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Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Paperback – Illustrated, April 6, 1999
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National Bestseller – Over five million copies sold worldwide!
From renowned psychiatrist Dr. David D. Burns, the revolutionary volume that popularized Dr. Aaron T. Beck’s cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and has helped millions combat feelings of depression and develop greater self-esteem.
Anxiety and depression are the most common mental illnesses in the world, affecting 18% of the U.S. population every year. But for many, the path to recovery seems daunting, endless, or completely out of reach.
The good news is that anxiety, guilt, pessimism, procrastination, low self-esteem, and other "black holes" of depression can be alleviated. In Feeling Good, eminent psychiatrist, David D. Burns, M.D., outlines the remarkable, scientifically proven techniques that will immediately lift your spirits and help you develop a positive outlook on life, enabling you to:
- Nip negative feelings in the bud
- Recognize what causes your mood swings
- Deal with guilt
- Handle hostility and criticism
- Overcome addiction to love and approval
- Build self-esteem
- Feel good everyday
This groundbreaking, life-changing book has helped millions overcome negative thoughts and discover joy in their daily lives. You owe it to yourself to FEEL GOOD!
"I would personally evaluate David Burns' Feeling Good as one of the most significant books to come out of the last third of the Twentieth Century." ?– Dr. David F. Maas, Professor of English, Ambassador University
- Print length706 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWilliam Morrow
- Publication dateApril 6, 1999
- Dimensions5.25 x 1.18 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100380731762
- ISBN-13978-0380731763
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A book to read and re-read!" — Los Angeles Times
"I would personally evaluate David Burns' Feeling Good as one of the most significant books to come out of the last third of the Twentieth Century." — Dr. David F. Maas, Professor of English, Ambassador University
From the Back Cover
The good news is that anxiety, guilt, pessimism, procrastination, low self-esteem, and other ′black holes′ of depression can be cured without drugs. In Feeling Good, eminent psychiatrist David D. Burns, M.D. outlines the remarkable, scientifically proven techniques that will immediately lift your spirits and help you develop a positive outlook on life.
Now, in this updated edition, Dr Burns adds an all-new Consumer′s Guide To Antidepressant Drugs, as well as a new introduction to help answer your questions about the many options available for treating depression.
Recognise what causes your mood swings.
Nip negative feelings in the bud.
Deal with guilt.
Handle hostility and criticism.
Overcome addiction to love and approval.
Build self-esteem.
Feel good everyday.
About the Author
David D. Burns, M.D., a clinical psychiatrist, conveys his ideas with warmth, compassion, understanding, and humor unmatched by any other writer in the self-help field. His bestselling Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy has sold more than three million copies to date. In a recent national survey of mental health professionals, Feeling Good was rated number one—from a list of more than one thousand—as the most frequently recommended self-help book on depression. His Feeling Good Handbook was rated number two in the same survey.
Dr. Burns's entertaining teaching style has made him a popular lecturer for general audiences and mental health professionals throughout the country as well as a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. He has received numerous awards including the Distinguished Contribution to Psychology Through the Media Award from the Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology. A magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Amherst College, Dr. Burns received his medical degree from the Stanford University School of Medicine. He is currently clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine and is certified by the National Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
A Breakthrough In the Treatment of Mood Disorders
Depression has been called the world's number one public health problem. In fact, depression is so widespread it is considered the common cold of psychiatric disturbances. But there is a grim difference between depression and a cold. Depression can kill you. The suicide rate, studies indicate, has been on a shocking increase in recent years, even among children and adolescents. This escalating death rate has occurred in spite of the billions of antidepressant drugs and tranquilizers that have been dispensed during the past several decades.
This might sound fairly gloomy. Before you get even more depressed, let me tell you the good news. Depression is an illness and not a necessary part of healthy living. What's more important--you can overcome it by learning some simple methods for mood elevation. A group of psychiatrists and psychologists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has reported a significant breakthrough in the treatment and prevention of mood disorders. Dissatisfied with traditional methods for treating depression because they found them to be slow and ineffective, these doctors developed and systematically tested an entirely new and remarkably successful approach to depression and other emotional disorders. A series of recent studies confirms that these techniques reduce the symptoms of depression much more rapidly than conventional psychotherapy or drug therapy. The name of this revolutionary treatment is "cognitive therapy."
I have been centrally involved in the development of cognitive therapy, and this book is the first to describe these methods to the general public. The systematic application and scientific evaluation of this approach in treating clinical depression traces its origins to the innovative work of Drs. Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck, who began to refine their unique approach to mood transformation in the mid-1950's and early 1960's.* Their pioneering efforts began to emerge into prominence in the past decade because of the research that many mental-health professionals have undertaken to refine and evaluate cognitive therapy methods at academic institutions in the United States and abroad.
Cognitive therapy is a fast-acting technology of mood modification that you can learn to apply on your own. It can help you eliminate the symptoms and experience personal growth so you can minimize future upsets and cope with depression more effectively in the future.
The simple, effective mood-control techniques of cognitive therapy provide:
Rapid Symptomatic Improvement: In milder depressions, relief from your symptoms can often be observed in as short a time as twelve weeks.
Understanding: A clear explanation of why you get moody and what you can do to change your moods. You will learn what causes your powerful feelings; how to distinguish "normal" from "abnormal" emotions; and how to diagnose and assess the severity of your upsets.
Self-control: You will learn how to apply safe and effective coping strategies that will make you feel better whenever you are upset. I will guide you as you develop a practical, realistic, step-by-step self-help plan. As you apply it, your moods can come under greater voluntary control.
Prevention and Personal Growth: Genuine and long-lasting prophylaxis (prevention) of future mood swings can effectively be based on a reassessment of some basic values and attitudes which lie at the core of your tendency toward painful depressions. I will show you how to challenge and reevaluate certain assumptions about the basis for human worth.
The problem-solving and coping techniques you learn will encompass every crisis in modem life, from minor irritations to major emotional collapse. These will include realistic problems, such as divorce, death, or failure, as well as those vague, chronic problems that seem to have no obvious external cause, such as low self-confidence, frustration, guilt, or apathy.
The question may now occur to you, "Is this just another self-help pop psychology?" Actually, cognitive therapy is one of the first forms of psychotherapy which has been shown to be effective through rigorous scientific research under the critical scrutiny of the academic community. This therapy is unique in having professional evaluation and validation at the highest academic levels. It is not just another self-help fad but a major development that has become an important part of the mainstrem of modem psychiatric research and practice. Cognitive therapy's academic foundation. has enhanced its impact and should give it staying power for years to come. But don't be turned off by the professional status that cognitive therapy has acquired. Unlike much traditional psychotherapy, it is not occult and anti-intuitive. It is practical and based on common sense, and you can make it work for you.
The first principle of cognitive therapy is that all your moods are created by your "cognitions," or thoughts. A cognition refers to the way you look at things--your perceptions, mental attitudes, and beliefs. It includes the way you interpret things--what you say. about something or someone to yourself. You feel the way you do right now because of the thoughts you are thinking at this moment.
Let me illustrate this. How have you been feeling as you read this? You might have been thinking, "Cognitive therapy sounds too good to be true. It would never work for me." If your thoughts run along these lines, you are feeling skeptical or even discouraged. What causes you. to feel that way? Your thoughts. You create those feelings by the dialogue you are having with yourself about this book!
Conversely, you may have felt a sudden uplift in mood because you thought, "Hey, this sounds like something which might finally help me." Your emotional reaction is generated not by the sentences you are reading but by the way you are thinking. The moment you have a certain thought and believe it, you will experience an immediate emotional response. Your thought actually creates the emotion.
Product details
- Publisher : William Morrow (April 6, 1999)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 706 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0380731762
- ISBN-13 : 978-0380731763
- Item Weight : 1.26 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.25 x 1.18 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1 in Depression (Books)
- #3 in Mood Disorders (Books)
- #10 in Emotional Mental Health
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

David D. Burns, MD, is a renowned psychiatrist, award-winning researcher, and author of the phenomenally successful Feeling Good and Feeling Good Handbook, which have sold 5 million copies worldwide. More than 50,000 American and Canadian mental health professionals have attended his popular training programs, and his weekly Feeling Good podcast are approaching 3 million downloads.
Dr. Burns was a pioneer in the development of cognitive therapy, and is the founder and creator of the new TEAM-CBT, which makes ultra-rapid recovery from depression and anxiety possible.
Dr. Burns graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, received his MD from Stanford University School of Medicine, and completed his psychiatry residency at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He has served as Acting Chief of Psychiatry at the Presbyterian / University of Pennsylvania Medical Center (1988) and Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Medical School (1998), and is certified by the National Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Dr. Burns is currently Adjunct Clinical Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he is involved in research and teaching. He has received numerous awards, including the A. E. Bennett Award for his research on brain chemistry, the Distinguished Contribution to Psychology through the Media Award, and the Outstanding Contributions Award from the National Association of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapists. He has been named Teacher of the Year three times from the class of graduating residents at Stanford University School of Medicine and feels especially proud of this award. His book, Feeling Good, has consistently been the highest rated self-help book on depression by American and Canadian mental health professionals.
In addition to his academic research, Dr. Burns has written a number of popular books on mood and relationship problems. Articles about Dr. Burns have been featured in more than 100 popular consumer magazines, including The New York Times and Reader’s Digest, and he has been interviewed on more than 1,000 radio and television shows.
Millions of people have visited his website, www.feelinggood.com, which has tons of free resources for therapists as well as individuals struggling with depression and anxiety, including his weekly Feeling Good Podcasts, his free depression and anxiety classes, and much more. Check it out!
In 1995, Dr. Burns and his family returned to California from Philadelphia. When he is not crunching statistics for his research, he can be found teaching his famous Tuesday evening psychotherapy training group for Stanford students and community clinicians, or giving workshops for mental health professionals throughout the United States and Canada.
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I read this book because I am interested in psychology and, several months ago, I came across a glowing recommendation for this book in another psychology book I was reading. I was especially intrigued by the rather implausible-sounding claim that many people have reported significant improvements in their mood and their overall psychological wellbeing simply as a result of reading this book, even if they don't actually follow any of the exercises in the book. I was curious but skeptical, so I read it for myself. It took me a lot longer to read than I had expected, mainly because, immediately after reading the chapter on procrastination, I was inspired to make a to-do list and start working on a whole host of chores that I had been putting off for ages, including some long-overdue spring cleaning. I spent so much time working on these chores that I had little time for reading, but my mood was already starting to improve dramatically, and the more I got done, the better I felt.
I eventually did finish the book, of course, and I must say that it really did live up to the hype. After reading it, I felt happier, more positive, more motivated to get things done, less anxious, and less stressed out. I also became more productive and less of a procrastinator. While I have never, to the best of my knowledge, suffered from clinical depression, like most people, I do on occasion feel a bit overwhelmed by the stresses of life, which can put me in a bad mood from time to time. I have also long struggled with lethargy and a lack of motivation, coupled with excessive self-criticism and self-doubt, which can make it difficult for me to accomplish the things I want or need to do in life. This book has taught me techniques for coping with these challenges, which not only puts me in a better mood but also makes it much easier for me to motivate myself to get things done. I'm not saying that this book is some sort of "magic bullet" that will instantaneously cure your depression and anxiety and grant you perfect psychological wellbeing for the rest of your life. You're going to have to work at it, and you will still face challenges and setbacks from time to time. But this book will teach you proven techniques that you can use to help improve your mood, your motivation, your emotional resiliency, and your overall satisfaction with life.
I truly believe that everyone can benefit from the techniques taught in this book. They are especially valuable for anyone who might be struggling with depression, anxiety, or some other mental health issue, but even if you are fortunate enough not to have any of those problems, I still think you will find this book helpful. It will teach you how to improve your mood, how to overcome procrastination, and how to better cope with the stresses of life. We could all use that. In fact, I might even go so far as to recommend that this book be put on the required reading list for all high school seniors and college freshmen, because no one is more in need of developing effective coping skills, emotional resiliency, and self-motivation than an adolescent who is leaving home for the first time. I certainly wish that I had read this book when I was much younger.
Anyway, get it; read it; use it. You'll be glad you did.
- - - - -
Short story long (for those whose eyes haven't already glazed over):
I find psychology fascinating. So much so, in fact, that I have even given serious thought to going back to school and pursuing a degree in the field. My primary areas of interest are social and political psychology (since I already have degrees in political science and sociology), but I am also fascinated by cognitive psychology, biological psychology, and abnormal psychology, as well as various other subfields within the discipline. And while I have no real desire to pursue a career in clinical psychology myself, I am interested in learning as much as I can about the methods that clinical psychologists and psychiatrists use to diagnose and treat their patients.
In particular, I want to learn as much as I can about cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which has been shown to be one of the most effective methods of treating all sorts of psychological problems—from depression to phobias to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and beyond. One of the reasons that I am so interested in CBT (and similar therapeutic approaches, such as Viktor Frankl's "logotherapy") is that I firmly agree with the core principle that they are founded on: That you can learn how to take control of your own psychological wellbeing and develop the emotional resiliency to cope with the stresses of life rather than being a passive victim of circumstances beyond your control. You can't control what happens to you, but you can learn to control how you think about and how you react to the uncontrollable events in your life—and this can make all the difference. (I should note that this is essentially what the ancient Greco-Roman Stoics taught, which is one of the main reasons I find CBT so appealing, given my fondness for Stoicism. You can even think of CBT as applied Stoicism, updated for the 21st century.)
One of the things I like most about cognitive behavioral therapy is that you don't have to suffer from mental illness in order to benefit from it. Anyone can use the techniques of CBT to improve their psychological wellbeing. CBT can teach you how to better manage your moods so that you feel happier, more motivated, more hopeful, more patient, less anxious, less angry, less critical (of self and others), and less stressed out. It can also teach you how to better manage your motivations and habits so that you are more self-disciplined, more productive, and less lazy. It can even teach you how to break bad habits and overcome irrational fears. And all of this can be done with simple, easy-to-use, yet highly effective techniques that you can do on your own, without the need to go see a therapist (unless, of course, you are dealing with very serious mental health issues, in which case, you really should see a qualified psychiatrist or clinical psychologist who is trained in CBT and can help you work through your problems—but most people can benefit greatly from CBT without the need to seek professional help, simply by reading books on the subject and trying out the techniques for themselves). The single biggest obstacle that prevents most people who know about CBT from reaping its benefits is their unwillingness to give it a try, usually because they don't believe it will work (or at least they don't believe it will work *for them*).
As you might expect, given my interest in the field of psychology, I am always on the lookout for good books on the subject. And while I don't generally read a lot on clinical psychology (I am far more intrigued by experimental psychology), I do occasionally read books about cognitive behavioral therapy and similar therapeutic methods. (This is due as much to my interest in Stoicism as it is to my interest in psychology, given the Stoic roots of CBT.) So when I first heard about this book, I knew that I would have to read it.
Technically speaking, what this book teaches is not CBT—it is cognitive therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a combination of cognitive therapy and behavioral therapy. Cognitive therapy is about helping you learn how your thoughts affect your feelings and how to change the way you feel by changing the way you think, whereas behavioral therapy is about training you to change your habitual patterns of behavior and helping you get accustomed to doing things that fall outside your comfort zone. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) uses both of these methods in combination to help you overcome a wide variety of psychological and behavioral problems. This book focuses on the cognitive side of things, teaching you how to improve your mood by learning how to think more clearly and more realistically about your problems so that you aren't constantly plagued by unhelpful thoughts that serve no purpose other than make you miserable. (If you want to learn about the behavioral side of things, I would recommend the book 'Don't Shoot the Dog' by Karen Pryor.)
While I have read other books that explain the principles behind CBT and similar therapeutic methods, this is the first "self help" book I have ever read that actually teaches you how to use the techniques of cognitive therapy to improve your own mood. And I was absolutely stunned at how well it worked for me. Although I don't suffer from clinical depression, I do struggle from time to time with lethargy and lack of motivation. Yet after reading only the first five chapters of this book, I felt inspired to get up and start working on things that I had been putting off for ages, and I was amazed at how good it made me feel. I certainly haven't put all of the techniques taught in this book to good use yet, and I've still got quite a way to go before I'd be willing to say that I'm a completely "cured" of all my bad habits, but the improvement I've seen thus far is undeniable. I feel better than I've felt in years. And while I can't guarantee that it will improve your mood as much as it has mine, I suspect that you will see at least some benefit from reading this book if you approach it with an open mind and a willingness to help yourself get better.
But self-improvement isn't the only reason to read this book. You can also learn a lot from it. For example, the last few chapters of the book discuss what is known (or at least what was known in 1999) about the biological causes of depression and about the safety and effectiveness of various antidepressant medications. While at least some of this information is certain to be outdated, since it is now two decades old, much of it is still quite useful. The information in the final chapter about the price of various antidepressants and the availability of generic forms of these drugs is certainly long out of date, but the information about their potential side-effects and how they can interact with other medications is most likely still quite valid. I should note that the author, David Burns, MD—who is a practicing psychiatrist as well as a professor of psychiatry—firmly believes that, while antidepressants are useful for some patients, they aren't for everyone and should never be used alone, but only in conjunction with some form of therapy, such as cognitive therapy or CBT. The decision of whether a patient should use an antidepressant, and which one they should use, will depend on the severity of the depression, the preferences of the patient (and how likely they are to actually use the medicine as prescribed), what other medications they are taking, how well they can tolerate the side-effects, and how well they are responding to therapy (many patients are able to overcome their depression with therapy alone, without the need for an antidepressant). He also believes that antidepressants should only be used for a limited time—three to twelve months—until the patient's depression has improved enough to taper off of them. He firmly rejects the view that patients who take antidepressants will need to stay on them indefinitely in order to prevent a relapse. As long as patients have learned the sorts of coping techniques taught in this book, they should be able to avoid a relapse (and if they do have a relapse, they can always go back on the meds for a short period of time until it passes). In his view, antidepressants should only be used as a temporary aid to therapy, not as a long-term substitute for it.
I would certainly recommend this book to everyone—especially to those who are struggling with depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues—but I feel that anyone can benefit from it, since it teaches you how to better manage your moods and how to better cope with the stresses that all of us face from time to time. No one gets through life unscathed. We all encounter our share of troubles along the way. If we live long enough, each of us will have to deal with setbacks of various sorts—the loss of a job, the loss of a loved one, health problems, family conflicts, financial worries, stress at work or at school, etc. All of us could stand to benefit from learning coping skills that will help us get through these tough times without giving up or collapsing under the weight of our troubles. And, as I said above, no one could benefit more from these skills than young people—especially those who have just left the nest, or who soon will be. Adolescence can be tough. No longer a child; not quite an adult. Bodies changing; hormones surging. Peers pressuring; parents nagging. Brains still developing; identities still forming. Full of idealism; lacking in life experience. And right when young people most need the stabilizing influence of friends, family, and familiar routines to keep them grounded, we kick them out of high school and send them off to college or into the workforce, where they will encounter new people, new ideas, and new ways of doing things, as well as a whole new set of expectations and responsibilities. How will they be able to cope? That will depend entirely on their psychological resiliency—their ability to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and climb right back onto the horse that threw them. Some people may naturally be more resilient than others, but for the most part, resilience is learned. As with most things, the best teacher is experience (though experience tends to be a tough grader), but there are other ways to learn how to better cope with life's difficulties, and this book is one of them.
I would recommend that all high school seniors and/or college freshmen read this book. I would also recommend that they read 'Man's Search for Meaning' by the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, which should also help them learn to be more resilient. Frankl was a Holocaust survivor whose wife, mother, and brother all died in the camps. In the first part of his book, he talks about his experiences at Auschwitz and other camps, and his observations about how some of his fellow prisoners seemed better able to cope with the brutal conditions they were living under than others were. While some of the prisoners simply gave up and let themselves waste away and die, and others gave in to their worst instincts, treating their fellow prisoners with cruelty or indifference, and even collaborating with the Nazi guards, many were able to endure the horrors of life in the camps without losing their hope or their humanity. Frankl concluded that the ones who were most resilient and never lost their dignity or their sense of self were the ones who felt that they had something to live for—the ones who felt that their life had meaning. Those prisoners who could find a sense of purpose in the midst of their suffering—a purpose that not even the Nazis could take away from them—were able to endure and, if they were fortunate enough to escape the gas chambers and to avoid contracting any of the infectious diseases that quickly spread throughout the camps, had a pretty good shot not only at surviving the camps but at building a decent life for themselves after the war was over—scarred from the experience, to be sure, but still standing tall. In the second part of Frankl's book, he explains his approach to psychology, which he calls "logotherapy", which is based, at least in part, on his experience in the camps. The central premise of logotherapy is that people can endure almost anything as long as they feel that they have something to live for—as long as they feel that their life has meaning and purpose. But without this sense of meaning and purpose, people easily lose hope in the face of adversity. So, the key to helping people become more resilient so that they can better cope with their problems is to help them find a sense of meaning and purpose in their life so that they will feel as if they have something to live for. I think anyone can benefit from the insights found in Frankl's book (if nothing else, it will help you realize that, no matter how bad your problems may seem to be, at least you're not in Auschwitz). I would recommend reading both 'Man's Search for Meaning' by Viktor Frankl and 'Feeling Good' by David Burns, since both will help you learn to become more resilient. But if you are able to read only one of them, I would have to recommend that you read the one by Burns, since it actually teaches you a number of practical techniques that you can use to help yourself (or a loved one) better cope with the sorts of problems that we all face from time to time.
Bottom line: I highly recommend this book. If you are suffering from depression or some other mental health issue, it may help you, and it certainly couldn't hurt. But even if you're not suffering from a mental health problem, you will still learn some valuable things from this book about how to better cope with the stresses of life, how to better manage your moods, and how to motivate yourself to do things that you just don't feel like doing. And you may even learn a thing or two about psychology along the way.
When someone says they are depressed...what does that mean? Does life feel like it isn't worth living? Why would someone feel this way? Perhaps you have to look at the difference between happiness and joy. Not depression and Joy! Since happiness is usually defined as something which happens due to a "happy" event in our lives, Joy is more stable and in a way is a "choice to be happy." Just being happy now and then leaves gaps for depression to sneak into your life.
This is why cognitive therapy makes so much sense to me. If a depressed individual is actually chemically depressed, SAM-e is now on the market in America and doesn't have any of the side effects of the usual antidepressants. You have to deal with the chemical depression first. How can you think straight when you feel miserable.
I think anyone can be on the verge of depression, often one negative though can throw you over the edge. Perhaps this book can work as a gate to keep you up on the cliff and save you from falling over into depression or can help you climb back to the top where you will feel stable and in control.
I had one experience in my life which threw me over the cliff. To climb back up to the top, I had to change my thinking. To realize that life is worth living no matter what is going on in your life, is what brought me to a place of Joy. I believe having a religious belief system also is a great comfort to many people, as depression is often caused from a feeling of not belonging or feeling disconnected...perhaps without a purpose. A belief in a higher power is very soothing to your soul.
Dr. David D. Burns, M.D., offers some interesting insights, which become extremely helpful. While it is difficult to always look at life in a positive way, it can be done. It is more a decision. This decision then puts you on the path to Joy.
Most of the people I talk to daily are going through one of the 10 things on Dr. David's Cognitive Distortion list. Their thoughts have created a change in their mood, they feel sad over thinking someone has betrayed them, or they are anxious because they feel other people are thinking badly of them or are giving them negative feedback. The way they get themselves out of this thought process is to start to think logically and talk themselves out of the depression. Many are not actually depressed yet, but are speeding to the edge! Their thoughts are propelling them forward so fast that if they don't change course, it will happen. I find it much easier to start thinking positively and deal with life that way, than to try to climb out of depression.
I think you will find this Cognitive Distortion list intersting:
1. All-or-nothing Thinking: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. Mental Filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened. 4. Disqualifying the Positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they don't count. This allows you to continue to maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. Jumping to Conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. 6. Magnification or Minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear insignificant. 7. Emotional Reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are. You believe it so it must be true. 8. Should Statements: You try to motivate yourself with things you expect of yourself. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct these "should statements" towards others, the result is also anger, frustration and resentment. 9. Labeling and Mislabeling: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing the error,you attach a negative label to yourself. You think of yourself as a loser instead of just admitting you made a mistake. 10. Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which you were not primarily responsible for.
I think even people who are not depressed can think this way. My two favorite quotes on this subject are:
You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. -James Lane Allen
When we think of balancing our lives, we think of work, family and relationships. But we cannot balance these until we find an internal balance of who we are and what we want out of life. -Anne Wilson Schef, Ph.D.
So, don't wait to find the help, all the knowledge in the universe is in books. It may be difficult to decide to change your thinking and take responsibility for each thought, but the rewards are so great. You can do this! I also highly recommend looking up the SAM-e book I reviewed. It has some very practical steps to follow and some great ideas. I list some of them in the review.
~The Rebecca Review
Top reviews from other countries

A concise version of this book,
Get YOURSELF into the habit of painting pictures in your mind’s eye of how you really want to be.
Fantasize about YOU being confident, happy, prosperous, wealthy, sociable ,,,,,, etc
The more you do this, the more you generate good feelings, the more your subconscious mind take notice, the more your subconscious makes YOU act like that.
Habits, mental or physical, take 90 days to form ….. GET BUSY!!
Think failure to achieve failure, think SUCCESS to achieve SUCCESS!
You get more of what you focus on.
An example
In a book by a world famous hypnotist, he tells of an experiment conducted with a group of manic depressives. Their task was to collect photos of any happy times in their life and stick them to surfaces such a fridge doors along with smiley face pictures. They had to have them all over the home and in the work place if allowed.
Each time one of these depressives looked at a ‘happy time photo’ or smiley face picture, they had to force themselves to picture a happy situation in their mind so to allow good feelings.
The experiment was a three month period. When assessed after the three months, it was found that the brains of those in experiment had been “rewired” and total contrast to the former manic depressive state they’d been in. They were now happy and had an optimistic outlook on life.


Can’t comment on the content because I can’t read it. I’ll buy a decently printed second hand copy instead.


Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 26, 2019
Can’t comment on the content because I can’t read it. I’ll buy a decently printed second hand copy instead.



good luck, T A P
