Psychiatry & Psychotherapy Podcast - Vulnerability and Imposter Syndrome with David Burns

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

The basis of cognitive behavioral therapy is that we should put our thoughts on trial and not just believe them. CBT works by digging into the foundation of our thinking patterns so we can rewire the patterns that are messed up.  On this week's episode of the podcast, I speak to Dr. David Burns M.D. about cognitive behavioral therapy. He's the author of several industry-leading books on the subject, including Feeling Good and Feeling Great. By listening to this episode, you can earn 1.5 Psychiatry CME Credits. Link to blog. Link to YouTube video.

Hello and welcome to the Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Podcast. I'm here to talk about getting rid of burnout, increasing job satisfaction, and feeling like an expert in what you do. One thing that created a lot of burnout and angst for me was trying to get continued medical education right at the last minute. So why not join the CME membership and do CMEE while listening to this podcast? Go to Psychiatrypodcast.com, sign up, sign in, take the test, and the certification is email to you in seconds.

Welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm going to be interviewing David Burns. He is the author of Feeling Good. It's a classic CBT book, self-help book. And he also authored Feeling Great. And today we are going to have a pretty extensive free-flowing dialogue. I initially wanted to bring them on and just get him to take us through what a mood log would look like, you know, how to do some basic CBT.

but he really spoke a lot about his life about what is meaningful in his journey. And also, I was a little bit more open about some of my recent struggles, some of the things that are going on in my life as a way of, you know, sort of seeing how he would meet me, seeing if we could do some live roleplay and that turned a little bit more real than I expected. So let me know what you think. It's kind of a different format for those getting to CME for this episode. There will be CME questions.

I do have to report that David Burns has some conflict of interests, including he's the author of some books for patients. And so here we go. So I would have to say that without David Burns' permission, we have a whole partial program here at our institution that took his book feeling good. and basically made it into a partial program. It's not the one that I run, but it's one that's very effective.

And so when I think of someone who's doing CBT at the highest level, who is one, probably the top 10 known psychotherapists in the world, I think of David Burns. So David Burns, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you. I'm honored to be on your show.

Yeah. This is like really exciting to have you. I have to tell you, when I was at the Evolution of Psychotherapy Conference, a couple years ago. I was very impressed by a session that you did. It was interactive, it was engaging, it taught me a lot of things. And so I was thinking in this session, what we would do is we would go through some of the very basics of like how do we start to look at our thoughts and not just believe them. Like how do we start to put them on trial? You know, how do we start to like from start to finish,

you know, do some of those basic things to ourself. Because one thing I think about CBT is that you can really start this by yourself. If you're at home and you're too scared to get into psychotherapy, you're too scared to see a therapist, or you're, maybe you are a therapist or a psychiatrist, and you're, you know, you have these sort of intrusive thoughts, distressing thoughts. How do we put those on trial? How do we sort of like not just let them, you know, suck up our emotional, energy every day, right?

Yeah, absolutely. You're talking cognitive therapy, and it is something that a lot of people can do on their own. There were a number of outcome studies on my first book, Feeling Good, to see if it had antidepressant properties. And I didn't know these studies were being done. I would have been pretty nervous had I known about it. Yeah. Yeah.

done by this research psychologist, Forrest Kogan, from University of Alabama. And they would take patient seeking treatment at the medical center for moderate to severe depression. And so you've got to be on a waiting list for four weeks before you can see your shrink for medication or psychotherapy or whatever. But in the meanwhile, read this book and they gave half the patients a copy of my book, Feeling Good, the New Mood Therapy, half of them just stayed on the waiting list, just say you have to be on the waiting list for four weeks. And then they tested them with the Beck Depression inventory, both groups. And they found that after the four weeks, roughly 50 to 65 percent of the patients that got

feeling good had recovered or improved to the extent that they no longer wanted or needed therapy. In the waiting list control, there was no statistically significant improvement. improvement. And then they told those patients, oh, you have to wait another four weeks, but in the meanwhile, read this book. And again, 50 to 65% of them recovered. And so that's, that blew my mind when I heard about that because I didn't improve, intend that book was a self-help book. I was just trying to say, here's something new. It's fantastic. I want everyone to know that you can often recover from depression without drugs by doing the

fairly straightforward exercises writing down your thoughts, identifying the distortions, and challenging those thoughts. But then now, in my group at Stanford, the last 15 years, we've come up with something that's leading to even more spectacular results that's focused on resistance and eliminating the resistance to change. We kind of got back to Freud's, idea that resistance is real and important. And my research kind of confirmed that. And so we've been developing techniques to melt away therapeutic resistance. And that's what the new book Feeling Great is about. And those are also things people can do on their own. And it's not either or the cognitive techniques, talking back to these distorted thoughts, I'm no good, I'm a loser,

I'll be depressed forever. crushing those thoughts is still the key to recovery. But the neat thing now is that when people, everyone has some resistance, some ambivalence about change. And so we've developed new techniques to try to eliminate that, especially with patients with borderline personality disorder, but with anybody. And when you eliminate the resistance, this seems to cause a dramatic, acceleration in recovery. So in the old days, when I was doing cognitive therapy, it would take me typically six, 12, 15 weeks to see someone recover using the techniques and feeling good. And that

was considered great by that era, because it was either that or years of non-specific talk therapy, like what I was trained in as a resident. It was just wasn't effective. Now, when I work with people, I just schedule one, two-hour session. And almost every case, I can complete therapy now in one session, just followed by a little relapse prevention training, which takes 20 or 30 minutes. And this is a radical difference. And I'm very excited about this, too. Okay, well, yeah, I want you to break that down. Like, what is this, like, how do we overcome that? Maybe I'm thinking about the common person who's listening to this.

You know, there's a lot of therapists, a lot of psychiatrists, people in training. And one of the things that I hear from them is that they often feel like an imposter. They feel like they're, let's say that just feels self-critical. That feels like I shouldn't be here. I should be anywhere but here. I don't deserve to be here. I don't know if I can do this. Where do you start?

Yeah, and in addition, there's a little truth to that because when you look at not only trainees, but people in practice, like we measure symptoms at the start and end of every session, even if you don't do that, I think most therapists are aware. They went into becoming a clinical social worker or psychiatrist or psychologist with the idea

they were going to learn to heal people and quickly. And then you get into clinical practice and you find out it's not that way. And that you begin to realize, gosh, what I learned in graduate school, it really sucks. It isn't any good. And this can cause a lot of, a lot of insecurity. And I mentioned you, I have this free training group at Stanford every week for Bay Area therapist so they can come and get unlimited free psychotherapy training for the rest of their lives if they want, and they can also get an unlimited free psychotherapy for their own needs.

And the thing we see most common in the group, as recently as the group this Tuesday, I had therapists sobbing because of their thought, you know, I'm not good enough. I can't do this. If the other people in the group see how inadequate I feel, they're going to judge me. and we use some techniques and we have the first hour of the training. We illustrate techniques in a big group and then we break into little small groups of four or five. We start out with maybe 45 therapists and then we break into maybe eight breakout groups and practice. And all of the therapists in my little breakout group were just on the verge of tears because of their negative thoughts. Like, I'm not good enough.

They're afraid to speak up in group for fear that someone will see that they're not good enough. And when they opened up and found out that the other people in the group were not judging them, it was like mind-blowing to them. They went from tears to joy. But this is very common. And it's not just, as you know, it's not just mental health. professionals, that's the key to depression. What is depression? People say, oh, it's insomnia. Insomnia actually is not correlated with depression. It's not a valid symptom of depression.

50 things can cause insomnia. But what depression is, really, it's what you said. I'm not good enough. I should be better than I am. I'm a failure. I'm a loser. It's the feeling that you're not good enough and the feeling of hopelessness and things can't change. That's what depression. Depression really is. Yeah. Let's say I am maybe can we do a little role play here? Sure. I'll try to be, I'll try to embody because I treat a lot of professionals too. And this is what I see as well. This is what I see in depression.

And I'm just curious like what your approach is. And I want to like pull out. Yeah. And if you want to do something real, it'll be 10 times better because it's always better than role play. But we can we can roll play too. I always do live work at my teaching. Okay. Well, I can try to find something real. Okay. Okay. Here it is.

I certainly can. Okay. I'll get real, okay. Okay, so here's what's happening in my life. I'm moving to Florida. You are going to move to Florida? I am. Oh, wow.

Yeah. My mother-in-law just had a big surgery. Oh. My brother's out there. He runs seven charter schools for inner city kids. Wow. And so I'm leaving, you know, a job that pays you consistently. You know, my university position here, I'm going to be venturing out on my own.

I'm going to be opening up my practice to more patients, private patients. And there's something about venturing out that's, like, intimidating. Mm-hmm. What are your, it can be scary. I can remember when I left my position, I had a 10-year-track position at Penn to do research on brain chemistry. And I knew I didn't want to do it because I knew that serotonin, our research proved that serotonin had nothing in the world to do with depression. And I didn't want to spend my life pursuing that ridiculous theory. And then so I started attending Beck's seminar.

I got excited about cognitive therapy and I gave up my university thing to go into private practice. But it was a very anxious period for me as well. They were pressuring me. They say, don't do this, David. You're throwing your life away. You've got a great academic career. Yeah. But what are, and it was the most anxious three months of my life until I finally said,

I'm going to make a decision. I'm just going to send that money back, that grant money, and I'm going to tell them I'll be on the voluntary faculty. And I want to go where my heart is pulling me. But what are your thoughts? What are your concerns about going into private practice? I think there's – I think we have kind of some similarities in that. I'm good at doing the med management stuff, you know, and I'm saying goodbye every day to about 12 patients in the clinic that I, that I've been running here at Loma Linda. And that's been, it's been

tough. It's been, it's been hard to say goodbye. But I think in this next phase, I really just want to do more psychotherapy. And I have, I have clients that I've been working with a lot. a lot on telepsych, a lot on Zoom at this point, all around the U.S., different people. And I think it's very, it's satisfying in a way that the med management stuff is maybe not as satisfying, being able to see someone once a week or, you know, doing the actual work, right, where you're getting into their memories and their life and understanding, like, their emotions and empathizing with them. Connecting with the human being on a deep level

where they're showing you everything and not try to impress anybody. Yeah. So I think there's like, I have been doing some research and I'm going to kind of have to finish those articles up and get those submitted. But it's just not my life, right?

I think where I've seen the most fruit is actually probably this podcast. Yeah. and the therapy patients that I've had. So it's like how do I kind of let go of some of those other things, you know, and then just focus in. How do I amplify the good things? And I think actually there's some common ground as well with like your book

and how many people you've impacted. It's what I call like the multiplier effect. Like I want more of the multiplier effect where it's like, okay, one on one, I love that. That's great. I want to do more of that, but I also want to put out content that encourages people, that helps them become more proficient as psychiatrists, as therapists. And so, yeah, I don't know.

You're going to have an exciting time, and kudos, and more power to you, and you're going to bring your gifts to a much wider audience, and you're doing what gives you pleasure. My weekly podcast with Rhonda Vorovsky, who's kind of the host and a dear colleague, just one of the most fun times of my week. And we're not trying to impress anybody. We're not talking in big language, scientific and research

and mathematical modeling of data or anything like that. It's just kind of how to connect with people. And 60% of our audience are general public who are looking for help. And 40% are therapists. We're looking for therapy techniques, but 100% of the therapists are looking for personal help also who listen to the podcast. And we get a lot of people every day writing back that this,

your podcast X, Y, or Z, or today's changed my life. And I think you can really get real tangible effects by communicating with people directly and experimenting with new ways of doing therapy and making healing possible. But also for me, you see the most exciting thing in my life is when I'm working with someone, they're sobbing at the start of a session. often they've had decades of failed therapy. And at the end of the session, they're not only recovered, they're in a state of euphoria, joy.

Yeah. And when that happens to them, that happens to me. Right. Yeah. And that's kind of what I live for. I've prescribed antidepressants on 13,000 occasions, but I've never recommended them. And for 25 years, I haven't given a prescription for an antidepressant.

I never saw much from them, to be honest. But it's to do the thing that you love to do is where you're going to, you know, make your greatest gift. So that's going to be cool. And maybe your podcast audience will open up from just therapists to the general public. because a lot of people out there, even people listening right now, I don't know how large your audiences, but there could be people listening to us right now who are going to commit suicide. Yeah. Even if they're therapists who are struggling with tremendous pain that they're hiding from other people.

No, I think you're right. There are us as professionals that struggle. and I think sometimes it's the hardest to get the help for yourself. You know, working at a university, I've seen a lot of residents, a lot of medical students, and it occurred to me, wow, maybe I wasn't the only one struggling back then. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah.

But like when you're in the midst of it, and even as a professional, you know, I mean, to think about like all the therapists I interact with on social media and, you know, we're putting our best face out there to the world most of the time. That's right. And even when, you know, people post like an Instagram and they're like, oh, I'm really struggling with this, you know, and it's always like, but this is how I overcame, you know, or something like that, you know, so it's like, well, but there's a lot of people out there who are just struggling.

Like I talked to one psychiatrist recently had on the podcast, he had eight patients that died, committed suicide. Horrible. It's the worst. Just the difficulty of, I had a patient just today who's saying like, yeah, I'm really thinking about killing myself. Yeah, that's the dark side of our profession. And it's really hard to grasp with this kind of like reality of our profession where it's like,

yeah, we have people that win their life. Yeah, and then if somebody does commit suicide, there's significant chance that some attorney is going to decide it was your fault and drag you into a multi-year lawsuit that is a horrible experience to go through. There's a lot of pain that mental health professionals have in the Stanford group. Stanford is a pretty friendly place. California, I love to tell you the truth. I love the people of California. But even there, the students, the medical students, the psychiatric resident, the faculty, feel the need to look competent and chipper and happy.

And then when they come to my Tuesday group and they open up in group and talk about their inadequacy, how they really feel inside and cry and show their vulnerability, it's frightening. for them because they're pretty sure that everyone's going to judge them. And then what typically happens is people embrace them and feel so close to them. And then they go from a state of panic and fear into a state of overwhelming joy. But it's the group gives them a, that's not all we do in the group. That's just a minor thing that we do in the group. Mainly we're trying to teach these new psychotherapy techniques, but it's, there's a lot of, a lot of suffering. They, for a while, my Stanford group was meeting at my home for about six months,

the living room. And it was a smaller group then. We'd have maybe 15 students. And, but we did personal work and, and then training and empathy like at that workshop you went to and other, other techniques, how to, you know, externalization of voices, how to crush negative thoughts, all, all these methods. But one night there was a young woman who was just starting in our SID program. And she looked kind of, I would say, like a model.

This stunningly beautiful young woman. And she had been working in New York before coming to California. And she was in the fashion business or fashion magazines or some such thing. And at the end of the group, she started crying as everyone was leaving. And I said, why are you crying? And she says, because it's going to be a whole week until the next group. She says, I am so lonely. And I don't think, and nobody knows how lonely I am.

And I feel like I'll never find anybody. I feel like I'll be alone, alone forever. So the next week, we did, you know, personal work. and she turned that around. But it's like, I mean, she, you know, you don't know how people are feeling, feeling inside. And you can look like they've got it all together. I had a student who at Stanford, one of the residents who was fantastic. And she allows me to tell this story.

But when my Tuesday group started, like most of been 20 years ago at Stanford, and he just had two or three residents in it every week. we'd meet for two, you know, two hours and go over their cases and stuff like that. And then in the mean, over the years it's grown and grown and grown. But she said she had this patient and she wanted help with the patient had the thought, I'm defective. And what are some techniques that she could use to help him crush that thought, which has all the distortions, all or nothing thinking and emotional reasoning and should statements

and self-blame and overgeneralization and all of that kind of stuff. And so we drew what's called a recovery circle with all these arrows coming out of it. And then we wrote down at the end of 15 arrows, here's 15 different techniques that you could try with him. And then we started going through them one by one. And here's how this technique works. You could do a downward arrow. You could do the explain the distortions.

You could do externalization of voices. you could do examine the evidence, double standard technique, all this stuff. And we went through maybe a technique every three minutes for about five or six techniques. And then she looked at me and she said, well, Dr. Burns, I have a hidden kind of agenda in telling you asking for help with this patient. And I said, well, you know, what's that? And she said, well, I do have a patient who's horribly depressed and he feels he's defective. But to tell you the truth, and my patient, she said he feels like he had no childhood, that he's just permanently flawed.

And but she says, you see, Dr. Burns, I feel the same way. And she started sobbing and she said, I feel like I'm defective too. And she said, my dad was a violent alcoholic. And I never had any happiness. childhood. I was frightened a lot and didn't do the happy things that children are supposed to do. And now I feel like I'm irreversibly flawed, irreversibly defective. Yeah. And I feel so ashamed and I feel so down. And it was kind of a shock to hear that because she was like one of the so-called beautiful people, like this beautiful young woman with a husband and a family. And she's publishing and

and the world's top psychiatry journals, prestigious publications. And so you think you've got everything going for you. And she said, could any of these techniques help me? And I said, well, let's try a few. So I tried four or five techniques that didn't work. And then we came to one called the acceptance paradox. And she said, well, how would this one work? And I said, oh, well, the acceptance paradox is instead of trying to fight the fact that you're defective, you accept that you are in fact defective and you thank your lucky stars for that.

And she said, well, what could be good about being defective? And I said, well, I'll tell you one thing. Like, I've always been intimidated by you because I was never one of the beautiful people. I was never good looking or popular or anything like that. And so people like you, I've always been afraid of kind of. And then when you told me about your childhood and the fact that you feel defect, I suddenly felt close to you for the first time and really, really care, felt like I really cared about you. And you see, you're so lucky that you're defective because now the next time you see a patient who says they're defective,

you can say, I know exactly what you're feeling because I used to feel that way too. And I can show you the way out of the woods and show you how to get back to joy and self-esteem. And it's like something went off in her brain and she suddenly saw it. And she said, oh, my gosh, you're right. I'm feeling such, such a joy. I can't wait to see my patients tomorrow. It was like that, like, transformed her. The change happened in about 15 seconds the next morning. I got this call at 7 a.m. And I got out of bed. It was kind of groggy, and it was her on the phone.

She's, Dr. Burns, I'm so sorry to wake you up, but I just couldn't wait because I had to tell you something. I said, what's that? And she said, I just want to tell you that I don't feel like a psychiatrist anymore. I feel like a healer or an evangelist. And I can't wait until I see the next patient and says, I'm defective. And I'm going to tell them, do I have something good in store for you? And now she's on our faculty, and she's one of the most highly sought after therapists. But I think when a therapist, when you do your own personal work, and I've had to do a lot of my own work, I think I've had 17 anxiety disorders.

When I wrote my book, One Panic Attacks, I started counting up all the phobias and forms of anxiety I've had. And when it was published, I had noticed I've had 12 anxiety disorders. Then since it's been published, I've remembered six or eight more. But that's why I love treating anxiety, because whatever you've had, OCD or a panic attack or a phobia or I've had five forms of intense social anxiety as well. Whatever you have, I can say, I'm so glad you've got that. I used to have that. I know how it sucks. And I can show you how to turn it around really fast.

But I think that what patients want is a therapist who's on the one hand, psychiatrist, psychologist, whatever you are, is confident. I've got techniques to change your life fast and completely, but also I'm human. And I've walked in your shoes and I know what it feels like to be in pain. To be in agony, I was in agony earlier today. Oh. You know, I think what's going on here between us is you, is you notice something in me, and you're telling me these stories to sort of speak to me,

you know, and you're like, hey, it's okay to be a wounded healer. It's okay to be... It's not okay. It's not okay. It's actually better. Yeah. It's better because, you know, I, um, there was a, there was a moment when I was in residency and I, you know, the first therapy patient I had, I gave a panic attack. You had a panic attack? No, she, had a panic attack. Oh, right in a session. I induced a panic attack, the first patient I ever had. And then she fired me. It was the... Oh, no. And I was really wanting to be a good therapist. I was like, I was like so excited. You know, I had this mentor who is this, he's now 90, he's like a psychoanalyst, you know, and he's been

inspiring me to be this great therapist. And I get in this session. And I am like so anxious, I'm just like, there's no way that she's walking out. And she was an super anxious person, you know. So I don't know, that kind of came in my mind or this, you know, when I was a resident, I would have these dreams of like running naked on a football field with the ball. People were chasing me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a good one there.

And, you know, this kind of this, this thought that like I'm pretending to be a football player. Right. Oh, yeah. But I'm really not. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I used to get so anxious on Sunday because I would start thinking, my gosh, tomorrow I'm going to see eight or ten patients, many of them high functioning individuals. And what if they notice that I don't know what I'm talking about? And so I would make little plans for techniques I could use with each patient to try to relieve my anxiety. But it was an intense panic. And then halfway through Monday morning, morning, I would suddenly relax and say, you know, it doesn't make any difference. They don't even care. If I just hang out with them and I'm warm and friendly to them and stuff will evolve,

it's going to, it's going to be good. But I remember feeling that. And then I remember once I made a mistake with a patient who was not paying his bill in the clinic. I was when I was a resident and I was going to Beck's weekly seminar called Cognitive Therapy Seminar, when there was only about five of us in the world who knew what cognitive therapy was. And he criticized the way I had handled this patient. And I freaked out. And I went home on the train and I was telling myself, I'm the worst therapist in the world. They're going to take away my license to practice medicine in Pennsylvania.

I have no future as a psychiatrist. and those thoughts seem so true to me. And I was thinking to myself, well, David, you wrote that book Feeling Good about cognitive distortions. And maybe there's some distortions in your thoughts. And I thought, oh, no, no, my thoughts are true. And I really am worthless. And it's like I had seen the truth about myself for the first time. And I tried to get over it by running.

And I thought, oh, you know, brain endorphin. So I went out on a six-mile run. And the farther and faster I ran, the more depressed I became. And I felt, and that's the awful thing about depression is you feel like these negative thoughts are absolute truth. And finally, I got home and I said, well, why don't you write them down on a piece of paper? That's what you force your patients to do. Why don't you do it, David? And I said, no, I know my thoughts are valid.

And then I said, well, David, you're. just whining like a patient, write them down and look at them. So I wrote them down. I'm a terrible human being. I have no future as a therapist. I'm a failure as a therapist. I screwed up. I'm a screw up, stuff like that. Then I said, now, are there any distortions here? And all of a sudden, here's all or nothing thinking, a kind of hidden should statement, self-blame, overgeneralization, mental filter, discounting the positive. And I said, what could you tell yourself instead? And I said, well, maybe I could tell myself that I'm a beginner. Why don't I just tell this patient tomorrow that I screwed up and I felt terrible and let's

talk about it? And all of a sudden, my depression just vanished and I became just filled with joy. And I said, hey, this is pretty good stuff. And I saw the patient the next day and said, I've been kicking myself since I saw you last week. and I got criticized for the way I handled you about the payment. And, you know, you're the important thing. Our work is the important thing. And I can imagine how hurt and angry you must have felt.

And tell me about those feelings and how I let you down. He just opened up and started crying. And we had our greatest session ever. And I just got fabulous readings from him. But I think that's part of the process of becoming a therapist is, is learning to love and to help yourself and to do your own personal work. And when you've done it successfully, then you're a healer and you're no longer a technician. Techniques are vitally important because water can go no higher than its source.

And so if you're inwardly feeling, I'm not good enough and hating yourself because of it, that will be a limit on your capacity to heal others who are feeling the same way. And once you've done your own personal work, it's just a power gets unleashed inside of you. Yeah. That thought, I am not good enough. I agree with you. That is so fundamental to depression that I'm a failure. Things can't change.

Yeah. That is depression right there. That's the essence of depression. And people don't realize how distorted those thoughts are. And they also, many people don't realize that the moment you stop believing those thoughts, you can change the way you feel. And that recovery doesn't have to take years. I had a woman who, you mentioned, panic attacks,

who came to me for treatment of eight years of failed therapy for severe depression and five overwhelming panic attacks every week. At the time, she was the most severely depressed and anxious outpatient I'd seen up to that point in my career. And every week, she would have panic attacks where she would tell herself, you know, she'd hyperventilate. She didn't realize she would hyperventilate, but she'd go, she'd get upset about something, start hyperventilating, and then her chest would get tight, and she'd tell herself. tell herself, I'm about to die.

My windpipe is closing off. And she'd been loaded on massive doses of medications, including a number of addictive medications. And really, really hurting, really terrified. So we went through a number of techniques. I did a recovery circle. I did some gentle techniques that just failed. I failed for about four or five weeks.

I probably tried 10 techniques. Every week she'd come back and I would test her depression and anxiety and just super severe. And then finally I said like what happened with you, but more in a controlled way, I just said, I'd really like to try an extreme technique. And you've got to trust me, but I want to induce a panic attack in the next session.

and then show you a new technique where we would do an experiment and test what you're telling yourself, what you've been telling yourself for 10 years that you're on the verge of death. And she didn't want to do it. She canceled the next two sessions, but she called and said, I'm not dropping out of therapy. Do you have to have a panic attack in your office? I said, you don't have to, but you've been suffering for 10 years horribly. and maybe we can just finish it in one session. You're having five panic attacks every week anyway.

Why not have one more in my office? And maybe we can, I can't promise anything, but I think there's a good chance we can just end this for once and for all. So she was brave. And at the beginning of the session, I had her hyperventilate and close her eyes. And then I said, now I'm the voice in your mind that terrifies you. And can you feel that your windpipe is closing off and you're on the verge of death?

you're going to have a heart attack and your fingers are turning blue, your lips are turning blue because of the lack of oxygen. We're going to have to call the paramedics. And this just triggered a massive panic attack. And she's just started sobbing and saying, please, Dr. Burns, I can't go on. I think I'm about to die. I said, how much do you believe I'm about to die? She said, 100%.

Then I said, if you were about to die of a heart attack or because of your, you're, you're, can't breathe deeply enough. Could you, could you stand into strenuous aerobic exercises? And she says, oh, no, if I stand up, I'm going to pass out. Okay. And I said, okay, let's do an experiment. Let's check it out. Obviously, she can't pass out because her heart is racing. Her blood pressure is elevated. So she stands up and they say, now start running in place. So she starts running in place very slowly and saying, oh, I can't go on. I'm about to die, my windpipe is closing off, my chest is tight, it hurts so badly. I said, well, go faster then. So after about a minute of this running in place, she stops and says, I can't go on. I'm on

the verge of death. I said, well, do some jumping jacks then. She says, I can't. I said, well, do some jumping jacks anyway. So she starts doing jumping jacks. And I actually have this on video because I happen to have a camcorder in my office that day. And so she starts doing jumping jacks and 20 seconds into it she she said, I wonder if I could do this if I was on the verge of death. I said, is this what you see in the emergency rooms of hospitals, patients with massive heart attacks standing next to their gurneys doing jumping jacks? And then it hit her that it couldn't be true that she was on the verge of death. And she went from sobbing to uncontrollable laughter. She bent over laughing.

She was, and then she, and then I said, why don't you see if you can straighten back up again and do some more jumping jacks? I'm sure you'll pass out at any moment. Then she started laughing again. And that was the end of her 10 years of misery. That was in 1988. And she not only did all her symptoms disappear completely in that session, but she became euphoric. She couldn't believe something so simple had ended 10 years of horrible suffering.

And I've had to call her every year or two to say, can I keep showing this video clip in workshops? She's saying, oh, I hope you tell you show everyone in the United States. I'm just so proud of that. And she's just done tremendously well. but it just shows how off your thinking can be when you're depressed and anxious. That's the basis of cognitive therapy, the depression and anxiety are the world's oldest cons. And when we're suffering like that, we're telling ourselves things that just aren't true. And the moment you see how it is started and untrue those thoughts are in that moment, you'll recover.

Now, you're telling yourself that you're not good enough? Is that it? Or what are you telling yourself? I'm an imposter. What is your negative thought? Maybe we can do a little role play on it. Yeah, I'm trying to get to like, I'm trying to get to what it is. We don't have to zero in on that.

I think partly just healthy excitement that you're doing something fantastic with your life. And I think it's going to bring a great deal of, you know, wonderful blessings into your life. and I'm just so excited that you're kind of also pursuing the path of doing what you want to do and what you're excited about. Yeah, yeah, I think, you know, here's my thought is I think that I'm taking steps forward every day to make this a reality. It does feel overwhelming at times, like overwhelming in the sense of like every little detail, you know. it sometimes feels like I'm leaving this sort of family-like, clan-like environment of the university where we all have each other's backs, you know, and I'm kind of venturing out like a nomad of sorts. Like into the unknown, you know, I don't know if you've seen that frozen too.

Oh, yeah. There's something about when you go to a coffee shop and you've lived, of this town for so long, you know everyone. And it's just this kind of bizarre, a little bit disorienting feeling to be going to a totally new place, to not have, like, there's a lot of context. When someone refers a client to me here, the client hears from maybe one, maybe even two or three people, oh yeah, Dr. Puter, you're going to love him. And it's just this weird kind of thought that I would be going somewhere and without that sort of

context of trust that gets sort of relayed, you know? Yeah. And then what's the worst that could happen? What are you the most afraid of? Probably the worst that could happen is to have to find some day job where I'm just kind of in the trenches working for someone else. Like at this point in my life, I don't really want to do that. And then suppose you had to take a day job to support yourself. What would that mean to you? Why would that be upsetting to you? Okay, this is good.

This is getting somewhere. I can see where this is getting. I think it would be if I had to do a day job, it would take away from my ability to do what I love. it would take away from my ability to do the podcast to seeing therapy patients you know a lot of centers for psychiatrists are very much med check oriented oh yeah that yeah yeah that's why I left like a pharmacology I didn't want to be spending my life writing prescriptions yeah and you know it's like it you see I only have some

much life each day, you know? Right. And so if I could be doing the things that I love, I think it would be life-giving. But yeah, I think there's this, I think there's, yeah, that this, if I were to have to take a job, like there was this one guy I called up, I called up some places and was asking, you know, I was asking about different jobs in the community there. And this guy's like, yeah, you're going to see, you have to see 15 to 20 patients a day, and, you know, you'll be zooming in, it'll be hospitals, ERs, and so there'll be no continuity. And I was just thinking, like, that would be an absolute nightmare for me personally, because that's just not who I am as person, you know? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I just think that's a realistic

concern. The only distortion there probably is the fact that this is. going to happen and that you're not going to be able to pursue your dream. Yeah. Well, how about if I'll be your negative voice? Okay. And see if you can defeat me. All right. Okay.

So what's your name? David. You're David, right? Yes. And I'm David? We're both David. You know who I am? I think you're the, you're the, you're the, you're the,

part of me that's critical. That's right. And that needs to be perfectionistic. Yeah, that's right. Well, David, I'm real happy you're going to Florida and everything like that, but I'm just thinking you're probably going to have to take some kind of really awful day job. Yeah. That sounds like a nightmare, David.

It sounds like really scary. have to take a day job when that's like not what you really want to do. You speak in the first person I. I'm the negative, David. You're the positive David. I'm the positive David. Okay. So I'm like combating these negative thoughts.

Okay. Yeah. I'm going to have plenty of patients, therapists, psychiatrists, maybe even, that want to come see me. and I'm not going to need to have a day job. Okay, so who won that exchange? You or me, the negative or the positive? I feel like the positive, but what do you feel like?

Well, yours is the only important one, but yes, I thought you won. Now, did you win big or small? Is it a medium one? Medium. Well, let's do a roll reversal then. Okay. You be the negative, David. I'll be the positive. Yep. You know, you're not going to be busy enough with people reaching out to you. You're not going to be able to make it by yourself. You're going to you're going to have to work at a job that pays you not very good. And they're going to take 75% of your money that you're billing. And you're sure you're going to do good at it, but it's going to be exhaustive. Yeah, well, that would suck, and I don't think that's actually going to happen. I'm going to, you know, live my dream. And I think I have a lot to give and a lot of people are hurting. And I think I can do a great job of being helpful to people with more than just pills, pills, pills. I think people are looking for someone with a heart and with therapeutic skills. And that's something that I have. And I can reach out to people with my podcast as well. But if I did have

to take a day job for a period of time. You know, I could survive that as well until I get my practice built up. I don't think that's likely, but that would be doable. But I actually have another problem that's that's far worse than that. Oh, what's that, David? What's that positive, David? Listening to your bullshit. Okay.

You're tired of listening to me, huh? You're tired of listening to my bullshit? Yeah. You know, always telling me you're not, you're always telling me, oh, you're not going to make it in Florida and worry, worry, worry. And, you know, that's my big problem. Listening to you. Oh, man. Well, you know what?

You actually enjoy listening to me, okay, positive, David, because I'm the one that's protected you throughout your life. Well, that's true. That's true. Maybe I want you to keep making me real anxious. because there's a lot of wisdom in my anxiety, and it does keep me vigilant, and it has worked for me, so maybe I don't want to give it up.

How anxious do I get when I'm the most anxious between zero and a hundred? I think you just distract your, you know, I'm the one that distracts you, David, so I can keep you really distracted, and you just keep learning and reading and buying books, and I protect you that way. That's right.

So let's list all the positive benefits of your anxiety. It motivates you? Oh, yeah. It's, you know, it gets you straight A's, David. You're going to miss that, right? Yeah, motivate you, protects you. Yeah, it protects you. What are some other really beautiful things that your anxiety shows about you and your core values?

Oh, well, you know, when, um, when you get in an argument, you clean, you know, and people appreciate when the house is clean. Yeah. Do you do great in an argument because I'm on top of my facts, right? Oh, yeah. I mean, people, well, you know, it's allowed you to stay safe from your, from your brother growing up, who has become an ultimate fighter and who probably is a couple standard deviations above the mean in terms of his natural, high-energyness. So I can compete with my brother. Is that another benefit? Yeah, yeah.

Well, there's a lot of benefits. Motivates me, protects me. Does it also show that you've got high standards? Yeah, I think it shows your competence, you know? And, you know, people value competence. Oh, yeah. So people admire me? Yeah, they admire you?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. See, so all these good things that I do for you. Well, if we had a magic button and if you pressed it, all of your anxiety about moving to Florida would disappear in a flash with no effort, and you'd go into a euphoric state, would you press the button? Yeah. Oh, me? Like, am I still the negative me? No, we're in a different dimension of the moment.

Yeah. You're just you. Yeah. You would. But then all these positive qualities are going to go down the toilet along with your anxiety and other negative feelings. You see your anxiety motivates you and that's real. And it protects you and that's real. And you do great in arguments.

And I saw that before the show. you have great facts right at your fingertips. And you compete with your brother and with many other people. And you have high standards. And your high standards have motivated you to achieve great things. And your high standards and your achievement show competence. And other people admire that in you. And so why in the world would you want to press that magic button

and lose all of these very real. beautiful things about you and benefits and what it shows about your core values. Yeah, I guess there's some ambiguity there. Yeah, that's what I mean by resistance. I think, you know, the other thing, honestly, that's coming to my head is like, I'm heating up a little bit over here. Like, there's a little bit of, it's a little bit vulnerable to put out all this, you know? I mean, I think usually I do stick to the facts in this podcast. And honestly, I don't know if people really want to get some of this side.

Well, I'll tell you what podcast listeners. I don't know who you all are, but you have to email David and tell him what you think about showing vulnerability. I love what you're doing personally. And then I'm feeling there's a vulnerability. and in the move, my wife describes this, it doesn't always come across as anxiety to myself. It comes across as almost like a hypomania of sorts, like high energy, hyperthymia.

Yeah. Increased movement. That's another benefit, by the way, increased energy. Yep. And there is a comforting with food for me. So it's interesting that I reached out to food in the midst of that moment. Yeah, sure. Sure.

One of my listeners that's pointed out my love of food and the frequency of that in the podcast. You didn't answer a question. I asked you a few minutes ago before we made that list, and I asked you how anxious you get between zero and 100 when you're feeling the most anxious. Yeah. And so what I'm saying is that realistically, it doesn't feel like a normal anxiety to me, just the way that I'm willing. wired, it feel, I have energy and I just like, I just go. Yeah. And I'm trying to be as accurate as I can be.

There's, there's an aspect of my personality, which is high conscientiousness and high achievement orientation. Mm-hmm. You know, but then there's also this like high energy that gets activated in situations like this where for a while, like, I wasn't needing as much sleep. And I released the most podcasts in a couple months that I've ever released. Part of that was because all the medical students needed it right on their CVs right before their applications. But part of that was because I just, like, had, like, this, like, energy driving me, you know?

How many podcasts did you do in two months? Probably about 20 hours. because some of the podcasts are like three hours long or two hours long. Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. It's fun, isn't it? Yeah. And it's fun, fun to get in that high energy flow.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to like, I'm trying to be as accurate to my situation as possible. So I think that there is like this, this like, okay, I can do this. I can take steps. I can make movement forward. There's so many details. Yeah, I'm sorry. Where were we?

Well, I get lost. I don't try to be anywhere. I just like to battle and see where things go. That makes life fascinating. I guess sometimes you have to be organized in order to get things done. But I like to just go where things go where things go also. Yeah. So there is some, I'm thinking about this idea of that there's this potential resistance, ambiguity to letting go of some,

some of the worry, some of the maybe underneath, underneath everything, that there's part of me that's the insecurity that may be driving some of the movement. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And to my way of thinking, that's why I say that, you see, I was trained as a resident to think that depression and anxiety are what's wrong with you. You're broken. You have a chemical imbalance in your brain or you have a diagnosable mental disorder according to the DSM3. And that's how I was

trained. And so I spent the first part of my career trying to fix people who I saw as broken. Now my thinking has changed. And now I see that depression and anxiety aren't the result of what's wrong with people, but what's right with people. Okay. What's most beautiful about a person and your core values? And when patients see that for the first time, suddenly the resistance to change disappears, and then recovery is just to stones throw away. Yeah.

I mean, I had a cat that was my best friend, and he disappeared in the middle of the night about four or five years, about four years ago, Obie. And he taught me the most important. things about psychotherapy. And he taught me about this very thing that we're talking about, feeling not good enough. He taught me, you know, see, he came to our back door on the verge of death.

He was a feral cat. He'd been living in the woods behind our house for two years. Oh, wow. And he was afraid of me. I would chase him out of the yard because we had little kitties, and he would kind of try to tyrannize that. And I mean, he was a very violent predator. He was competing with bobcats.

And we have a mountain line behind our house. And he came to the back door. And I said, why would he ever come to the back door? He's terrified of me. We have a kitchen, a glass door. And then he looked at me, and he held his right paw up, and it was as big as his head. And I saw his body look like a concentration camp victim. Apparently something had happened.

and he couldn't hunt and he was dying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we captured him and brought him to the vet, and they did surgery and found a puncture wound from a fight. Yeah. And we had to put him in our guestroom and give him antibiotics for a week so he would survive. And he just tore our desk room to pieces. He peed all over the carpets.

He had wanted nothing to do with the litter box. and and and and we couldn't get close to him if you got within 10 feet of him he'd start hissing if you got close he'd try to claw you and bite you but over time he after the five seven days we we let him outside but he kept hanging around and we eventually coach coaxed him to come back in the house to to eat and little by little and my wife touched him accidentally on the head once and he started purring And we found something that he liked. And we just gently and lovingly reshaped his behavior. And he became my best friend in the whole world. And, you know, he slept on our bed. You know, he just turned into the most loving animal. And he loved me.

And I loved him. But see, he wasn't special. He wasn't a showcat. He wasn't a purebred. When he came, I mean, he was covered with scars. and fleas and ticks, he had worms. Yeah. You know, and I'm old now.

And, you know, I used to be an average runner. That's my claim to fame. I was average. Now I go out and elderly women with a cane zoom past me while I'm jogging. The neighbors say, I saw you out there walking, doctor. Good for you. I said, I wasn't walking, damn fast. But, you know, there's, I'm not special.

everything about me is pretty much in need of improvement. The older I've gotten, the more flaws that I see that I have, but OB taught me, you see, when you no longer need to be special, life becomes special. When I was with him, hanging out with him, and now it's going to be the same with the new cat. I was happier than I could imagine being, except now when I'm with her, it's the same thing.

It's unbelievable joy. I mean, she's not a show cat. either, although she's very pretty. But, but, but, it's, it's this drive to be special. And a lot of our achievement comes from, from that. I, I had that drive early in my career. I said, I'm going to, I'll never have a patient. I can't help.

I'll help them against their will, damn it. You know, if a patient said, you're not helping me, it was like a big challenger. If my research wasn't going right, I would crash. And, you know, I said, and I've said, I've got, my research has to be the best in the world. And that drive helped me. I won some of the world's top awards for my research. And I develop many psychotherapy techniques. And my book, Feeling Good, sold five million copies. And over time, you know, I've tried hard and succeeded not entirely, but for the most part. And getting over this idea that you're going to be special. And I find my students, they don't like it if I'm

trying to impress them or audiences, it kind of pisses them off to tell you the truth. But if I cry and talk about a failure or something that shows my humanness or I show warmth to my students, that's what they love. You have to have something to offer. This idea that we're going to become special or be special is actually the source of suffering, not the source of joy. And the death of the self is. is actually the path to enlightenment.

And I feel sometimes what we're doing in therapy is not just techniques to alleviate depression or anxiety or panic attacks or OCD or whatever. Those things are pretty easy to overcome now with the new pretty incredibly powerful techniques. But the goal is not just to get rid of those afflictions, but to have a sense of enlightenment peace. It's a spiritual thing,

although I'm not religious, I'm anti-religious. But when people change at that deep level, it's a spiritual thing. It has to do with what the Buddha called enlightenment. Every religion has a different name for it. Yeah. Yeah, I resonate with that. And it's like, I feel like I found that to some degree at different parts of my life. And it grounds me, you know.

Yeah. I'm sure you have. And I feel like this is a good sort of re-remembering. This is a kind of remembering, you know. It's like with my kids, I don't need to be perfect. I need to be present. Yeah, yeah. And I don't even need to be present half the time.

Just be present every now and then is good enough. Every now and then is good enough, right? Yeah, that's what the Buddha said. Don't try to be present. That's the heart of Buddhism, right? Don't try to be present? Yeah. What is, tell me, what is the, uh, well, because pseudo-budism, you're trying to do all this shit.

Okay. We're going to be present. It's just another perfectionistic trap. Uh, isn't that fun? Yeah, I think, I think with my kids, the best moments is when I kind of like lose, when I lose myself into the play, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's harder. You know, it's harder when I am kind of in this, uh, you know, it's, uh, it's harder. hypomanic space to lose myself into the play at times. Yeah. You know, that's kind of... Yeah, I mean, like, you know, like, you're kind of in a little bit of a fight mode of sorts, you know?

Right. Which, you know, I've been rewarded for throughout my life. Oh, yeah. Yes, society loves a winner. People love a winner. That's why narcissism is so effective. It works for people. You know, I think with narcissism,

it's effective for a couple of reasons. Here's my, it's a side thought. I think the confidence, when someone's truly confident, there's the mere neuron experience in other people have that confidence. When you're confident, other people feel confident. Is that what you said?

Yeah, or like, it's true. It's contagious. Yeah, right. Yeah, and people want a piece of that. They want to be around someone who's, you know, bigger than life itself. Yeah. So there is that, and I think with, well, here's my, here's my new definition of narcissism, okay? I think you're going to like this. You heard about like the hero's journey, right?

I've heard the term, I don't know much about it. So the hero's journey. Buddhist said don't ever go on a hero's journey. That's the written right in the first sentence of the Tibetan book of the dead. Okay. Here's the basic idea, okay. Yeah. In every myth, there is a person who's met with a challenge, and the challenge, and the challenge, is overwhelming. And then they go to like a Yoda or a person that's older. And that older person

gives them, imparts to them some secret or some message. And then they embody that and then they go on. And now with this newfound thing, they're able to fight through or overcome or like, you know. So this is kind of like seen in most myths throughout time, seen in like most good stories. So the way that I labeled the narcissist, it's the hero on a journey that denies the Yoda. and believes he can do it himself and doesn't therefore get the gift, right? So he's not open to feedback. He's not open to – Oh, I see, yeah.

He's not open to receive from others the equipping that he needs to do the journey. Oh, I see, yeah. That's – So what I'm experiencing from you right now is I'm experiencing this, like, Yoda-like moment where I'm experiencing some of that Yoda-ness from you, right? I'm about to go on a journey. and I didn't expect this, right? But this moment we've been brought together.

And I feel really blessed that there's this kind of, there's this kind of thought that, yeah, I could push that button, and I could be imperfect, and I don't have to have it all together. And it's kind of what I was talking to you a little bit about. Like, I did all of this research on how to build a podcast, and then I realized most of it was completely meaningless. Yeah. I didn't need to build a room inside a room.

Yeah. I didn't need a sound studio. Yeah. I could do this pretty much anywhere. Yeah, people just want us to be real and to care about them and to have some things to offer. And I'm creating an app with some colleagues and I'm very excited about it. But part of the problem is they want everything scripted out. So, you know, things go real fast and quickly.

And so I'm kind of reading a script most of the time and trying to make a script. and try to make it sound natural, and I'm not very good at that. You're very intuitive. You're reading the person, you're reading me, you have, it ignites some stories in you. I can see where each of those stories plays a role, like even the cat story.

I'm a cat person. There's this idea of the feral cat that is accepted by you. And that's a beautiful moment when someone realizes, okay, I don't need to be perfect. I don't need to have it all together. Yeah, right. This person's going to accept me.

Yeah. People are lonely and they want someone to care about them and to reach out to them. It's so humbling to see that. And it's been a lesson I've had to learn over and over again. The Buddha said we drift in and out of enlightenment. And, you know, we have moments of enlightenment. And then we say, oh, this feels so great.

And I've got it all together now. And I'm not defensive. I'm open. And life is good. And then a day or two later, we're back to our ornery irritable self again. So we drifted out of enlightenment. But it's a fun way to look at things for sure. Well, I've loved being on your show.

And I'm just honored to get to know you. And I'm excited about your. your impending adventure and I think a lot of wonderful things are going to happen for you in this in this move to Florida. You're experiencing a, you know, a death of yourself and your life. And then this new life will suddenly begin to emerge. There have been a number of times in my life when I really failed at something that I had tried so hard at. and it hurt at the time. And then looking back, I've always thought,

oh, boy, I'm glad that happened. Once you let go with something, other new things seem to emerge. Yeah. Yeah, it's, I think that there are, the couple things that really are my big takeaways are, you know, for all the cognitive behavioral goodness that you've imparted,

there's also a very human side of this that is embodied in your sort of story of taking care of your feral cat that's embodied in this patient that you did the wrong thing, you talked about money, and then you came back and you really were open and apologetic and that really created the connection. Or like your groups that you meet once a week, the moments that you talk about are the moments of vulnerability of shared suffering, shared journey, of shared vulnerability of, and really there's this kind of interesting aspects of, it kind of reminds me a little bit of Victor Frankel of the, you know, getting someone to have the panic attack on their own, right? is and then getting them to face their fears or see that the thing that they fear the most is

really actually their biggest strength. Yeah. And that takes some living it yourself. Yeah. I think that takes actually having been there yourself. Yeah. Otherwise it's just words. That's why the Bible is no good.

just a bunch of words and stories, but you have to grasp, you know, what's behind that. And then religions got all hung up and, oh, this story is soed through. My dad was a minister. Oh. And he was pretty successful, but I had some disappointment, I think. Well, I think you, if what you experienced from him were more words and the vulnerability, the connection that you found later in life, that would be very disappointing.

Yeah, yeah, right. Harshness, you know, kind of like... Rigidity. He was kind of in the rigid Lutheranism. And I said, Dad, you don't believe that Jesus actually rose from the death three days after he died and then floated up through the clouds to someplace called heaven? He said, Dad, you can't possibly believe that. you must know that that actually did not happen, and then he became enraged. You know, like he didn't want to have that challenge, and death and resurrection is a profoundly

meaningful story, which you can die and be reborn when you're alive, and it can happen to you many times. Reincarnation can happen when you're still alive, but then people literalize these things like Jesus walked on water or something. Give me a break, dad. He did not walk on water. But people don't want to hear it. And then they miss the message. There are profound messages.

I worked with a Catholic nun in Philadelphia was at my clinic, and she wanted to learn cognitive therapy because she was a part of the Catholic religion where you work in the world. And so she wanted to help, like, drug addicts and people like that. I, she was a beautiful person, sister Sheila Flynn. And she once told me, she says, you know, David, I kind of keep this as a secret, but I don't believe any of the stories in the Bible. They're just metaphors for, for an understanding to, for people to grasp something at,

at a deeper level. I love that about her. She went to India every year and meditated in silence. And she said it was horrible for her because she'd get so depressed, sometimes for 10 days, once she went for 30 days. But she said that there was like one of these Yoda guys, and people would go and talk to him.

And then he'd give them a little secret to achieve enlightenment. And this one guy went up and the guy is sitting there, I guess, with some flowers around him, probably a robe or something like that. And this very conscientious fellow says, you know, oh, master, I need help because I'm a phony. And I'm trying to become more genuine. And I struggle with being genuine every day.

And can you help me on this journey I'm on? And then Sister Sheila said the guru said to him, well, my son, I can tell you this. your big problem is that you're not nearly phony enough yet. Oh. You know, I think with your, I think, I think that sort of, that twist, right? There's a twist there, you know, I think if, I think if instead of anger, your dad had given you empathy. Yeah, right.

You know, and seeing, like, seen you. Yeah. Right. Hey, like, hey, I have to tell you I sometimes struggle and doubt. Yeah. Right. But it was the resistance that you felt from him. Yeah. And it led to a pretty strong disconnection, which is painful. Yeah. That's exactly right. It's sad. It's sad. We, yeah. It's disconnect. It's disconnect. It's disconnect. It's disconnect. You know, it's like, I mean, to some degree, your, your feral cat story is a, is a story of rebirth and resurrection. You took this, and, you know, there's stories like that in the scriptures. Oh, yeah.

Like Paul, Paul was kind of a rigid. Oh, yeah. This guy saw in the Bible was very rigid, and then, you know, he had this connection with Jesus on the, and then he became very, like, loving and grace-filled and grace-oriented. But at the same time, you know, you can tell he was a very sort of rigid person to start with. And so, like, your cat was this like, like the first three days was pooping in your heater, smelling up your whole house. Yeah. And yet you stuck with him and loved him to a point of being your best friend. Yeah. Yeah, he used to, he was still feral, but he slept with us and he was in the house most of the time. but what he wanted most was for me to go outside with him and go for a walks. And he would follow me like a doggy because he wanted all the neighbors to see that he was my cat.

He was so proud to do that. And I just loved him more than life itself. And then when we had him a good six, eight years, but he would go out hunting every night from four to six. And at six, he'd come and scratch on our bedroom door and we'd let him in, he'd get back in bed with us. And then one day at six, he didn't show up. And I knew immediately that he'd probably been healed by a predator finally. And we had all the neighbors looking for him. And he just never, never returned.

And that's how we ended up with this little Miss Misty that we've had for three years. Neighbors gifted her to us because they knew we had lost Obie. But even every day when I go out slogging was what I, call it slow jogging. I call out, you know, ooh, be like that. Real loud. It's ridiculous, but it's kind of like if there's a cat heaven, maybe he can hear me and know that I still love him. You know, I loved him more than life itself. And I was so sad to lose him. But he gave me so much, and he taught me the value in therapy of also patience and persistence and just warmth and love and, you know, kind of slowly. reshaping, reshaping behavior and believing that a miracle can happen. And he was like a

miracle because he started out totally feral. And he ended up like the most loving house cat, even when visitors would come to the house. My students, he would just snuggle up against them. And, you know, anyway, we got a, we got to run here. I'm just babbling incoherently. But it's no, no, no, it's going together. It's coming together. I think, I think, um, I think people at this point are going to see the threads and how they sort of interweaved together. And I really appreciate coming on with you. It's an honor. Yeah.

Thank you so much. If any listeners are looking for help, my website is dedicated to free resources for people, feeling good.com. It's easy to remember feeling good is one word. And there's, we've got now, we just had our three millionth download of our Feeling Good podcast. every week. There's been several million people have come to the website, Feeling Good.com, and almost everything there is for free. There's all the podcasts. There's a free depression class for people. There's a free anxiety class for people, you know, blogs. There's

tremendous resources there for therapists and for the general public. So if anyone is, you know, looking for a little guidance or tips on how to become a more effective therapist. There's a lot. And there's a search function. So you can go to my website and let's say you have OCD. You can type in the search function, OCD, and all the podcasts and blogs on OCD will come up, including, you know, a story of a woman who recovered from 20 years of germ phobia type OCD with total daily just washing.

and she recovered in three minutes, and you can even see a video of her moment of recovery. And people I've read, people say, I don't believe that you can hear people in a single session. So there's at least 15 live therapies right there on the Feeling Good podcast. You can hear people with the most horrific traumas and see them in a single session. being completely recovering and they're very they're very dramatic and then there's commentary too to

and okay it all has to do with i'm not good enough i mean that's it's it all was boiling down to that just what you said at the top of the show yeah well it's something to be proud of being able to do that work and i i think you're um you're definitely living a life where you're giving to community you're giving more value that i think you're giving incredible value yeah That's been fun, and that's what you're going to do, and you're going to love it, and a lot of people are going to love what you're doing for them. That's really neat to see. Keep me in the loop.

And when does the move to Florida happen? Two weeks. I'm driving out. Oh, my gosh. You're going to drive all the way? I'm driving the van. The wife and the kids are going to fly. Oh, wow.

You're going to be alone? I'm picking up my best friend in Arizona. Oh, okay. I drive together. He loves to drive, and we love to talk. so it'll be fun. Oh, cool. We'll have fun and enjoy your adventure and shoot me an email to David at feeling good.com and I'll love watching your hero's journey or whatever it is. Well, the hero's journey, I need more gurus, I think. So it's been good to have another

Yoda in my life, David Burns. Thank you so much and we'll leave it there. Okay, bye-bye. All right. So I hope you enjoyed that episode. It's a couple days after right now, and I'm reflecting on that episode. It really was impactful for me to talk to David Burns. It was a conversation that was meaningful for me. I felt challenged in unique ways, and it left me reflecting on what is meaningful and how does vulnerability and authenticity really speak to sort of our field and the importance

of doing our own work. One of the things that I took away was to look at some of the symptoms that we have, the negative symptoms, and how do we see them in a positive light? You know, how do we thank our back pain every time we get angry? You know, like, wow, thank you for that message. Or lately when my kids have been, you know, injuring themselves as they, you know, do rough housing, wow, isn't it amazing that we have pain to remind ourselves of what our limitations are? And I talked to them about, you know, how there's dapsal and disease and how that

sort of takes away our pain and how that leads to people having, you know, damage their body and stuff like that. And so, you know, another example that he talked about that I think is worth reiterating is that story of that woman who had that panic disorder and he had her breathe heavily and pretty much had her choose to induce a panic attack. I think the choice is paramount, right? It changes the very nature of panic to then choose. And then he had her jump up and down and exercise. And that proved to her in her mind that she was actually not going to die. And that was very powerful. And I was very powerful. and I was thinking about, you know, some of the voluntary hardship stuff that people do when they're feeling normal, right?

Jumping on a rowing machine like I did tonight for, you know, 1,500 meters and, you know, seeing how hard I could go. And the kind of suffering that entails to do sort of exercise at a high level going into cold water, stuff like that. for, you know, a couple minutes. And doing that to kind of challenge us and to move us away from a place of, you know, out of control without choice to, I'm making a choice to suffer. And I'm making a choice that by suffering with my free will choosing to do this, it's like it starts to decondition us towards fear or towards, you know, suffering in maybe the same way we would suffer otherwise. So I was thinking about those things.

I've also been thinking about my own life and kind of this journey I'm going on with my family. And I felt a little bit more relaxed about it, actually. I've been kind of a little bit more excited, you know, like what is what is before me and what is, you know, what might be some opportunities. I got an opportunity to do some more speaking. So I'm going to be speaking in front of a group of people over Zoom, which is fine, which is exciting, you know, and I'm looking forward to more opportunities to work with my brother. You know, he's got these seven charter schools that he's trying to help these inner city kids. So, you know, I have some opportunities that I'm looking at and just some more excitement

about that and, you know, what can be and thinking through, you know, this next phase in my life. So yeah, I hope you enjoyed the episode. It was a little bit different. And I would like to have, you know, I would like to hear your feedback. So if you go on the website, there's a little place to write me a message, contact. Or if you sign up for the resources, you can always send me a little message there. So I hope you are having a great day and take care.