Book Review of Feeling Good The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns, M.D.

 This website contains affiliate links and ads which means I may make a small commission at no cost to you. ​

So I had bought this book Feeling Good by David D. Burns, M.D., years ago after the death of my sister along with a multitude of other books to help myself cope with the initial depressing phase in the enormous loss of her and to help myself; I believe this enabled me to however in delusion find a sense of control over the situation since I clearly in reality had none and needed to do whatever it took to feel better. Taking control and reading as a way to gain insight to help myself was one way to move forward in my healing and recovery process of which I say loosely because I believe whenever we lose someone we love in death or in life we never fully recover; we may get better but never revert to who we were before the trauma occurred. How could we? 


Anyways, I recently unearthed this book from a box in storage and added it to my bookshelf of books and decided to skim through it again. After taking some time to read through it I thought it would make an excellent book to write about in a blog post. I hope you find it helpful and of value. I believe there are many good points in this book and really find much of it interesting. Every doctor, psychologist, therapist, psychiatrist, etc has their own philosophies on human behavior and the why's or whatever behind it. Everyone has a professional opinion that may vary from one to another. Heck, every one in general has an opinion. I take these books with a mindset of what speaks to me and what do I find of value and what do I not agree with and find ridiculous. This book as I read it delivered both responses for me which I'll outline below and why. 


​

In his book David Burns talks of depression and even gives a quiz you can take at the beginning of the book to help self evaluate your depressive symptoms and of what severity they are. He touches on Dysthymia which is a milder typically life long depression that is extremely tricky to treat and perhaps more so than full on depression. Dysthymia is a melancholy that someone just can't seem to shake no matter what they do to attempt to improve their life. In that there is help with eradicating self defeating thoughts and how to take hold of them and write a new script and outcome for yourself. Additionally there are medications that can help people who suffer from this type of depression or any depression for that matter live better. Treatments of all kinds for depression are delved into in this book and covered extensively. 


He touches briefly on singleness and how often folks who find themselves single either by choice being dumped or divorced do have the choice to make their life better. He talks of how so often single people of both genders are guilty of staying in their busy routine during the weekdays such as getting up, getting ready for work, commuting and then working all day to come home and be busy with preparing dinner, maybe watching one television show and going to bed only to get up and do it all over again the next day; this gives them structure and a planned schedule. Nothing unusual about that except when it comes to the weekend arriving often single folks find themselves in bed all day in a funk or moving from the bed to the couch to the fridge and back to the couch both Saturday and Sunday only to wake up Monday and realize they have absolutely nothing fun to show for their time off. This is a common trap for single people to fall into and before they know it weeks, months, even years have passed by and they have zero memories or fun to look back on. Basically, life is short and much too short to spend lying on the couch with a marathon of movies and empty candy wrappers or a regretful now empty carton of ice cream. He talks of how this mindless cycle continues to happen due to the inaction of planning on our part. He said single people need to plan their weekends ahead of time and map out what they plan to do so they are not falling self victim to lying around on their days off and wasting quality time they could be using in a personally rewarding, joyful, entertaining way. 


Burns also explains how so often when people are divorced or find themselves single they (and often society in general, let's be real here) believe being single to be a curse of some sort. Which of course is so far from true! Yet often both genders begin to see being single as something to overcome and be ashamed of. Burns instead delves into how single people can view being single as a huge plus in life because it enables them to live fully without the hindrance of someone else and not feel like an appendage to them. He discusses how it's so important for people to realize that they can view love and being in love with someone as a want not a need. It's so true. The book explores how so often we believe happiness if not attainable unless we have a partner first... which leads to a big ole case of dependency. Not healthy at all. We often think of love as something we must have in order to live a happy well adjusted successful life yet that is just not the case. It goes back to the false ideology that we all need someone to complete us when in reality we each are already a whole. When we view being single as a negative in life we end up experiencing feelings of self pity and resentment and tie our total self worth into being with someone. Tying our self worth into needing to have someone means also holding a negative self image about ourselves and never truly living freely. 


Speaking of what we deserve that is related to Chapter 7. If you caught my Instagram post on this book you likely noticed I mentioned I did not care for Chapter 7.  I believe if you're going to order this book and read it much positive insight can be gained from 90% of the book. However, I believe Chapter 7 is that exception. I had issue with it because it basically states that if you had a spouse that cheated you could test out the reward system on them to see if it turns their behavior from negative toward you to positive. I just don't believe we should use a reward system to woo a spouse back to us after infidelity. I believe it's perfectly acceptable to just cut your losses and move on quickly and swiftly. I do not understand why you would want them to begin with if you've already established that they are not trust worthy individuals. I read that Burns believes if you are angry by a spouse's betrayal and believe the statement of "He SHOULD have behaved himself! He SHOULD have been loyal!" or "He SHOULD have treated me better!" that you are dealing with an entitlement issue because you are operating from a "SHOULD" mindset and believe everyone's actions toward you should always be fair in life and if they are not you will not cope well and ultimately suffer greatly in this cycle of anger you cannot shake. First of all, I call bs. I mean, come on! So you're an entitled person if you expect your spouse to be loyal to you after they recited their vows before a pastor, witnesses and God Himself? I don't believe that for a second. Chapter 7 was the one that really rubbed me the wrong way and I seriously find it damaging to those that have endured infidelity and unfortunately have in that also questioned their own abilities as a partner when in reality their cheating spouse is fully responsible for any and all infidelity. I totally get that in a way Burns is likely saying it's not healthy to go around with all that anger pent up inside about what our spouse did so we need to let go... but in that I believe we can give ourselves a soft spot to fall in our healing, go no contact with our ex (or limited if there are children to finish raising and keep communication professional) and move on swiftly. Grace and forgiveness is a personal choice for each person to choose and I don't believe we can make that decision for them. I will briefly state though that if you do choose to forgive your spouse for infidelity it's often for yourself so you can live peacefully not so much about your ex... and yet in THAT (lol) I will say likely if your ex cheated they probably didn't ask for forgiveness or are truly repentant... (at least a large percentage of them; most are just sorry they got caught) so perhaps we can use our time and energy used in beating ourselves up for not forgiving them we could have used it in a more positive way to find healing and inner peace through meditation, yoga, therapy, hobbies, etc. 


I believe this book Feeling Good has many positive and insightful points and can definitely be used to help bring more clarity to challenging life circumstances in general but also specifically to those that are single and want better ways to cope and live well. As someone who has been divorced seven years now and can attest that healing from heartbreak takes time, effort and patience... I would highly suggest helping yourself recover in any way you can that proves to be insightful, genuine and compassionate. 

 This website contains affiliate links and ads which means I may make a small commission at no cost to you. ​