Rating: 
Summary: The Power of Logic and Positive Thinking
Review: As a counsellor, I am quite familiar with the use of Cognitive Therapy, not only in treating depression, but as a means of bringing balance and harmony to one's life, depressed or not. Cognitive Therapy is based on mood modification - a principle one can use on their own to eliminate symptoms and achieve personal growth. "Feeling Good" is aimed at ridding ourselves of negative thinking, that which holds us stagnant and inhibits personal growth. Even if you are on medication for depression, you can still use the principles outlined in this book as a form of self-help. Through these pages, the author will help the reader to understand why you feel as you do, the power of positive thinking, how to develop self-control and how you can change through mood modification. The book is quite lengthy and certainly not a book one should speed read. To maximum its use, one should read, digest and absorb the material slowly and attentively. It is an excellent self-help book written in a style that is easily understood by the layperson; you do not need a course in psychology to understand its meaning.
Rating:
Summary: Absolute BEST book for depression!
Review: Oh my gosh, I've had this book since March 2000 and have highlighted almost every page! I've read my share of self-help books (mind you I'm only 23, diagnosed w/major depressive disroder when I was 19) but this one is different. It's almost like a bible to me...setting me straight, telling me what I am doing wrong, guiding me down the right path. I'm about to order my second copy so I make sure I have one "good" one on hand in case my other one falls apart from me flipping through it so much!
Rating:
Summary: This book has helped me immensely
Review: This book has helped me so much in understanding depression. I have been working through the book's exercises and reading it chapter by chapter. It convinced me that what had been lacking in my treatment was therapy. I recommend this book for anyone who is trying to understand the abyss that is depression.
Rating:
Summary: Choose to feel good!
Review: Optimist: One who believes things are so bad they're bound to get better. -Jerry Tucker (1941-)When someone says they are depressed...what does that mean? Does life feel like it isn't worth living? Why would someone feel this way? Perhaps you have to look at the difference between happiness and joy. Not depression and Joy! Since happiness is usually defined as something which happens due to a "happy" event in our lives, Joy is more stable and in a way is a "choice to be happy." Just being happy now and then leaves gaps for depression to sneak into your life. This is why cognitive therapy makes so much sense to me. If a depressed individual is actually chemically depressed, SAM-e is now on the market in America and doesn't have any of the side effects of the usual antidepressants. You have to deal with the chemical depression first. How can you think straight when you feel miserable. I think anyone can be on the verge of depression, often one negative though can throw you over the edge. Perhaps this book can work as a gate to keep you up on the cliff and save you from falling over into depression or can help you climb back to the top where you will feel stable and in control. I had one experience in my life which threw me over the cliff. To climb back up to the top, I had to change my thinking. To realize that life is worth living no matter what is going on in your life, is what brought me to a place of Joy. I believe having a religious belief system also is a great comfort to many people, as depression is often caused from a feeling of not belonging or feeling disconnected...perhaps without a purpose. A belief in a higher power is very soothing to your soul. Dr. David D. Burns, M.D., offers some interesting insights, which become extremely helpful. While it is difficult to always look at life in a positive way, it can be done. It is more a decision. This decision then puts you on the path to Joy. Most of the people I talk to daily are going through one of the 10 things on Dr. David's Cognitive Distortion list. Their thoughts have created a change in their mood, they feel sad over thinking someone has betrayed them, or they are anxious because they feel other people are thinking badly of them or are giving them negative feedback. The way they get themselves out of this thought process is to start to think logically and talk themselves out of the depression. Many are not actually depressed yet, but are speeding to the edge! Their thoughts are propelling them forward so fast that if they don't change course, it will happen. I find it much easier to start thinking positively and deal with life that way, than to try to climb out of depression. I think you will find this Cognitive Distortion list intersting: 1. All-or-nothing Thinking: You see things in black-and-white categories. If your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. 2. Overgeneralization: You see a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat. 3. Mental Filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened. 4. Disqualifying the Positive: You reject positive experiences by insisting they don't count. This allows you to continue to maintain a negative belief that is contradicted by your everyday experiences. 5. Jumping to Conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion. 6. Magnification or Minimization: You exaggerate the importance of things or you inappropriately shrink things until they appear insignificant. 7. Emotional Reasoning: You assume that your negative emotions necessarily reflect the way things really are. You believe it so it must be true. 8. Should Statements: You try to motivate yourself with things you expect of yourself. The emotional consequence is guilt. When you direct these "should statements" towards others, the result is also anger, frustration and resentment. 9. Labeling and Mislabeling: This is an extreme form of overgeneralization. Instead of describing the error,you attach a negative label to yourself. You think of yourself as a loser instead of just admitting you made a mistake. 10. Personalization: You see yourself as the cause of some negative external event which you were not primarily responsible for. I think even people who are not depressed can think this way. My two favorite quotes on this subject are: You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. -James Lane Allen When we think of balancing our lives, we think of work, family and relationships. But we cannot balance these until we find an internal balance of who we are and what we want out of life. -Anne Wilson Schef, Ph.D. So, don't wait to find the help, all the knowledge in the universe is in books. It may be difficult to decide to change your thinking and take responsibility for each thought, but the rewards are so great. You can do this! I also highly recommend looking up the SAM-e book I reviewed. It has some very practical steps to follow and some great ideas. I list some of them in the review.
Rating: 
Summary: Walking My Talk...
Review: ...This book is the "IT" book of psychiatry andpsychology. More psychiatrists recommend this book to their clientsthan any other. It is also the bestselling book on psychology orpsychiatry that exists! Instead of writing another review on thisbook, I decided to "Do It" so to speak. If this review canhelp anybody, than it was worth the writing.In the forward, Burnstalks in detail about a comprehensive study that was made on thisbook. This is in the 1999 forward. Eighty people were given this bookto read in twenty-eight days. 70% recovered from a major depressiveepisode from just reading this book in that time. The exercises wereoptional. Before you order this book, Burns does stipulate that if youhave even had "moderate depression" for several weeks, thanyou will need professional help in order to help you get through theprogram. Also, any suicidal thoughts or tendencies. I am fortunate. Itook the BDC on page 20 and scored 58. Now, this is "severedepression". The BDC is the "Burns DepressionChecklist". I have also been diagnosed as having a "MajorDepressive Disorder" by many psychiatrists. But I have help. Botha therapist and a psychiatrist. So intead of just writing yet one morereview based on my opinions, why not do the program and pass on theresults? I e-mailed a daily report to my friend and follow Amazon.comreviewer, Edgar Bridges. I began both reading and doing the exerciseson October 12th, 2000. I scored a 55 on the BDC one week afterstarting the program. This is still "severe" depression. Twoweeks after starting, I got a 35 on the BDC!!! This is "moderatedepression". Yes. I was very happy. But more suprised thanhappy. A little bit shocked. That is the good news. After the thirdweek, I scored a 54. Bad news. I finished the entire program yesterdayand I scored a 56. A 3% decrease in depression. I did the "triplecolumn" technique everyday for twenty-eight days straight. I didtwo of the "anti-procrastination" techniques as well for 14days. I had memorized the ten distortions entirely and used them dailywhen they arose. So it failed. I am sorry to say. But it might workfor you. After going to only one Alcoholics Anonymous meeting duringthis time, my score dropped the next day to 35! Then in several days,it was back up again to "severe depression". Why? I took theBDC everyday and examined the score for the days after I talked topeople and got outside and so forth. No decrease in the score. I canonly assume, and perhaps quite wrongly, that it is "humanintimacy" that did it. That's my review on this book. Based onexperience rather than conjecture.
Rating:
Summary: "Need an Attitude Adjustment?"
Review: This book isn't only for those who are depressed. The knowledge and skills Dr. Burns teaches in this book apply to any of us who occasionally (or even frequently) need an "attitude" adjustment. Instead of blaming ourselves and others, he provides us with real, concrete, tangible methods, tips, and techniques to use. He takes us from awareness of the issues (which many books do) to doing something about it in ways that can change your life. Thanks, Dr. Burns, for being a teacher as well as a communicator. This book is well worth the small investment.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard to Follow
Review: While the ideas presented in this book are good, it is very difficult to follow and absorb. There is too much technical jargon. It would have been much more helpful if it had been written in a much simpler way. While trying to already sift through all our emotions and thoughts, we don't need more to have to try to figure out. Never finished the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Great attitude and some good points.
Review: Burns makes some good points to avoid self-defeating habits. Most are just common sense - or should be. Thinking right does mean living right. This book is a good start. For a deeper book see Branden's "The Art of Living Consciously". Burn's fans might want to checkout Albert Ellis' books.
Rating:
Summary: Learning To Be A Good "Modernist"
Review: I read this book years ago and dismissed it and the whole "cognitive therapy" thing as superficial and irrelevant. It took a long time for its lessons to sink in to my stubborn head. Burns teaches you to view reality as a "Modernist" like Hemingway or Picasso would. You shouldn't assume that you yourself have godlike omnipontence or all of the necessary information--you should view events from many different perspectives (and realize your own attitude, good or bad, plays a part in how things appear to you.) And because your own point of view is necessarily fallible, you shouldn't be such a hanging judge about yourself--cut yourself as much slack and compassion as you would a good friend. This is sound, common-sense wisdom.
Rating:
Summary: Saved My Life
Review: Four years ago, I bought and I read this book. It LITERALLY saved my life. He teaches the reader how to examine his thoughts and how to change them. A few months of diligently filling in the charts resulted in my sanity returning. Now, I occasionally read certain chapters on topics that come up in my life again in again, such as guilt, negative self-talk etc. This is a book you will devour, and then keep on your bookshelf like a dictionary, referring to it every once in a while. In addition, as others have written, this book will help not only those with clinical depression, but anyone who doesn't feel good about life, has a negative attitude, etc. Also, like others have said, it is the best self-help book I've read or have heard of.
| 
