194: How To Crush Negative Thoughts: Jumping to Conclusions

(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to the Feeling Good Podcast, where you can learn powerful techniques to change what you feel. I am your host, Ronda Barovsky, and joining me here in the Murriata Studio is Dr. David Burns. Dr. David Burns is a pioneer in the development of cognitive behavioral therapies and the creator of the new team therapies. He is the author of Feeling Good, which has sold over five million copies in the United States, and has been translated into over 30 languages. David is currently an emeritus adjunct professor of clinical psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine. - Some of you may know, and some of you may not know, that I have put together a team of colleagues to create a feeling great app. We're pretty excited about it, and we're looking for beta testers, and we're looking for two kinds of beta testers, in case you, or perhaps you have friends or loved ones who might be interested, because we'd like to get some beta testers who are not familiar with my work, in addition to beta testers, who are familiar with my work. And I think it would be fun for whoever signs up, by the way, if you want to sign up or have a friend sign up, just go to my website feelinggood.com/app, and then you can leave your email there, and one of my colleagues will contact you. But what's really neat is we're gonna start involving the beta testers into kind of live little workshops or discussion sessions with us, so you can direct questions to us immediately when using the app, and testing it, as well as to say what you liked and what you disliked, so you can train us, and we have a setup now where we can modify the app really, really quickly. It's amazing production team, kind of new technology that we're evolving. So that was all, this is one way you can help us. One other way that you're already helping us is you're our marketing arm, 'cause we don't have like optimizations of this or that, or marketing people were paying to promote our podcast. It's just all free volunteer work that we're doing, but we want to spread the word. And so when you tell your friends, or you have a thumbs up, a likes, or send an email, maybe you have a mailing list to friends that you think they might like these podcasts, maybe they're struggling with low self-esteem or depression, please do that. And you've been helping us this month, which is May, we're gonna have a record every month, we're breaking a download record, we'll be up over 110 downloads this month, probably up close to 120,000. And it's just blowing my mind how many people are getting to be really great supporters of the feeling good podcasts. And shortly after the start of the new year, we'll hit our three millionth download. So we wanna thank all of you for that. And if you have a friend or loved one or family member who's struggling with depression or anxiety or low self-esteem or troubled relationships, turn them on to the podcast. Also, on my website too, there are new free courses I've been developing that you can go and get a test for anxiety and then take our new anxiety class. You can take a depression test and then you'll get an email with the interpretation of your score. And then I've got an 18 session, less than three, depression, anti-depression class. So there's tremendous resources there for you and for other people and we just want you to use them and enjoy them and improve your life. You get more happiness in your life. That's the whole idea. So thank you so much. - David, before you close off, could you explain exactly what a beta tester does and what they do? - Oh, well, it's just kind of a fun thing. I'm just learning about it. But the first part of the app are like little short lessons for like eight or 10 minutes on, you know, cognitive distortions or your thoughts, create your feelings, not events, the positive reframing and so it's broken into these little units. It's a kind of a tutorial, the initial thing. And once they've learned the basics, then they'll have a daily mood log app so that they can use in any time. But it's teaching the basics. And so they might be taking, listening to, I think four classes say, which maybe eight minutes each. - Mm-hmm. - And you say, "Here's what I liked. "Here's what I didn't like. "It's a collaborative thing. "We're going to teach you tools to change your life, "but we want you to teach us how to develop a killer class, "a killer tool." That's so if there's something that turns you off, we can edit it and change it almost instantly. And our first version of it, we only had seven beta testers. And it was pretty negative. One person really slammed us terribly. And it was very disheartening. And then I suddenly saw what the problem was. It was all about tone. We were selling, which caused people to push back. And so we reded it with a very humble tone and now people are loving it. It's that kind of thing that we did. It's something we were doing for the first time. So we'll make a lot of mistakes. And we want to know our mistakes 'cause we can correct them. We can solve any problem if we know what the problem is. And we were excited because we think this could change the world really if we can make it work that it could be-- - Yeah, that's exciting. - Yeah, more effective, I think, than actual therapy. - Yeah. - Okay, so-- - Okay, listeners now on to episode 194. - Okay, hello, David. - Hello, Miranda. (laughing) - And hello to our podcast listeners. To episode 194. - And this will be the latest in our cognitive distortion starter kit, which I hope you're enjoying. And today we'll be focusing on jumping to conclusions. But I think Rhonda has a really nice email to read first. - I do. This is from Kevin Cornelius, who is an awesome team therapist. And he wrote about our Corona cast episode one. And he wrote, "Hi, David, Rhonda, Alex, and Jeremy. I hope my email finds you well and that I'm not interrupting what must be an incredibly busy time for you. I'm sitting at home holding my four-month-old son with tears in my eyes as I listen to your beautiful Corona cast episode one. What an amazing, generous, and loving thing you're doing for the community of feeling good podcast listeners. I'm just blown away by how profound this podcast is. I feel so grateful to have team in my life and to be able to learn such a beautiful way of being a therapist. All four of you have been a blessing in my life and I've learned tremendously from you. I hope you are holding up well during our bizarre current events and that you can take satisfaction and motivation from how much the work you do is making a positive difference in the world with love and gratitude, Kevin Cornelius. - That's awesome, we really appreciate that, Kevin. And Kevin is a therapist completing his licensure hours as a licensed, I believe, marriage and family therapist and he's one of the really gifted therapists and he's still in the reduced fee clinic, which I think is a great thing 'cause therapy can be costing so much these days. And I know Kevin told me he's looking for, I think teenagers and younger adults as well as couples and so if you're in California and you wanna hook up with Kevin by a teletherapy, I'll put his contact in the show notes for this episode and I know you'll be really happy every now and then therapists come down the pike like you, Ronda and Matt May and Jill Leva to have combined both incredible warmth and compassion with tremendous technical skills and that's a combination you just can't beat. And by the way, when I endorse people, I have no financial or any kind of motive other than the reward of spreading the gospel, spreading the good news. It's just a, I only endorse things because I want to never when I'm asked. - Right, so and because you know Kevin, you know what a great therapist he is. - Yeah. - I thought I would read one more. This is from Tyanne Trung and she was a therapist that did the co-therapy with you with Michael at the awesome Atlanta team therapy demo, which was episode 187. And after she listened to the podcast after it was published, she wrote us and said, I love how Michael's vulnerable and courageous work in podcast 187 continues to be a gift that keeps on touching others. I'm so grateful for Brandon Vance's work in making the audio. accessible to the public as well. I must admit, I was a bit teary hearing the session again from the deep pain to Michael's empowering voice during the relapse prevention portion. Good stuff. Thank you for sharing these comments, Dr. Burns. It brings joy in the midst of this chaotic time. - Thank you, and that's another beautiful email in Tiana's in Oklahoma as she's another fabulous therapist and teacher of the team. And it was a joy to work with her in Atlanta on that totally mind-blowing session with Dr. Michael and getting over his social anxiety in a huge and really amazing way. And so if you're in Oklahoma looking for some great therapy, make sure you look up Tiana and I'll put her contact in this email again as well. Well, we're gonna dive into jumping to conclusions, one of the 10 cognitive distortions. And the generic definition of it would be that you jump to conclusions that aren't warranted by the facts. And there's two-- - You mean like you're making decisions without having enough information to make sure they're correct? - Well, not only decisions, but you're giving yourself messages that can cause depression and anxiety that may not necessarily be correct. And that's really the key to all of the distortions is that the depression and anxiety do not result from reality, but from a distorted view of reality. And when you correct those distortions, you'll feel much better. And in many, in most cases, once you stop believing the distorted thoughts, the very moment you stop believing and your mood will switch and often by an awesome amount. Now, there's two common ways that people jump to conclusions, fortune-telling and mind-reading. And we're just gonna touch on one little example of it today, but fortune-telling is when you predict the future as if your predictions are a fact. And you're not aware that you're jumping into conclusions about the future conclusions that may not and probably are not valid. And the two common ones of fortune-telling are the one that makes depression so horrible. And the one that causes all anxiety, the depression one is hopelessness telling yourself, things will never change. I'll be depressed forever, my problems could never be solved. And we're gonna focus on that one in today's podcast, but to quickly touch base on the others. The fortune-telling that causes all anxiety is I'm in danger, something terrible is going to happen. And it's physiologically impossible to feel anxiety or fear or worry or panic without this distortion, without telling yourself that you're on the verge of something awful happening. And to prove this to yourself, just think of any type of anxiety that you have, like public speaking anxiety that I used to have, you're telling yourself, when I get in front of the audience, I'm gonna screw up. People are gonna see how nervous I am. They're gonna get bored, they're gonna judge me. Those are all predictions of disaster. When you, if you have a fear of flying, you're also doing fortune-telling, telling yourself, when I get on that plane, I just know it's gonna run into turbulence and crash. Now, the other. - Would fortune-telling also be part of a habit and addiction? Like I'll never be able to give this up, so why bother? - Well, that could be, yes, a hopelessness. That's the one we just mentioned. And I think that's an excellent enhancement to what, you can also have fortune-telling and relationship problems. Although that's not our focus so much today, but I just know, my husband will never change. All he cares about is himself. He'll never be able to express his feelings. That's another relationship for fortune-telling. Now, and of course, there's a positive fortune-telling in habits and addictions that I think is even more powerful than what you mentioned. It's the idea, oh, this drink is gonna make me feel so great. Or, oh boy, that glaze donut and window looks so appealing. I'll just go in and, you know, just have one little bite. I'll just buy one and just have one bite. And that's fortune-telling because it's a positive distortion. You're not gonna just have one little bite, give me a break. You know, you're telling yourself something isn't true, right? Now, going back to the negative side of fortune-telling, it's mind-reading. Now, the most common application of this would be to with social anxiety and you've had social anxiety, Rhonda. I've had social anxiety. What kind of mind-reading do those of us who have struggled with social anxiety? What mind-reading do we do? - Well, we think people overject us. - Because what? - For people who judge us. Because of some flaw in our character. Maybe we think, oh, we don't look, you know, maybe we're overweight or maybe we're, you know, a certain age or there's some characteristic that we have or something, then we think, oh, people will react negatively to me, they won't want to be friends with me. They won't like me. - That's right. And that goes on when you're shy in social situations and you're telling yourself, oh, this person never feels anxious. They wouldn't be interested in anything I have to say. They can see how anxious I am. They probably don't like me. And those are the very thoughts that trigger social anxiety. And then you can also have mind-reading thoughts that trigger depression. And for example, nobody really loves me. Nobody really cares about me. Or one that you had people think I'm unimportant. - Right. - And we're gonna deal with that in a, and actually that'll be in a podcast that'll be broadcast before this one. - Correct, that was the May 25th. - And then you can get into mind-reading that causes relationship problems. And you might be telling yourself, oh, so-and-so, you know, I've mentioned already, he just cares about himself, or she just always has to have her way. And she never listens, or he never listens, or he's afraid to- - He'll never change. - Yeah, he'll know. Well, that's fortune-telling, right? - That's fortune-telling. - Yeah, but we're looking at mind-reading that when you're in conflict, you're imagining the other person's motives in a very malignant and negative way. And that fires up your feelings of anger and frustration. Well, we're just gonna focus on, well, some techniques that can be helpful for jumping to conclusions would be, you know, survey technique, you know, to ask people, but they're thinking and feeling, you know, examine the evidence, is a good one. The experimental technique, like I had a, you know, I've had patients who, during panic attacks, think they're gonna lose control and go crazy. And they're telling themselves something that can't be true. That's the fortune-telling error because people who think they're gonna go crazy, never go crazy. People who do become psychotic, like with schizophrenia, they're not afraid of being psychotic. They're irritated by, they think the world's plotting against them, or that they can hear voices. Coming from outside of their head. But people who think they're gonna go crazy, you know, never go crazy. And then one powerful technique is the experimental technique. I have them to say, see if you can go crazy. Here in the office, right now. Let's get it over with. And if that terrifies them, if I can then persuade them to try to go crazy, they discover they can't, no matter how. David, I can't hear you anymore. Typically leads to an instant cure for panic attacks and agrophobia if that's the particular thought. But we're gonna show you how to use some techniques for hopelessness, the idea that I'm never gonna recover. And we're lucky because we have a young man who gave us permission to play a little, I think it's a 13-minute recording of him and me working together on his hopelessness. And just to show you kind of how some of these techniques work. And to give you this great background that Bradley had horrific trauma when he was growing up for really 20 years of just horrific things, some of the worst that I've heard from his family in particular. And this led to very severe, very severe depression. And in a recent session he was, thinking that he was, that he was hopeless and he was feeling like, you know, 80% hopeless and he was telling himself two thoughts, "I'm damaged beyond repair." You know, nothing could possibly help me and doing psychotherapy homework couldn't possibly help. So there's no use in trying it. Okay, yep. I can't hear you. Oh, you can't hear me. Uh oh. Maybe I turned it off. Can you hear me now? Yeah, your sound turned off and about. Okay, where did it get turned off? You were just going through the different methods, the survey method, examine the evidence and the experimental technique and you started talking about the experimental technique. I started talking about, should I go back to that point? Yeah. Okay, we'll just take it from the experimental technique. And I'll be quicker about it. Are you ready? I'm just going to leave my recording on. My recording's on? Yeah. Okay, well, sorry about that. We just had a little hiatus. So if there's rough editing here, I inadvertently turned off my microphone and profoundly apologized. But you can use many techniques and another is the experimental technique. Have the patient do an experiment and test what they're what you're telling yourself. Like, for example, patients with panic attacks often tell themself this kind of fortune telling. I'm about to die. I'm about to have a heart attack and die. That's one of the two most common thoughts that causes panic attacks. And the other common one is I'm about to go crazy and lose control. And if you've never had a panic attack, you probably can't identify with those thoughts, but people with panic attacks get those thoughts. And they believe them a hundred percent and they freak out. And it's a horrifying form of anxiety. Well, one technique is to have them test those thoughts. Like, if I have a patient who thinks they're about to die from a heart attack and they're in a huge panic, I have them try to bring on a heart attack by doing strenuous aerobics. And then they discover they can't bring on a heart attack no matter how hard they try. It leads to, and I would say almost all cases instant total cure of panic disorder. Or if the patient thinks they're telling themself, oh, I'm dizzy, I'm going crazy. That's the other horrifying thing that causes panic and agrophobia. So I have the patient try to go crazy in my office, roll around on the floor, scream, you know, talk in tongues. And if it terrifies them, then I push them to do it, try to go crazy. And when they do it, they discover they can't go crazy, no matter how hard they try. And they're cured. So we're going to look today at some different techniques. And we're going to focus on hopelessness. Now, let me just say first of all, that hopelessness is the worst part of depression. And it's a total hypnotic illusion. But people who are depressed totally believe I'm hopeless. And I can never get better. I saw someone just the other day who really had me just about persuaded that he was hopeless, that his whole life was just going nowhere, his love life was going nowhere, everything was going nowhere. And he was absolutely just so persuaded at all of this evidence. And then within about three or four days, he just was writing high. And he just he just turned all of that around and he was just feeling joy. But when you're depressed, you can't tell you can't realize how much you're fooling yourself. And hopelessness is the thing that leads to suicide. Because it is so convincing. And it's a hoax. It's the worst hoax or con that depression imposes on human beings. It's the belief I'll never get over this depression. We don't know why that weird belief develops. Because it's not at all true. For example, just consider examining the evidence as one of many techniques. When you think about it, if you let's say you tracked, see hopelessness means my mood can't improve. I'm stuck. And that's what the depressed person believes. And it's never, ever true. It's so incredibly untrue. For example, let's say you could have had an oscilloscope so you could track out your mood from the moment of birth to the current moment. You'd see it's going up and down all the time. Like when you came out the birth canal, you started crying and sobbing. You were angry and upset and confused and terrified. All the lights and the sound and the pain. You had this nice life inside the woman. Now you've been put out in the cold world. And then moments later, the doctor puts you in your mother's arms and she starts caressing you and telling you how beautiful you are. And there's this flood of joy. And all of a sudden, you go into this euphoric state and your nursing and life is good again. And ever since then, you've gone up and down constantly. And you've probably gotten upset at least 5,000 times, if not more often. And what percentage of those 5,000 times when you were upset? Did you then feel better, Ronda? Well, eventually all of them. Yeah. Yeah, I may have been sound trouble now too, but I just found a way to turn the sound up. Yeah, that's right. 100% of the time. Do you see what I mean? So every time you've gotten upset, you've later improved and gotten better. So that's exactly yes. So that's like proof that you can't be hopeless. Our moods are constantly fluctuating and changing. But sadly, when people get depressed, they lose track of that. They stop believing that and they buy this hoax of hopelessness. And then many see death is the only escape from the suffering. David, do you have an example of somebody who worked with who had that thought I'll never get better? Yeah. And we actually have a live excerpt, a 13-minute excerpt to show you how it works. So just to give you a brief introduction, this kind of fellows name is Bradley. And he kindly allowed me to play a little excerpt from one of our recent sessions anonymously. And I'm so grateful to people who do this. You've done this yourself, Rhonda. A lot of people love and appreciate you because of that. And one of your biggest fans, as you know. But Bradley had 20 years of horrific abuse growing up. So some of the worst I've heard of from, say a couple of people in his family, just keep it vague to protect identities. But it was awful. And then he struggled since that time with extreme depression, not severe depression, but extreme depression. And so in one of our recent sessions, he wanted help with his hopelessness. And I remember all feelings result from thoughts. And so he had two thoughts. One is, I'm damaged beyond repair. And nothing can help me. And by that, he met because of all this trauma, including physical trauma, my brain has been damaged beyond repair. And a lot of trauma people believe that. And a lot of trauma experts even kind of promote that idea, which I must say bothers me. And then his other hopelessness thought was psychotherapy homework can't possibly work. So there is no use in trying it. And he had a high belief in these thoughts. And his hopelessness on a 0 to 100 was 80%. Now, before you can crush any negative thought, you have to do the assessment of resistance. In other words, to show what that negative thought and what those negative feelings show about you that's positive and awesome. And I'm not going to play that part of the recording for you. In fact, it didn't even occur to me to turn on the recording when we did this part of the session. But before we work on smashing those thoughts, let's list what's positive and awesome about your hopelessness. And let's also list benefits to you and feeling hopeless. Because I want Bradley and everyone I work with to discover that your negative thoughts and feelings are not a sign of what's wrong with you, but the expression of what's right with you. An expression of your core values, what makes you most beautiful as a human being. And once you see that, it'll be much easier to get rid of your negative thoughts and feelings. So he struggled a little at first, like everyone does. And then I helped, I primed the pump, and we got on a roll. And he came up with dying, overwhelming, positive things about hopelessness. Number one, he said, it shows I'm realistic. I'm in my 40s. I've had a life of abuse and horrific depression since my earliest memory. And so I'm being realistic and honest. And that's a good thing to face the truth rather than to be in denial. Number two. when I tell myself I'm hopeless this reduces my expectations and so it protects me from disappointment. So if Dr. Burns isn't helpful today it won't be such a severe blow. It's protecting him from disappointment. Also he said the hopelessness can relieve some of the pressure I put on myself because if I'm hopeless then there's no use in fighting and doing psychotherapy homework and struggling to get over over my depression. I can just kind of take it easy and there's a lot to be said for that. He also said his hopelessness shows that he's honest and willing to examine his flaws and I thought that was beautiful. It also shows he says that I'm not blaming other people for my problem. I'm being accountable. I'm examining myself. And he says it's another positive thing about his hopelessness. It's appropriate since I've tried a lot of things that that didn't didn't help me. I mean he's had that you know that new intravenous party drug they give. Oh what's that called? We did it. I don't know. It's the one that puts you into a dissociative state. It's I think a forced tranquilizer or something. MDMA. Now that's that's ecstasy. It's that other well anyway. I think about it what we're talking about. He even had had some of that and hadn't had helped. He's tried a lot of things for the years. He says also when I tell myself I'm hopeless it's kind of like soothing and comforting. Are you talking about ketamine? ketamine. That's it. Yeah. He even had the ketamine. It didn't work. And I'm sorry I interrupted you. You said it was soothing to be hopeless? Comforting. Yes. Comforting. Comforting. Like a mother comforting a child who's in Disney. You know kind of oh it hurts and I love you and you know like that type of thing. Like being kind to himself. Soothed him saying oh I'm hurting so much and I'm kind of hopeless. I can see that. And then it also say it says it explains why I haven't gone further in my education and in my my career because I'm like damaged brain damaged. So he's kind of cutting himself some slack? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's what I meant by the soothing and comforting bird. So this was an eye opener for him. And then so I said well then given all of these advantages you know maybe you wouldn't want to give up that hopelessness. And that's the paradox. Maybe he wouldn't. And then he says well I want to get rid of it anyway. I see all this good stuff. So I said well then what would we dial it down to? Let's use the magic dial instead of a magic dial. And does he want to get rid of it because it hurts too much to continue? Yeah. Yeah. He says I see all these great things about it but it's I mean it I mean in hell all the time. Right. And so I said well if you could dial it down what would you want he said I'd I'd want to reduce it from 80 to 5. So I think that's great. And that's the point then where we're going to turn on the audio and let you give a listen and it's a little slow at first but because I'm just reading off this list to try to provide continuity and then we get into some rope line techniques including externalization of voices, double standard technique, examine the evidence and then we also did identify the distortions. We used quite a few few techniques here and and he did great on them. Do you remember if the identify the distortions is on the audio? I do not remember. I think it probably is. So at this point why don't we let our listeners listen to this and again we thank you Bradley and just to to make a long story short it only took 13 minutes because we did the positive reframing and then at the end of this little segment I asked him you know how how much he believed these two thoughts I'm damaged beyond repair and nothing can help and homework can't possibly help me because there's no use in trying it and they both went to zero and his hopelessness disappeared completely. It went from 80 to zero not to five. Yeah yeah went all the way to zero. His expectations that's great. And he totally crushed the two thoughts but it'll be fun for listeners because you can see us doing rollerversals back and forth and it kind of took a little a few minutes before he suddenly got his aha moments and so we'll do it and then should we we'll take a little break and then say say goodbye at the end should we do that? Oh let's just say goodbye now. Okay. It's a little bit easier. Goodbye all of you God bless you. Hope you're doing well. Thank you for your wonderful support. We in March we went over a hundred or in April went over a hundred and ten thousand downloads of the podcast are just our record and we appreciate your support and if you liked today's podcast if you can you know give it the thumbs up on Facebook or whatever or recommend it to your friends or if you have a mailing list of some kind send out and give people the link to my website to the podcast list of podcasts on the website you may be doing them a favor if you like the podcast they probably will too and you may actually save someone's life so thank you so much. Thank you and thank you again to Bradley for letting us include this in our episode and we hope you enjoy it. So to summarize for the recording so far we've looked at the benefits of feeling 80% hopeless and despairing and so forth and demoralized and discouraged. It shows that you're realistic it reduces expectations so you don't have to put yourself under so much pressure to keep trying all the time and especially when you're tired from the sleep apnea it's an especially beneficial from that that point of view and it shows you're honest and willing to examine your flaws and also when you tell yourself I'm damaged beyond repair and nothing can help but you believe 50% and homework can't help me so there's no use in trying you believe that 90% that the hopelessness and the negative thoughts protect you from disappointment there are appropriate since you've tried a lot of things that didn't help in a strange way it can be soothing and comforting to kind of let go of you know pushing all the time to solve this thing right and then plus minus benefit is it can explain you know why I've been sometimes stuck with career why I'm not more successful or why I have certain kinds of difficulties that if I'm damaged beyond repair that I'm actually doing pretty darn good given the fact that I'm damaged damaged beyond repair or something of that nature yeah it can kind of intensify my successes that's right because you'd be over-atieving yeah there we go now now you say you want to try to reduce the hopelessness to to five and so let's just jump in what you want to do I'm damaged beyond repair or homework can't help so there's no use trying to which one do you want to focus on first let's do the first one damage beyond repair okay what are the distortions in that thought that's labeling damaged mm-hmm that's fortune telling because it's predicting the future mm-hmm that nothing will help it's over-generalization mm-hmm because it's well it's a label it's self-blame definitely beating up on myself mm-hmm it's emotional reasoning I feel yeah damaged so it must be it's all or nothing it's either you're either damaged or not damaged you're damn good at this thank you it's mental filter because I'm focusing on the negatives picking out the negatives mm-hmm to look at it's discounting the positives all all my positives not even taking those into account it's magnification because I'm really making the sound much worse mm-hmm damaged beyond repair that's horrible nothing to help that's really oh you know exaggerating it's minimization because they I have had good results in the past things have helped me I felt better my moods fluctuate up and down so that's minimizing that the good thing now just before we go on you just said I have felt better and my my moods go up and down yeah someplace you can write that down sure you know like a positive thought column or something well I have yeah my positive thoughts right here my moods do fluctuate like anyone's and I have felt better at times in the past and I have done things that have helped me. And then how much do you believe that statement between zero and a hundred? I felt better at times and that's a hundred. Right, so that's a hundred. Now how much do you believe I'm damaged beyond repair and nothing can help? Oh, by the way, it's also hidden should statement. Yep, I have that on here. I should be feeling great, I should be feeling better than I am. I shouldn't be damaged in any way. I shouldn't be feeling. Yeah, I should be hurt. Right. Things like that. Right. So with that positive thought at a hundred percent, nothing can help me is not true. So much to believe that now. I'd say maybe 30. You believe 30% that nothing can help you. Yeah. Okay. Well, that part of it, nothing helped me. That's that's a zero for sure. That's what I thought, right? Yeah. That's down to zero. And then I'm damaged beyond repair. Damage beyond repair. Well, no, I've used methods, I've done things. I've things have helped me feel better in the past. And I'm definitely much better at this point than I was 10, 20 years ago. Yeah. But that doesn't make sense. So have you written that down? Things have helped and I'm much, much better now. Then 10 or 20 years ago. And. Much better now. And, um, what was the other part? Well, that you said things have helped. And I'm much better now than 20, 10 to 20 years ago. How much do you believe that? Yeah. That's a hundred, a hundred. Great. And so I'm damaged beyond repair. How much do I believe that now? Well, I don't. Yeah. Great. Now let's, let's go to externalization of voices. Okay. Why do you think that fill, fill a parts so fast? Just because you're, you're so much better at this than I am. You make it so clear. But. Actually, you're, you're, you're getting quite skilled and lucid also. Thank you. But why, why, why do you think? Well, we're looking at the thought. The distortion is like a weakness in the thought. Yeah. And that, well, that's true. I mean, we, you just absolutely ripped it apart with the distortions. But, but why do you think that worked? Because in the past. See, 20 years ago, I would have told you that identify the distortions is a fun thing to do. But it almost never helps. Right. Now suddenly the thought went to zero. Why, why? Because with the positive thought that I came up with. Looking at the damage beyond repair, that's obviously false. Yeah. So I can't believe that. And then nothing can help me as false because things have helped me. Right. So the hopeless part can't be true either. Right. It's just. I can see the, the, my belief going to the positive side of the table. Yeah, right. And taking away the belief from the negative thought. Yeah. But what you were saying earlier, you thought that the positive reframing is what allows you to do this so fast. Well, it definitely helps because it, it totally softens it up. And I think what it really does is it reduces my process resistance because. Once you do that, and it's such a positive thing, you're fighting all positive about yourself. About myself, how it's helping me, what it shows about me. Then you start to be, it almost changes your brain a little bit. And you start to see, hey, letting go of this wouldn't be so bad. And then you start to use the methods, you really start blowing it away. Using the flaws and the thought, which are the distortions. Yeah. That's well stated. Thank you. Now, what, what's your name? Bradley. What's my name? Bradley. Could I talk to you for a minute, Bradley? And we're going to do a little externalization of voices. Okay. Yeah. Could I talk to you for a minute? Sure. You know, your damage beyond repair. And in what way? I give up. You don't have anything? No. Well, because you're depressed a lot. Yeah, that's true. I do struggle with depression. I have for years. So. Is that what you mean? I'm damaged. Yeah. I'll give you that. I do have. I struggle with depression. I have. It's not as crippling as it used to be. But I have it. And for good reason, I would say. I think it's completely understandable. So, yeah. I'll have to plead guilty. So who won? I won. Big or small? Big. Big or huge? Huge. I mean, is that all you got? It's true. I admit it. I have struggled with depression. Nice. Nice. Okay. You killed me. But I had this other thing to tell you. What's that? Nothing can help. Nothing can help. I'm not even. I don't know what you mean, because I've done things. That have helped me. I do. I think you're huge already. No, honestly, I don't know what that means because. I've done methods. I've done techniques. I've worked with. D.V. And when I can get a grip on these methods. I feel it helping me. When I put the effort in what I'm in the right place. To do something and and and try something. I know it works. So that nothing can help me is it doesn't make sense. It's not weird how these things fall apart, but we're going to go to the 90% or now. Are you ready? Yeah. Homework can't help you. Homework can't help me. Then what what could help me? Nothing because you're broken beyond repair. Well, what do you recommend I do then? -Mope. -The recommend moping. Is that one of the methods? But, um, yeah, if someone, I can't visit my coach. I don't have an appointment with my coach every day. Every day of the week, it's only me and the homework that I do. And homework takes many different forms. If I don't do that, then what can help? What else would help? Well, you're hopeless, so nothing can help. And there's no point in doing homework. That's just what I'm trying to tell you. Homework has not helped you and cannot help you and will not help you. But it has helped me. It's helped me many, many times. I have a stack of papers with positive thoughts on them that have crushed my distorted thoughts. And I felt better just little old me with the pencil and paper writing down positive thoughts. And when I see my belief go to the positive thought and it sucks the belief away from that negative thought, I feel better. It's a real thing. And it's something I can do. I just don't do enough of it usually. But I can do it. I have done it. So who won? I did bigger, small, bigger huge. huge. Huge. Huge. How much do you believe now homework can't work? Let me write this down. No, that's a zero. A zero. Great. And now at this moment, how hopeless are you feeling? Hopeless zero. Zero. That's that's great. Maybe this is a little recording. We might keep it's a unit on hopelessness because we're going to develop a module on hopelessness in the end. Oh, great. That's great. Isn't that the most distressing motion, you'd say the problem? Yeah. We'll do some other externalization of voices, but I'm thinking maybe we could stop this recording and then start another one. Yeah. This has been another episode of the Feeling Good Podcast. For more information visit drburnswebsite at feelinggood.com where you will find the show notes for this episode under the podcast page. You'll 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. The theme music is Gypsy Jazz in Paris, 1935, composed and performed by Brett Bandonso. I am your host, Rhonda Barovsky. We hope you enjoyed this episode. I invite you to join us next time for another episode of the Feeling Good Podcast.