen to.
I would love to hear more about your insights into this area and how people can unlock this for themselves.
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you one other thing. I love what you're saying, and I share your feelings and your convictions. And just within the last week, Jason Minow is our AI guy. He's the one who's actually doing the programming with the AI team. But I help him and we work together and provide feedback. And he's created a new form of AI, which I call multi-level.
And what we can now do with our AI, and it's a new version of positive reframing. Instead of telling you how we do it, let me say that... And you might want to test out the new version with Jason as soon as he's ready for a beta test. But it actually listens during positive reframing for the resistance of the user or the patient.
And we trained it to what to look for to find out if it's not working for the patient. Like exactly what your question was, what if it's just not turning you on, the positive reframing? And we taught it how to turn that resistance into instant understanding of positive reframing.
Like the very resistance, you know, you can ask a couple questions about the person who's resisting and all of a sudden they're into positive reframing on that deeper level. So I hope this doesn't sound too grandstanding or overly dramatic, as you mentioned in your paragraph, in your beautiful note.
But it's trying to make that gift to everyone, because that's where a lot of the healing power lies, for sure. And it's not what I was trained in when I was learning cognitive therapy. It didn't exist at that time, but it exists now. And it's like having... supercharged cognitive therapy, or what I say, cognitive therapy on steroids is another way of putting it.
And we are trying to bottle that gift as effectively as humanly possible or non-humanly possible with AI.
Yeah. And I do want to reiterate that that is a major portion, a major I don't know what, it's a major contribution of yours to the field of psychology, positive, you know, the whole agenda setting sequence. It's, you know. That changes psychology forever.
I think so. And my only request to the world is if you can maybe from time to time, if you've got your own website or your own whatever, to acknowledge where some of this came from. Mm-hmm. because I remember when I wrote Feeling Good, I was so grateful for having learned a lot from Aaron Beck. And even though we didn't have all the answers, he sure knew a hell of a lot more than I did.
And so I referred to him, I think, I went through the book and counted 38 references to Aaron Beck, and they were all in a flattering context. And And I remember when I sent Feeling Good to Albert Ellis, because I had just met him and I thought, well, maybe I could get an endorsement from him.
And then he wrote back and said, well, I wouldn't mind giving you an endorsement, but you didn't give me any. And maybe you would want to acknowledge that cognitive therapy was actually developed from my work in the 1950s, often without acknowledgement. And he gave me a lot of references to his first book, Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy. And I saw that he was exactly right.
So then I acknowledged him, too, at the beginning of Feeling Good as one of the forerunners, one of the incredibly important historic figures. And I always appreciated him after that. And he always appreciated my work. by acknowledging him, as so many people stole from him, like Wayne Dyer with his book, Your Erroneous Zones. It was a multi-million number one bestseller.
But it's just someone went to one of Alice's workshop, Wayne Dyer did, and was turned on. I think it was a weekend workshop. And then he just wrote it all up as if it was his own. And he was a good con man. And he, you know, wrote very persuasively and he was very charming on interviews. But he did not acknowledge the contributions of...
You know, Albert Ellis, and I once asked Albert Ellis, don't you get mad at people like Wayne Dyer who steal from you without acknowledging? And he says, you know, he was a New Yorker, so he talked like this. He says, no, I never got angry. And I said, well, why is that, Dr. Ellis?
Why don't you get angry at the people who are ripping you off and stealing your ideas and pretending like they're your own? And he said, well, I'll tell you why, David, because those people are assholes. And that's what assholes are supposed to do. They should do that. Asshole, you should expect assholes to steal. And I thought that was a funny response. I never...
believed him 100% that he never got angry because he was actually a pretty angry guy. But I loved him. And we all owe so much to his fantastic contributions to the field. So if you think my contributions have significance, you know, it doesn't hurt to let people know because I, like Albert Ellis, appreciate being acknowledged.
Exactly. You're right, as you should be. Okay, question number three. Anne asks, what can I do when I blush and my face turns bright red? Hi, Dr. Burns. I hope you're both doing well. I wanted to share with you that you have changed my life dramatically. I have always thought that everyone else had a problem as far as attitudes and behaviors.
But you have taught me through all three of your books and podcasts that my thoughts are why I've been so anxious and depressed.
And let's skip the second paragraph.
Exactly what I was going to do. I'm anxious about getting completely off my Kanazapan because it helps me control my face from turning red. My red face makes me so anxious and I start sweating profusely when I'm in a situation that's embarrassing. Thank God my menopause has helped me with explaining why my face is so red. This has been going on since I can remember.
I think I was five years old in school when it first happened. Most people stare at me because my face gets really red. I've repeatedly tried looking at people. Well, my face is turning red to see if they're truly looking at me, and sometimes they are, and sometimes they're not. The redness lasts for about two minutes, but it feels like hours. What can I do?
I want to get off all of my meds, but my psychiatrist says to do it slowly. I can't thank you enough for everything you do for people. Thank you, Anne.
Well, I'll give a quick answer, then we'll get an answer from Rhonda, and then we'll do some role-playing techniques and demonstrate the response. But let me first say that we have had podcasts on what a 49-year-old lady suffering from a red face can do. And there are podcasts, number 88, called Role-Play Techniques, Feared Fantasy Revisited. And podcast 168, The Blushing Cure.
And there'll be links in the show notes or you can go to my website, feelinggood.com. And there's a list of all of our podcasts with links to them. So you can link to those. But to give the answer to you in a nutshell is your problem, and this is just self-help on this show. We can't treat you or prescribe anything or tell you what to do or what not to do.
But to my way of thinking, your problem results 100% from non-self-acceptance. You're trying to hide or control yourself. you're blushing and you're profuse sweating. And I've treated many people who blush and sweat profusely. And I know how to help people get over it and we'll demonstrate it.
But the key involves accepting the fact that you blush, that this is one of the things that your body does. And none of your anxiety comes from your sweating or from your blushing, but from distorted thoughts about it. And we'll show you how to crush those thoughts in just a minute. But I love your question.
I'm so glad that you wrote to us because there's a lot of people out there right now listening at this very moment who are trying so hard to fix this thing that's wrong with them or that thing that's wrong with them. And whereas the actual, that's the actual problem that you keep trying to fix yourself, thinking that you're not good enough, where the solution is self-acceptance.
And I've often said, and no one yet has understood it, everyone thinks they understand it, but they don't. But self-acceptance is the greatest change a human being can make. Self-acceptance, accepting yourself exactly as you are with all your sweat and all your bright red face, red as a clown's red lipsticks, accepting that.
It's not giving in, but it's transforming your life because self-acceptance is the greatest change a human being can make. And the moment you accept yourself, everything will change. But back to you, Rhonda. We'll give you a chance to respond to this, and then we can do a little fantasy role play if you like.
Sure. Well, I love your response about self-acceptance and changing her thoughts. I mean, right now she's thinking this is awful, but she could also be thinking this is endearing. And if she thought this is endearing, then she would be happy when she blushed because it would allow her to be closer to other people. Yeah.
I was just thinking that once you go through the whole team model and you get to methods with her, then we could do some really fun work with shame attacking techniques or exposure, having her blush, and then do a survey technique, asking people what they think about her when she's blushing.
I don't recommend that one, actually. Okay.
You don't recommend the survey?
No, because you're forcing people into an awkward position of thinking they have to cheer you up in some lame manner and insist that they're not turned off. And think of people who are honest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there's ways to do it that get around that.
What do you think of exposure and shame attacking?
Oh, great. Great. Okay. And feared fantasy is a form of exposure and shame attacking. Okay, let's do that. Yeah, okay. And do you want to be the blusher or the blushee? One of us can be the stranger from hell, and one will play the role of Anne. I want to play the role of Anne. Okay. And let's say we've just met, right?
And I'm gonna be the person who says all the things that you believe others are thinking, but would never dare to say. And we do it, that's what the feared fantasy technique is.
This isn't practice for real life, because people don't say these things to you in real life, but we're helping you get over your fear in a kind of a fantasy land, the Alice in Wonderland nightmare world, where your worst fears do come true. And if you like what we're doing or want to understand it better, you can go to those two podcasts and it'll be explained further.
But tell me what your name is. Like we're just meeting and I'll be the stranger from hell, the one that Anne has always feared. I'm Joan. Joan. Oh, yeah. Yeah. My name's David. Could I ask you a question, Joan?
Sure. Sure.
I noticed that when we met, your face has just turned bright red, and you look as red-faced as a clown, all covered with red lipstick or something. And I can see little beads of perspiration and sweat forming on you. Is there something wrong with you?
There's nothing wrong with me. I'm just a person who blushes, and when I blush, I sweat. That's just part of who I am.
Oh, I think that's disgusting. Yeah. Oh, wow.
Well, okay. You don't have to be around me.
Okay, goodbye. Okay, bye. Okay, who won, would you say? I won. No, how big or small?
I'd say that was big. Big or huge? I'd say that was huge. I've never seen you tongue, you're very rarely tongue-tied. You didn't have a response to that.
Yeah, that was pretty cool. Now, one thing is you escaped through avoidance, and that's, of course, the cause of all anxiety, right?
I escaped through avoidance by when I said you don't have to be around me?
Yeah. You were like telling the person to get lost. And it was kind of cool because you were sticking up for yourself. But I'll show you. And probably my comment just now wasn't entirely accurate. But I'll show you a slightly different style.
Okay. So you're Joan and I'm attacking you. So Joan, I noticed your face is all red and you're all sweaty. It's so gross.
Oh, really? You're grossed out? I've been sweating like this, proudly sweating, since I was five years old and blushing. But it seems like it's disgusting to you, and I'm sorry because I didn't mean to upset you. Can you tell me more? what's disgusting about it because once you get to know me better, you'll see that this is one of my lesser flaws.
Actually, I have tons of shortcomings, but tell me what, why is it, is it upsetting to you that my face is red and that I'm sweating?
Well, that is a perfect example of self-acceptance.
Yeah.
I love how you said, really? I've had this since I was five.
Yeah.
Why does it upset you? Like you're just normalizing it. You're just normalizing the blushing.
Right. Right. But the people often resist enlightenment. That's been the Buddha's problem 2,500 years ago and ever since when he's gotten reincarnated over and over in different individuals. He keeps noticing that people don't want to do the very thing that will give them enlightenment.
And the Buddha found that frustrating 2,500 years ago, and still he finds it frustrating in many of his current incarnations. But the reason that people are afraid is you think that acceptance is the same as giving up or giving in and that something terrible is going to happen. And so you think you have to change yourself in some way to be special, to be lovable, to be worthwhile.
And that's the cause of your misery. And that's the distortion that's causing your pain. Your pain never came from blushing. Your pain came from your own lack of self-acceptance, your own self-criticism. Other people's criticisms of you could never upset you unless you buy into them. And then it's your own thoughts that you're believing that's upsetting you.
So let's do a couple more role reversals to see if we can drive this home. Could I talk to you for a minute, Rhonda, or whatever your name is?
Sure.
Your face just turned bright red. Are you blushing?
Yeah, I am blushing.
Oh, that's a childish thing to do. That's ridiculous for a grown adult to be blushing. Do you realize how silly and ridiculous you look right now? I mean, everybody, come and look at this woman. Her face is as bright as a stoplight. It's red, bright red.
Wow. You're right. It is kind of childish. I love that about myself. And I've been blushing since I was a little kid, probably five years old. It's a quality that's, that's a part of me. And most people feel like close to me and get really endeared with me. And I love that. You know, it makes, I feel really humble and, and I don't feel like I'm, I have to be better than everyone else.
And blushing kind of keeps that alive for me. But you said it was disgusting and you're calling everybody to look over at me.
Oh, yeah. I have a friend who works for the Palo Alto Times newspaper. And I'm going to mention to them, you know, so they can run an article on you and how ridiculous you are with a grown woman blushing and sweating for no reason at all.
I would be so happy and flattered to be in the newspaper talking about blushing and having my picture in the paper, even when I am blushing. That would be super fun. Well, you said it was ridiculous. I'm curious, what's ridiculous about it? You said it was disgusting. Like, what disgusts you about it?
Well, it's just abnormal. You're abnormal. I don't blush. I don't associate with people who blush. None of my friends blush. They're all very confident and courageous people.
Oh, gosh. I admire you for being conscious, being courageous and confident. And, you know, blushing is a part of me and I love the strengths that you're sharing with me. You know, blushing is one of my qualities, just like
talking to you is and and responding to you and thinking about it and and you know can i give you a corrective feedback right now yeah i'm kind of losing myself you're getting defensive aren't you
It's one of my qualities, just like talking to you. I would rather go to the direction as, you know, blushing is just one of my many flaws. Yeah, one of my many flaws. And if you get to know me, you'll find out that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
But what if I said blushing is one of my many strengths? I mean, why do I have to see it as a flaw?
Because, you know, you can't... change yourself with bullshit that you don't believe. Do you think Anne believes that blushing is one of her strengths?
No, not right now. That's why it's not going to work. Okay. That makes sense. Okay. So then let me just repeat that and say, yeah, blushing is one of my many flaws, but if you get to know me, you'll find out that I have a lot more than that.
Yeah. To me, that's vastly more powerful. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that's a little thing on blushing. Now, how are we doing? That was fun.
That was a good lesson.
Oh, yeah. And yeah, it was a great. Yeah, I love this. You know, when you folks send us questions, we have to scratch our heads and figure out how we're going to answer them. And it helps us with our learning. And we hope our answers help you with your learning too. Yeah. And should we call it a day?
I think we have time for one more. We did 45. It's been 45 minutes. Do you want to stop at 45 minutes?
No, but let's take question number five, which is a short one that we won't get bogged down in.
So Dylan asked you, can you have a delayed reaction to the CBT exercises? Hi, David. I'm a big fan of your work. A quick question. Do you commonly come across people who do CBT exercises and they don't get their anxiety or depression levels reduced super low right after doing the exercises, but a couple of days later they experience the results?
I'll give you first dibs, which I should always be doing on these questions, and then I'll give you my answer.
I think that's a really interesting question. And I would say... that I'm kind of guessing that the person who didn't get their depression or anxiety levels reduced very quickly right after doing the exercise is probably spending time thinking about the exercise and incorporating it into their daily life. And that's leading them
toward a lower level of their feelings, a reduction in their feelings. So I actually think that's kind of cool. And maybe that would make their reduction stronger because they're incorporating the lessons.
I don't know. What do you think? Well, it's close to that. When I first was learning cognitive therapy and I developed externalization of voices where you do, you know, as you're so familiar, the intensive role play back and forth, hitting each other with the patient's negative thoughts. They attack me. I attack them.
In the early days, often they'd have some thought that I couldn't help them answer within the session. So they might have the idea. I remember a woman I was working with, and she became an appendix in the book, Intimate Connections, because she believed that she was just average. There was nothing special about her. And she was a clinical social worker, and she was unmarried.
And she said, I don't have a husband. I just have an ordinary job. I just have an ordinary intelligence. So there's nothing special about me. And that's a fact. So in reality, not an especially worthwhile human being. And we did role playing back and forth for four full hours, not all at once, an hour a week for four weeks.
And neither one of us could figure the answer to it, how to accept this about yourself and still feel happy. And then it hit her halfway through the fifth session and she became enlightened. And we saw it suddenly at the same time. And that happened to me all the time. I would leave a session thinking, gosh, this person thinks they're worthless. And I think they're worthless.
So they probably are worthless. How am I going to help them? Would you really think they were worthless? Oh, yeah. I got hypnotized by every patient. It still happens at the beginning of their work. Every depressed person tries to convince me that they're hopeless and worthless. They're the one who can't get better. And they're very good. They're brilliant debaters.
And they used to persuade me all the time. And it would take a day or two after the session, I'd say, ah, that's where they were getting distorted. And then I'd see them the next time. I'd say, I think I figured it out. And then they'd get it. And then they'd feel better. But cognitive therapy and its new inheritance team, CBT, look simple, but they're not. They're very sophisticated.
These are the most challenging forms of psychotherapy ever created.
Mm-hmm.
And they require a certain deep discovery, a certain deep understanding that transforms your life. And I used to and still do. You know, I wake up in the middle of the night with answers to questions I didn't have when I went to sleep.
And often the questions when I was in clinical practice seeing 6, 8, 10, 12 or more people in a single day, I'd have a lot of them that I couldn't figure out how to talk back to their negative thoughts. And then it would occur to me. I mean, effectively, see, the positive thought has to be 100 percent true and it has to drastically reduce your belief in your negative thought.
That's the necessary and sufficient condition for emotional change. The necessary condition is you have to combat your negative thought, like I'm a loser, with a positive thought that's 100% true. A half-truth will never work. But in addition, the positive thought has to totally crush the negative thought and suddenly see that it's garbage. You see your belief and it goes down to 5% or 10% or 0%.
And that's the sufficient condition for emotional change. And so... If you don't get a mood boost until a couple days after doing, say, a daily mood log, well, that happened to me every time when I was inventing. Team CBT and refining cognitive therapy. One day was called cognitive therapy. And I had exactly the same experience.
And then as I got older, it got to where I could figure out the effect of positive responses just like right away after doing it for 40, 50 years or however many years I've been doing it. And so that's my interpretation. It isn't quite what you said, Rhonda, which is that you talked about something kind of wearing off or something like that.
No, that you're thinking about it over time. Like you have a therapy session and you think about it the next day and the next day and then the insight comes.
Yeah, you get an insight as to why your negative thought is screwed up. And the very moment you have that insight and you can actually see it. So it's as obvious as the fact right now I can see that there's skin on my hands and there's no doubt about that. And the moment you get it with that degree of clarity in that very instant, your feelings will change. And that could very well happen.
A couple of days after you've been working and that just shows you have a brain just like mine, that you have a nice subconscious mind that works overtime for you when you're not thinking about it.
Well, what about that woman that you were talking about who was an average social worker and didn't have a husband and she thought she wasn't special?
Yeah, it took us five hours together.
Yeah, so when you finally figured it out, what was it?
You have to buy my book, Intimate Connections, and read the appendix to find out because I can't remember right now. But again, the answer to it is it's the same as what we've been telling people in today's podcast. The problem is not that she isn't good enough. What is her problem, Rhonda?
That she doesn't accept herself and she's self-critical.
Yeah, she's beating up on herself.
She's beating up on herself.
Now, let me ask you, let's say that she's going to pick up her child at school. And she finds out her child is out playing with other children on the swings and things. Would she go out into the schoolyard and go up to those children one at a time and say, gee, the way you're swinging is just average. That's not Olympic quality. There's nothing special about you.
Absolutely not. She would never say that.
Why not?
Because that would be mean and cruel and unnecessary.
That's the point. You know, happiness comes from self-love. And self-love is a decision you make, not something you can earn. And that's a Christian concept. I don't know if it's also a Jewish concept or... or an Islamic concept, but the Christian idea is that you don't get to heaven through your good works, but from the grace of God.
And the grace of God is the grace of a colleague who treats you in a loving way, or the grace you give yourself to treat yourself in a loving and compassionate way. And that's the meaning of God. Exactly.
And what you just described, what would you say to a seven-year-old? That's a type of paradoxical double standard technique. Would you say to a seven-year-old the things that you're saying, the critical things that you're saying to yourself?
Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.
Okay. Well, thanks everyone for listening and we'll see you next time.
Yeah. And keep sending us your great questions because we really love answering your questions.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. This has been another episode of the Feeling Good Podcast. For more information, visit Dr. Byrne's website at feelinggood.com, where you will find the show notes under the podcast page. You will also find archives of previous episodes and many resources for therapists and non-therapists. We welcome your comments and questions.
If you want to support the show, please share the podcast with people who might benefit from it. You could also go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. I am your host, Rhonda Borowski, the director of the Feeling Great Therapy Center. We hope you enjoyed this episode. I invite you to join us next time for another episode of the Feeling Good Podcast.