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 enlarge | Author: David D. Burns
Publisher: Plume
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy Used: $8.00
You Save: $17.00 (68%)
New (47) Used (63) Collectible (2) from $8.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  85 reviews
Sales Rank: 898
Media: Paperback
Edition: Rev Sub
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 768
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 1.7
ISBN: 0452281326
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.89142
EAN: 9780452281325
ASIN: 0452281326
Publication Date: May 1, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: OLDER EDITION
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| Customer Reviews:
 Which comes first, thought or emotion? December 11, 2007
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
As a book on cognitive therapy, this book is well-reputed and worth reading if only for the sections on communication. However, this kind of therapy depends a lot upon the patient's thinking process and the theory that feeling follows thought. While I agree with optimistic thinking, maintaining positive thoughts, and having a disciplined thought life, I do not agree with the idea that suppressing emotions by using pseudo-logic to dismiss and discount one's feelings to be any better than lying to yourself and denying what you feel. Burns demonstrates this problem himself in his book with the contrary advice he gives in the "Ten ways to untwist your thinking," and the advice he gives in the sections on communication where using techniques to untwist thinking is the wrong thing to do when trying to communicate with someone else. Thus, he wants you to talk to yourself in ways that he doesn't advise using with your friend which results in a self-inflicted hypocrisy where finding "what's true" or valid in the other persons communication is completely ignored in analyzing your own communications with yourself.
The critical aspects of untwisting your thinking are mostly valid from the standpoint of logic if your thinking is illogical to begin with, but it doesn't follow that the illogical thought causes the feeling in as much as the feeling causes people to form thoughts about their feelings using irrational thinking to demonstrate its emotive quality, which gets expressed in a language that can be corrected by logic. (That is, the fact that it is illogical (usually by universalizing or by moralizing) is what conveys the fact that it is a feeling being refered to, and that the feeling is the cause of the universalizing or moralizing conclusion.) For example, if a person says they feel like a failure, Burns' technique is to put the lie to the statement by looking at the person's successes as compared to failures and looking at the failures as learning experiences. Yet, the person may not be referring to specific failures exaggerated out of proportion to successes, but rather to a consistent failure to make himself happy even when successful; thus the person is saying that they are a failure at being happy. Consequently, the fact that we think with an acquired language, and that language is the media of expression, does not mean that the expression has a necessary identity with the emotion referred to. If so, then we would not be able to refer to an emotion, only express it. Thus, the thought/language may be formally incorrect in logic and composition simply because of an error in precision, yet still be a valid attempt to construct a language/media to express the emotion, much like bad art or poor grammar. Burns implicitly admits to the limited success of his "ten ways to untwist your thinking," when he discusses the problems he had using these techniques with patients and then goes on to effective communication techniques where the feeling is validated despite any irrational composition of the language expressed.
From one point of view, the techniques to untwist your thinking model a parental role like that in transactional analysis and can be successful for those who lacked parenting where logical thinking was modeled as a skill for problem solving. This is much like Alcoholics Anonymous where the program and a sponsor become the parent. The success of such techniques depend much on a persons susceptibility to authority and a degraded self-concept where they need someone else (whether a program, guru, or doctor) to assume responsibility for "fixing" them.
The section on communication is more balanced in that there is more of a co-operative dialogue where mutual dignity and validation is prominent and each person maintains authority over their own feelings and thoughts without having them discounted and dismissed. There is less of a competition to be "right" or superior to another and no "authority" to abuse or bully compliance. The techniques of communication have more relationship value while the techniques to untwist your thinking have a potential as tools for abuse simply because of their logical "authority." Thus, while they are helpful for an individual who can apply them as tools for self-help, they can be misused when used to attain authority over someone else.
If you believe that you feel the way you do because you think a certain way about yourself, this book is useful in changing the way you feel by changing your thinking, or by giving you a rationale for suppressing your feelings. If you think the way you do because you feel that way, then this book can do little more than offer some tools for communicating.
 Superb resource after suicide attempt December 4, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book was extraordinarily helpful to someone close to me. She was clinically depressed and had just been released from the hospital after a suicide attempt. We read it together in small bites for the first few weeks, and then she was able to do it on her own. A therapist helped, loving family helped, meds helped---but this book was literally a lifesaver. The title suggest that it is useful for those of us (all?!) whose moods and lives need a little brightening. It is that---but is also useful for very severe mood disorders, including "borderline, "and gives control back to the reader. A truly essential book.
 Daunting, but worth it November 7, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I read reviews and ordered this book. Soon after, a gigantic tome with tiny writing landed on my doorstep, and i'm surprised it didn't crack the sidewalk.
Ok, so maybe i'm exaggerating a bit here. But still, I'm not the self-help type, but after struggling with inner demons quite a bit I thought it would be worth a shot. I tried unsuccessfully to get through this thing a few times... but when I finally did, I was happy.
This book gives real, concrete insight on depression and the like. For those who just feel like they're crazy and can't figure it all out, it helps sort things out. It's a good way to become more self-aware, which is a good step on the road to feeling better.
The book also gives an excellent overview of medications and what they do and what their risks are. I feel something like that is priceless in a world where consumers and patients are less and less informed about what they're really getting written down on that little perscription order.
I say, give it a shot. Consider it a cheap extra therapy session.
Feel Better August 26, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a great "How To" book for this type of illness. Mental illness is sooo cloudy in it's diagnose and treatment but this book is very helpful. You may never talk your loved one into getting help but this book will provide some "clue" into what is needed.
Very Practical August 23, 2007
This book was recommended to me by a fantastic professional counselor and it has been very helpful to me. Dr. Burns has some great exercises in this book where you write down your "automatic thoughts" about anything that is causing you stress. You identify any distortions in your thinking (which are listed out for you) and then you write a new thought. I have found my depression greatly reduced as I "fix" my faulty thinking.
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