Review of
Instaread Summary of Feeling Good The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns
Four out of five stars
Despite the title, there is really nothing new in the
book that is being described in the summary. Originally published in 1980, the
premise put forward by Burns is that you can do a great deal towards curing
your depression if you better manage your negative thoughts and moods. Certainly,
if it works, such an approach is preferable to medication. However, with
advances in the understanding of brain chemistry, the new knowledge that
depression can be caused by chemical imbalances renders the tactic of curing
yourself by keeping your thoughts properly aligned dubious. The vast majority
of these new discoveries have taken place after 1980.
The twelve key
takeaways could be used to describe the contents of a large number of the
self-help books that have been published over the last several decades. There
is a bit of oversimplification. For example, the first one is:
“All emotional states, good and bad, are first
preceded by thoughts.”
This is of course a logical tautology, all functioning
human brains contain thoughts. To be useful, it should have a suffix attached
that is something like “... that drive the person to the next emotional state.”
Key takeaway 11 is:
“Periodic sadness is normal; depression is abnormal.”
This is again a statement of an obvious fact.
Most of the
data put forward in the summary in support of the approach taken by Burns is in
the form of anecdotes about specific individuals. While such examples can be
uplifting, they cannot be used to argue to the general population. What works
for one person is generally not transferable to others, at least in the
achieving of similar success. Human brains and personalities are just too
complicated for that.
From this
summary, the independent minded reader will conclude that the approach taken by
Burns and also enunciated by many others will help some people and is of course
unlikely to cause any harm. However, it has limitations, the most likely people
to be cured are those that are only suffering from a bout of periodic
sadness.
This book was made available for free for review
purposes.
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