Dr. David Burns

Tell us more about what the live work was like for you and how you've been feeling since.

Do you think that could be an asset in dating?

Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. You can focus on on the other person.

Yeah. Yeah. But do you ever say things like, I don't know if you've ever would want to lower your standards to someone as ugly as me. Sometimes when you accept yourself, you discover the problem was never the way you were, but your shame about it and that negative inner dialogue and that once you accept yourself,

your flaws, they become kind of an asset, something that makes you actually more desirable to other people.

Oh, yes. Oh, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. During my nerdy days, I was like that too. And then once I was taught how to stop being such a nerd to where suddenly women were interested in me, I thought, wow, women are really a lot more beautiful than I thought.

And I think that was like, what was it like for you in the Tuesday group? What did you think of it?

Who was your small group leader?

Was that fun also, the small group? Did you like the small group?

Yeah. Yeah, it's great having you in the group. Let's see, I had a bunch of questions that my mind went blank, but there are several vitally important questions we have for you, and Rhonda will now verbalize them.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, that's right. Well, let's do some of that right now. You know, we don't have time and the need for a whole other session, but let's do some relapse prevention training using externalization of voices. And we'll mix two kinds of negative thoughts together. You had four originally.

Give me a couple more of your negative thoughts, old ones, ones we did in the session or any other ones that you've had, like I'm an imposter or what. Just give me a couple of those.

No, I'm only looking for a distorted thought.

That was very sharp. I'm not good enough. I'll write that one down. Yeah, good.

Okay, that's great. And then you'll have a relapse at some point, and all your negative thoughts and feelings will temporarily come back with the same intensity that they have in the past. And then what are some of the negative thoughts you'll have? Like this shows the therapy didn't work, the therapy was just a band-aid. Give me some of that stuff.

Yeah, right.

Oh, yeah, those are great. Yeah. And now Rhonda and David will be called Joshua, will be the negative Joshua. And you can be the positive Joshua. And we'll take turns attacking you with these four thoughts. And we'll see who won. And if we need, we'll do role reversals and so forth. Which one do you want to?

Yeah, I'm not good enough. Number two, I'm hopeless. Number three, this relapse, you know, that will come in the future shows that the therapy didn't work on me. And, you know, it didn't work because I'm different. So these techniques can't help me. And I love these because they're unique to you, but they're also almost everybody has these kinds of thoughts.

And when you have someone else see someone else think of them, you say, oh, gosh, that's so irrational. But when you have them yourself, you think, oh, this is really true. So which one do you want us to hit you with first?