Release year: 1980

Author: David D. Burns, M.D.

Link to my handwritten notes

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Review

Are you depressed? There’s an easy, scientific way to know. This book has the answer. Simply answer 25 questions from the Burns Depression Checklist and find out!

By the way, my score as of this writing is 13 (Borderline clinical depression).

Sure, you probably need to take your result with a grain of salt, as do I. What’s important here is not the number itself. Rather, what matters is the trend. What happens if you perform this test every few days for a month? In my case, I’m pretty sure that 13 is a lower score than what I would’ve gotten a month ago, and certainly a much lower score than what I would’ve gotten years ago. Measuring a trend helps us appreciate the improvement. In my case, this improvement seems closely related to when I started reading non-fiction books a couple years ago.

The bouts of depression I went through during the years of the COVID pandemic made me more curious than ever about therapy and self-help. It occurred to me that reading some books on treating depression seemed like a good idea, both for myself and my loved ones. It’s hard to know what to think and say when we’re confronted with our own or someone else’s depression. It’s a serious condition, and fatal when it leads to suicide.

Feeling Good is the third book I read on the topic, the two others being Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman and The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris (a review for that is coming soon-ish). Of the three, Feeling Good easily takes the highest honors from me. Seriously, if you or someone you know is having a hard time with mental health, I think this book is a fantastic resource. It cannot replace a professional therapist, but I feel it comes darn close at times. It gives the reader simple yet powerful tools that get them to do guided “journaling” that is surprisingly effective:

  • the three columns technique
  • the downward arrow exercise
  • the satisfaction prediction sheet
  • the daily record of dysfunctional thoughts
  • the antiprocrastination sheet

The book is roughly 700 pages long, which does look intimidating. When I received it, I thought it looked like a pocket dictionary. Fortunately, the author wrote it in such a way that you will get the important ideas right away. After less than 50 pages, you will have enough material to already to a major clean up in your head. Here, let me summarize the book’s key insight, in case you want to take something away from this review: Your feelings result from the messages you give yourself. Your distorted thoughts are what give you problematic emotions. By fixing your thoughts, you solve your emotions:

  1. Get familiar with this list of cognitive distortions .
  2. When you think an automatic thought that contains one or more distortions, take a minute to write it down, identify the distortion(s) and write a corrected version of that thought.
  3. Work on believing the corrected version of that thought.

This approach, rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy, is the cornerstone of the book’s method. It sounds simple, simplistic even. That’s the beauty of it, because despite being so simple, this method truly works. In my case, the only time it failed to work is… when I failed to use it! The fact that it is simple doesn’t mean that it is not researched. I am pretty sure that the ten cognitive distortions identified by Burns required a lot of abstract categorizing. To me, his list describes the “topology” of causes of depression, which is no small feat. The method I described above (called the “three column exercise”) is also very cleverly getting the reader to practice auto-compassion without having to figure out if they are doing it right—in fact, they don’t even have to know what auto-compassion is to get started! If you remember to try it next time you feel bad, I would be surprised if it didn’t work for you. If it doesn’t, hey, maybe it’s a good moment to remind you that therapy changed my life and it could change yours too.

Personally, the book’s downward arrow exercise gave me a key insight about myself, which I didn’t expect, thinking I already knew myself pretty well. It turns out that a lot of my coping mechanisms and depressive episodes have revolved around my inability to cope with boredom. That probably seems like a very basic, even trivial thing to say, but it’s not every day that one is confronted with learning something basic about themselves, especially when it has stared them in the face for all their lives. Looking back on my life, it seems like a majority of my time was spent building an environment where boredom was an impossibility. Having learned this about myself will allow me to make better decisions (probably inspired by Dopamine Nation ). I’m excited for the future, and I think my head and my body will thank me.

Back to Feeling Good. The rest of the book mostly walks us through the different strategies to correct each type of cognitive distortion, and ends with a Q&A chapter on antidepressants and over a hundred pages of detailed antidepressants information. This is a very complete package. Here’s a sample of the questions from Chapter 19, titled “What You Need to Know about Commonly Prescribed Antidepressants”. It helped me learn many things that I had no idea about:

  • Can anyone take an antidepressants?
  • Who is most (and least) likely to benefit from an antidepressant drug?
  • How fast and how well do antidepressant drugs work?
  • How can I tell if my antidepressant is really working?
  • How long should I take an antidepressant if it doesn’t seem to be working?
  • How long should I continue to take the antidepressant if it does help me?
  • What should I do if the depression comes back in the future?
  • What are the most common side effects of the antidepressants?
  • How can I prevent potentially dangerous interactions between antidepressants and other drugs, including nonprescription drugs?

It is useful to know the things discussed in this book, even if you are not depressive. It has life-saving capacities. Our generation is going through a depression epidemic, and knowing these basic mental tools can make a big difference in how you can address the suffering happening in you and around you.

Feeling Good is an easy recommendation, and certainly among my favorite books I read this year.

Félix rating:
👍👍

Note: This book has received a major overhaul in 2020 and got published under a new title, Feeling Great , which seems worth checking out. It’s shorter, more streamlined, and contains more updated ideas. It might be worth checking out, too!

Keywords

  • depression
  • guilt
  • love
  • anger
  • perfectionism
  • thoughts
  • rejection
  • happiness
  • feelings
  • empathy
  • emotions
  • distortions
  • control
  • actions

⭐ Star Quotes

Introduction

  1. (p. xviii) Your feelings results from the messages you give yourself.
  2. (p. xxvii) You can defeat #depression by changing the negative thinking patterns that cause it.
  3. (p. xxx) #Depression is one of the worst forms of suffering because of the immense feelings of shame, worthlessness, hopelessness, and demoralization.

Part 1: Theory and Research

Chapter 1: A Breakthrough in the Treatment of Mood Disorders

  1. (p. 13) The negative thoughts which cause your emotional turmoil nearly always contain gross #distortions.
  2. (p. 16) The most crucial predictor of #recovery is a persistent willingness to exert some effort to help yourself.
  3. (p. 17) Part of being human means getting upset from time to time. You will not achieve a state of never-ending bliss.

Chapter 2: How to Diagnose Your Moods: The First Step in the Cure

  1. (p. 20) Burns #Depression Checklist . Do this test periodically to see the evolution of your mood.
  2. (p. 23) The crucial #decision to try to help yourself is the key that will allow you to feel better.
  3. (p. 25) It is not wise to try to treat a severe #depression on your own. A professional consultation is a must.
  4. (p. 25) Your conviction that you are #hopeless is the reason to seek #treatment.
  5. (p. 25) A feeling of #hopelessness is evidence that one is not hopeless.
  6. (p. 26) Mania is the opposite of depression, but it is just as destructive. This behavior is characterized by impulsive actions which reflect poor judgement along with a grandiose sense of self-confidence.

Chapter 3: Understanding Your Moods: You Feel the Way You Think

  1. (p. 29) Every time you feel depressed about something, try to identify a corresponding negative thought you had just prior to and during the depression.
  2. (p. 32) List of Cognitive Distortions :
    • All-or-nothing thinking
    • Overgeneralization
    • Mental filter
    • Disqualifying the positive
    • Jumping to conclusions
      • Mind reading
      • Fortune-teller error
    • Magnification and Minimization
    • Emotional reasoning
    • Should statements
    • Labeling and mislabeling
    • Personalization
  3. (p. 32) ⭐ If you magnify your imperfections and minimize your good points, you’re guaranteed to feel inferior.
  4. (p. 48) #Feelings and #actions reinforce each other, for better or for worse.
  5. (p. 48) Your #emotions follow your #thoughts just as surely as baby ducks follow their mother.
  6. (p. 49) ⭐ Painful #feelings based on mental #distortions are neither valid nor desirable.

Part II: Practical Applications

Chapter 4: Start by Building Self-Esteem

  1. (p. 53) When you are depressed, you invariable believe that you are #worthless.
  2. (p. 53) Depressed patients see themselves as deficient in the very #qualities they value most highly.
  3. (p. 57) ⭐ #Achievements can bring you #satisfaction but not #happiness.
  4. (p. 57) Only your own sense of #self-worth determines how you feel.
  5. (p. 63) The triple-column technique
  6. (p. 64) Make sure you believe in your rebuttal to self-criticism.
  7. (p. 64) You can’t disprove emotional reactions (e.g. “I feel crappy.”). You can only disprove thoughts (e.g. “I am crap.”).
  8. (p. 69) Systematic #self-monitoring frequently helps develop increased #self-control.

Chapter 5: Do-Nothingism: How to Beat It

  1. (p. 81) One of the most destructive aspects of #depression is the way it paralyzes your #willpower.
  2. (p. 82) Sometimes it hardly seems to matter what you do as long as you do something with the attitude of #self-help.
  3. (p. 84) ⭐ Labeling yourself is useless and self-defeating because it creates the false impression that your lack of X is irreversible.
  4. (p. 85) #Depression is the most agonizing form of human #suffering.
  5. (p. 88) All your #emotions and #actions are the results of your #thoughts and #attitudes. Similarly, your feelings and behavior patterns influence your perceptions.
  6. (p. 90) Anhedonia: A diminished ability to experience satisfaction and pleasure. Your tendency to “disqualify the positive” may be at the root of this problem.
  7. (p. 91) A mind-set that contributes to the fear of defeat is when you evaluate your performance exclusively on the outcome regardless of your individual effort.
  8. (p. 97) Laying out and adhering to a simple #plan for the day can go a long way toward lifting your mood.
  9. (p. 99) The Antiprocrastination sheet
  10. (p. 101-103) Daily record of dysfunctional thoughts
  11. (p. 107) You’re the only person in the world who can effectively persecute yourself.
  12. (p. 109) Even if people are overlooking your efforts, you are guilty of the same crime if you also #neglect yourself.
  13. (p. 109) You can’t absorb #praise unless you decide to believe and therefore validate what is being said.
  14. (p. 114) Giving yourself permission to dwell on distracting thoughts for short periods will diminish their power over you.
  15. (p. 115) ⭐ Dare to put modest time limits on what you do. ⭐ ⭐ Have the courage to walk away from an unfinished task!
  16. (p. 116) If you translate shoulds into wants, you will be treating yourself with a sense of respect. “Although I’m not obliged to X, I might end up glad I did X.”
  17. (p. 116) A #reward system works better and lasts longer than a whip.
  18. (p. 123) ⭐ Test your “can’ts”
  19. (p. 124) Test your negative predictions with actual experiments.
  20. (p. 124) If you don’t run any #risks, you can maintain the secret belief that you’re basically a terrific person who’s decided for the time being to not get involved.
  21. (p. 125) ⭐ #Action precedes #motivation.
  22. (p. 128-129) Summary of self-activation methods to beat procrastination

Chapter 6: Verbal Judo: Learn to Talk Back When You’re Under the Fire of Criticism

  1. (p. 137) ⭐ Find out precisely what your #critic means.
  2. (p. 138) Disarm your opponent. Whether your critic is right or wrong, initially find some way to agree with them.
  3. (p. 138) If to agree when you actually disagree:
    • Agree in principle with the #criticism.
    • Find some grain of truth in the statement and agree with that.
    • Acknowledge the person’s upset as understandable because it is based on how they view the situation.
  4. (p. 142-143) Make your #conflicts based on facts rather than personality or pride. You will be a winner if you present your point of view with diplomacy.
  5. (p. 146) Cope with criticism by thinking “Here’s a chance to learn something.”

Chapter 7: Feeling Angry? What’s Your IQ?

  1. (p. 154) Your feelings result from the meaning you give to the event, not from the event itself.
  2. (p. 157) ⭐ #Labeling inevitably functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  3. (p. 157) ⭐ You cannot enhance your own #esteem by denigrating someone else even if it does feel good temporarily.
  4. (p. 160) #Anger simply limits the creative possibilities for problem solving.
  5. (p. 160) ⭐ “Absolute #fairness” does not exist. “Fairness” is relative to the observer, and what is fair to one person can appear quite unfair to another.
  6. (p. 161) When a rule of behavior is unique to one person, other people may see it as eccentric.
  7. (p. 164) Two guidelines to determine if your #anger is productive:
    • Is my anger directed toward someone who has knowingly, intentionally, and unnecessarily acted in a hurtful manner?
    • Is my anger useful? Does it help me achieve a desired goal or does it simply defeat me?
  8. (p. 171) ⭐ You are the director and producer of the film in your head, and you’re the only one in the audience.
  9. (p. 174) ⭐ #Reciprocity is a transient and inherently unstable ideal that can only be approximated through continued effort. This involves mutual consensus, communication, compromise, and growth.
  10. (p. 175) ⭐ If you have a “#should” or “shouldn’t” rule that has been causing you disappointment and frustration, rewrite it in more realistic terms.
  11. (p. 178) ⭐ Reward the desired behavior instead of punishing the undesired behavior.
  12. (p. 182) Negotiating principles:
    • Compliment the person on what they did right. Few can resist flattery even if it’s blatantly insincere.
    • Disarm them by finding a way to agree with them, regardless of their statements.
    • Clarify your point of view again, calmly and firmly.
  13. (p. 185) ⭐ #Empathy is the ability to comprehend with accuracy the precise thoughts and motivations of other people in such a way that they would say, “Yes, that is exactly where I’m coming from!”
  14. (p. 194) ⭐ Even when a genuinely negative event occurs, it is the #meaning you attach to it that determines your emotional response. You are #responsible for your #anger.
  15. (p. 195) ⭐ Most of the time your #anger will not help you. It will immobilize you.
  16. (p. 196) ⭐ #Frustration always results from unrealistic #expectation.
  17. (p. 197) Unrealistic expectations that lead to frustration:
    • “If I want something, I deserve it.”
    • “If I work hard at something, I should be successful.”
    • “I should be able to solve any problems quickly and easily.”
    • “People should think and act the way I do.”
    • “If I’m nice to someone, they should reciprocate.”

Chapter 8: Ways of Defeating Guilt

  1. (p. 199) Automatic thoughts generating emotions:
    • “Because of my ‘bad behavior’, I am inferior or worthless” –> #Depression
    • “If others found out what I did, they would look down on me.” –> #Shame
    • “I’m in danger of retaliation or punishment.” –> #Anxiety
  2. (p. 203) The #guilt cycle (fueled by emotional reasoning):
    1. I feel guilty and worthy of condemnation. This means I’ve been bad.
    2. Since I’m bad, I deserve to suffer.
  3. (p. 205) Your #guilt won’t reverse your blunder in some magical manner. Other people won’t #love and #respect you more because you are feeling guilty.
  4. (p. 206) More often than not, the belief that you are bad contributes to the “bad” behavior.
  5. (p. 206) #Change and #learning occur most readily when you recognize that an error has occurred and develop a strategy for correcting the problem. #Self-love and #relaxation facilitate this, while #guilt interferes with this.
  6. (p. 206) Rather than facilitating your recognition of your error, #guilt engages you in a cover-up operation.
  7. (p. 207) #Empathy is the ability to visualize the consequences, good and bad, of your behavior.
  8. (p. 214) ⭐ The major thing that holds you back when you’re trying to change a bad #habit is your belief you are out of #control.
  9. (p. 218) One of the big disadvantages of being prone to #guilt is that others can and will use this guilt to manipulate you.
  10. (p. 221) #Love does not mean always giving in.
  11. (p. 224) Distract a moaner by agreeing with what they say and then find something positive in the complaint to comment on it.

Part III: “Realistic Depressions”

Chapter 9: Sadness Is Not Depression

  1. (p. 236) Your personal worth is a constant. All the garbage the world heaps on you doesn’t touch it.
  2. (p. 238) Rather than focus on things that you can’t do, learn to focus on the ones you can do.
  3. (p. 246) #Perfectionism is an arbitrary way of punishing yourself. No matter how much achievement you experience, you can always say, “I could have done more.”

Part IV: Prevention and Personal Growth

Chapter 10: The Cause of It All

  1. (p. 263) An #addiction to approval, love, achievement, or perfection forms the basis of many mood swings.
  2. (p. 264, 267) The downward arrow technique generates a chain of automatic thoughts, which leads to the silent assumptions that give rise to personal problems. Once you have generated your own chain of automatic thoughts and clarified your silent assumptions, it is crucial to pinpoint the distortions and substitute rational responses.
    • –> “If this automatic thought were actually true, what would it mean to me? Why would it be upsetting to me?”
    • Don’t write thoughts that contain descriptions of emotional reactions (e.g. “This is awful and terrible and I can’t stand it.”). Instead, write the thoughts that cause your emotional reactions.
  3. (p. 286) Ironically, greedy love addiction drives many people away, thus intensifying #loneliness.
  4. (p. 286) ⭐ In #perfectionism, your problem does not lie in your performance, but in the yardstick yo use to measure it.
  5. (p. 288) There is joy that comes from accepting that you are not the center of the universe.
  6. (p. 288) You will become a human magnet when you relinquish any attempt to #control others. As you give up your drive for power, people repay you by making you a person of influence.

Chapter 11: The Approval Addiction

  1. (p. 291) ⭐ The price you pay for your addiction to praise will be an extreme #vulnerability to the opinions of others. You set yourself up for emotional blackmail.
  2. (p. 291) If someone disapproves of you, it might be their problem.
  3. (p. 302) ⭐ Refuse to persecute yourself. If you love yourself, people will respond to this sense of joy you radiate and want to be close to you.
  4. (p. 302) Express genuine #compliments to people. Instead of waiting around nervously to find out if they will like you or reject you, like them first and let them know about it.
  5. (p. 308) After #rejection or #disapproval, it will be your thoughts which are doing the emotional damage. If you fight these thoughts and stubbornly refuse to give in to distorted self-abuse, the upset will pass.
  6. (p. 308) In #mourning, some studies have reported that sympathy from another person often backfires by prolonging the period of mourning.
    • Bereaved individuals can schedule periods each day to allow themselves to be flooded by the painful memories and thoughts of the deceased loved one. Doing this alone is most helpful. Schedule each day five to ten minutes to think all the sad, angry, and despairing thoughts you want. Bitch, moan and complain, and when you scheduled sad period is over, STOP IT, and carry on with life until your next scheduled cry session.
  7. (p. 309) #Approval addicts have developed the self-defeating habit of endorsing themself only when someone they respect approves of them first.

Chapter 12: The Love Addiction

  1. (p. 311) ⭐ #Dependency means that you are unable to assume responsibility for your emotional life.
  2. (p. 312) If you believe you “need” someone else for a sense of worth, you broadcast that you have no inherent worth and can’t stand yourself.
  3. (p. 319) The Pleasure-Predicting Sheet allows to see what really gives you pleasure.
  4. (p. 322) ⭐ #Love is not an adult human need. It’s okay to want a loving relationship with another human being. But you do not need that external approval, love, or attention in order to survive or to experience maximal levels of happiness.
  5. (p. 322) ⭐ #Love is not an effective antidepressant.
  6. (p. 325) There is a big difference between wanting and needed. Oxygen is a need. Love is a want.

Chapter 13: Your Work is Not Your Worth

  1. (p. 344) #Self-esteem can be viewed as your decision to treat yourself like a beloved friend.
  2. (p. 348) The majority of life’s satisfactions do not require great achievement at all.
  3. (p. 351) It is neither necessary nor sufficient to be a great achiever in order to be maximally happy.

Chapter 14: Dare to be Average! Ways to Overcome Perfectionism

  1. (p. 353) ⭐ Everything can be improved if you look at it closely and critically enough. If you are a #perfectionist, you are guaranteed to be a loser in whatever you do.
  2. (p. 354) Maybe you’ve been as successful as you are in spite of your #perfectionism and not because of it.
  3. (p. 366) A transition from worrier to warrior can be the start of a more confident assertive approach to living.
  4. (p. 366) ⭐ Focus on #processes rather than #outcomes as a basis for evaluating things.
  5. (p. 369) Each #rejection is a step closer to your goal. On average, it may take ten to fifteen interviews for each acceptable job offer. This means you’ve got to go out and get those nine to fourteen rejections before getting the job you want.
  6. (p. 370) The secret to #happiness is to set modest goals to accomplish them.
  7. (p. 370) ⭐ A small #mistake certainly doesn’t ruin an otherwise fine whole.
  8. (p. 372) If you count how many things you do right each day and keep note of your scores, you will begin to focus more on the positives in your life and will consequently feel better about yourself.
  9. (p. 377) ⭐ Asserting your right to make #mistakes will paradoxically make you a greater human being.
  10. (p. 380) ⭐ ⭐ Never give up your capacity for being wrong because then you lose the ability to move forward.

Part V: Defeating Hopelessness and Suicide

Chapter 15: The Ultimate Victory: Choosing to Live

  1. (p. 385) You are wrong if you believe that #suicide is the only solution or the best solution to your problem.
  2. (p. 388) If you are suicidal, the following factors put you in a high-risk group. If one or more of these apply to you, it is vital to get professional intervention and treatment immediately (call 988, don’t overthink it):
    • If you are severely depressed and feel hopeless
    • If you have a past history of suicide attempts
    • If you have made concrete plans and preparations for suicide
    • If no deterrents are holding you back
  3. (p. 400) The mid-life crisis is the stage in which you review what you have actually done with your life compared with your hopes and plans.
  4. (p. 404) When you are depressed, you may have a tendency to confuse feeling with facts.

Part VII: The Chemistry of Mood

Chapter 18: The Mind-Body Problem

  1. (p. 468) The willingness to do something to help yourself can have powerful antidepressant effects, whether or not you are also taking a medication.

Chapter 19: What You Need to Know About Commonly Prescribed Antidepressants

  1. (p. 494) Antidepressants side effect checklist