The Feeling Good Handbook

As a clinician and person who also struggles with depression and anxiety on occasion, I cannot recommend this book enough! Dr. Burns is practical and empathetic, and I find his strategies to be incredibly helpful and empowering.

Reading through some of the one star reviews I was surprised. Several of them seem to feel that Dr Burns is "victim blaming" when he points out that ultimately YOU are responsible for how you react to someone else. But it is a hard truth that too many people do not understand. Yes. When someone says something objectively cruel, it's no fun. But rather than being sad or angry, Burns teaches that we should ask ourselves "Is that a true statement?" Since most objectively cruel statements are not, we should be indifferent to it as we should be to all things not based on facts.On the other hand, if we have been depressed and perhaps not noticed our poor hygiene for a week and a stranger at a store says "You smell bad." We should acknowledge the objective truth of it. Whether the person meant to make us feel bad or were trying to help us is irrelevant to the truth of their statement. If it's true, a nice hot bath might make us feel a little better. No need to get angry or sad at their observation.In short, good mental health requires active participation by the patient. Some people will be helped by meds, others won't for various reasons, one of which is the person expecting the meds to be magical pills that fix everything with zero effort from the patient. A LOT of GP's prescribe anti-depressants without any therapy because the patients refuse to attend. Those folks fall into the aforementioned category. Burns says that patients HAVE to participate for long-term mental health.The book explains that being mindful that depression can cause your mind to literally lie to you and goes through ways to fight back. It has ways to help stop the "looping" that happens when the mind decides to compulsively make you think about something over and over. It has a workbook component that I see a LOT of people resenting. Seriously? The workbook was very helpful to me. The author even caught me trying to NOT take the it because I resented it at first. Instead of being resentful, I did the work and was the better for it.With my most recent purchase I have now bought 6 copies of this book for various friends fighting serious depression. The ones that actually did the workbook part of this book have thanked me. The others? They tossed it on their bookshelf and still show all the signs of being depressed. This is not a cure-all. It is not a talisman wherein the mere ownership induces good mental health. You have to read it, do the work book parts and then go out and do the work itself every day. Good luck.

I'm not sure why I never discovered this book till now but glad I've found it. It beats every other therapy book I have read. It's comprehensive addresses may of the issues people face. It's well written but I can only get through small chunks at a time. I have a notebook and bookmark to keep track of where I amI can see it being intimidating for some people. 1) It's quite thick 2) one has to be prepared to do a lot of reading as well as exercises. While CBT may not work for everything, I believe everyone will find something useful in this book. Also keep in mind you don't need to do the whole book, just the relevant sections.SUGGESTIONS- I recommend buying the 1999 edition (the one with Dr. Burns on the cover). The edition with the blue cover is flimsy and the paper is so thin and tears easily.- Buy the handbook over the classic 'Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy'. The handbook is more comprehensive and a better format and has exercises. Or get both if you want the classic to read while traveling etc. It does have some content that the Handbook does not have. The Handbook is quite bulky but the classic is small though a bit hard to read (it's designed and formatted like an old paperbacks from the 70s - even though it's new)- If you find the books intimidating or prefer a different format, I highly recommend the podcast. He covers a lot of the same material and it might be easier to understand the concepts.- My only criticism is the instructions for the exercises should be clearer and they should provide digital copies as the ones in the book are small and hard to photo and print. I ended up making my own versions.

My daughter and I have found this book very helpful. It has greatly improve our self images and learned how to turn off the negative brain noise.

It makes you think on what you perceive yourself, to get clarification

Doing the written work this time ; )

Written wellCovers lots of conditionsRecommended to me by my therapistGood to revisit and keep for tough times

Great resource!!Highly recommended!

Non sono riuscita a leggere ancora tutto il libro... i vari capitoli affrontano situazioni comuni in cui ci si può trovare in difficoltà e spiegano possibili metodi di gestione pratica. Dal mio punto di vista il libro può risultare utile se si hanno difficoltà emotive non troppo invalidanti. Diversamente le soluzioni proposte non risultano risolutive.

This is a wonderful follow-up to the book Feeling Good.It continues the insights into emotions and reactions.It starts from the basic understanding that all unpleasant emotions come from distorted thoughts. Then it helps you identify emotions and the thoughts that could cause them. Then it helps you change those thoughts and thereby the emotions.It deals with a variety of unpleasant emotions like anxiety, anger, sadness, frustration etc. It is mind-blowing to realise how many physical problems are effects of unresolved emotions and issues.This book is actually psychotherapy at your own pace. You have to find some good time in the day, take a pencil and fill in exercises while reading the book. In the beginning you may feel some resistance, but as you realise that the exercises ARE actually helping you understand yourself and others better, and making a difference to your daily happiness quotient, you feel more and more enthusiastic about working on yourself. It equips you to work on yourself.You will be amazed at the wisdom of the insights.