Dr. David Burns

Are they powerful?

Are they important?

So then it would seem like our goal today might not be to get rid of them, press a magic button, have them all disappear because all these positives would disappear. Right. But would there be a lower level of these emotions that might preserve all those positives and allow you to feel less anxious and depressed and so forth?

The anxiety is 95. If we had a goal for that today, how much anxiety would you want?

20, okay.

Okay. Your sadness is 90. How sad would you like to be today?

Yeah, in fact, I know what you mean. Sometimes there's a healthy kind of sadness, and then there's an unhealthy kind of depression. But I sometimes think of sadness as celebration, to really be able to care and to connect with the suffering of other people, to be aware of it. It's the greatest gift of all to my way of thinking. The guilt is 85 to 90. How guilty would you like to be feeling?

15, great. And then how inadequate? That's 90. What would be a really optimal level of inadequacy?

Okay. How lonely? That was 85.

And how frustrated? That was 70.

And angry at myself. That was 75.

Awesome. And so now we just did, first I did empathy. I'm going through the testing we did, empathy we did, paradoxical agenda setting we did, and now we're to methods. Which of these four thoughts would you like to tackle first? I won't be successful. I won't live the life I want to live. I won't find love. I'm not attractive.

Okay. And then let's see how much you believe each of these when you're upset. How much do you believe I'm not attractive?

And then how much do I believe I won't find love?

90%. And how much do you believe I won't live the life I want to live?

And then how much do I believe I won't be successful?

Is this the first, you know, is all or nothing thinking, looking at things in black and white. Would this be an example of all or nothing thinking?

And you're right on that. And imagine I'm like in fourth grade and you want to explain it to me why that is a distortion.

And then why is that unrealistic?

Yeah. And why is that not correct? Why is that erroneous?