David Burns on What Causes Depression and Anxiety?

ultimately we don't know for sure we'll find out one day but but we just don't know but one thing we do know for sure is that at the time you're feeling depressed the depression and anxiety are caused by your thoughts by by negative thoughts and some negative thoughts cause depression other kinds cause anxiety other kinds thought other kinds of negative thoughts cause guilt and shame other kinds cause inferiority or inadequacy or hopelessness or anger or whatever and let's let's talk talk about that the uh the thoughts that cause depression are always thoughts of loss that you've lost something important to your self-esteem you know maybe uh like a young woman i saw recently had been going with her boyfriend for two years and then they broke up uh and and she said uh you know all of my relationships have eventually broken up i must be unlovable i'll be alone forever and and it's that not the breakup but that misinterpretation that this means she's unlovable and that this means she'll be alone forever and that is one of if you know ronda one of the ten cognitive distortions over generalization and fortune telling you know so generalizing from this negative event saying well it's one thing my relationship broke up let's figure out why and what you can do to learn and make the next relationship better but instead she's saying i have a self that's unlovable i'm permanently flawed it's irreversible i'll i'll be alone and miserable forever and that's that's the kind of thinking that causes depression now i'll reverse roles and ask you rhonda what are the kind of thoughts that cause anxiety a lot of our listeners have anxiety i myself the past have suffered from and recovered from 17 different anxiety disorders every time you show the story the number goes up 17 anxiety disorders yeah i mean i was just a bundle of phobias and stuff you know all of my life i grew up with the fear of blood and then i had nosebleeds all the time and i was terrified of blood of bees of horses of dogs heights oh yeah fear of heights uh i had a public speaking anxiety performance anxiety social anxiety i had that shy bladder thing you know afraid i won't be able to pee in the restroom and i had a panic attack once so i know all about anxiety that's why i love to treat anxiety because whatever you've had i say oh i've had that too i know how much that sucks and i can show you how to get how to defeat that and what a joy that's going to be and people like that message that there's hope for total and rapid recovery what are the thoughts that cause anxiety rhonda aren't they aren't they thoughts that are based in fear well right but what are the thought what kind of thoughts cause fear um uh that that there's danger that we're approaching some kind of danger yeah yeah uh when you whenever you're anxious or afraid or panicky you're telling yourself something bad is about to happen and that that's the cognitive distortion of fortune telling i know when i get on that plane it's going to run into turbulence and crash i know when i get in in front of that audience at work and i have to give my talk i'll probably pass out i'll look like an idiot my mind will go blank people will think i'm a fool they'll see how nervous i am they'll judge me my reputation will be hurt the word is going to spread that that type of thing it's impossible to feel anxiety without predicting danger now there's healthy and unhealthy fear there's healthy and unhealthy depression there's healthy and unhealthy anger healthy and unhealthy guilt the difference between healthy fear and neurotic anxiety is that in healthy fear that the prediction of danger is is is valid like i better not go into such and such a neighborhood alone in the middle of the night because there's a lot of dope dealing there there's a lot of murders there and my life could be at risk and that's true and so you don't need to treat that kind of fear with psychotherapy or xanax you just need to be careful right but the thoughts that cause you know chronic worrying obsessive compulsive disorder ptsd phobias social anxiety shyness those thoughts are are distorted and when you change the way you think when you crush those distortions your anxiety will will disappear so that's the the cause of depression and anxiety should we talk about other feelings or yeah let's turn the page back to you so what what kind of thoughts lead to guilt gail the the thoughts that lead to guilt are i'm bad because i've hurt someone or i've violated my moral value system and the thoughts that cause shame or little difference and that's that other people will see that i've screwed up or that i'm broken or inadequate or or something like that and then and then they'll they'll judge me well now we're talking about feelings we want to get into having addictions like the thoughts that lead board habits well we can those are positive thoughts for the most parts positively distorted thoughts like oh uh i'm gonna start to diet and lose weight and then you're walking in the airport and you smell cinnabons it would be so good to eat that cinnabon and one little bite won't hurt and i can have carrots for dinner so it won't make any difference and i'll really exercise more uh tomorrow and those are all positive distortions like the positive all or nothing thing it's going to be so wonderful and and then discounting data how many times have you told yourself i'll just have one little bite and how many times did you just have one little bite never right so you're you know you're just again giving yourself distorted thoughts and that may cause addictions distorted thoughts also cause violence they also cause relationship and marital conflict uh they also cause narcissism and and and other nasty consequences the problem as you know rhonda with with positive uh positive distortions is they make you feel good uh and and and people sadly enjoy hating enjoy saying our group is superior to your group you have the wrong skin color you've got the wrong religion or whatever and so therefore we're morally superior and we look down on you and those are all all bias and prejudice and racial hatred and violence between humans results from positive distortions mixed in with negative distortions at the same time like the negative distortion the positive labeling would be you know i'm superior i have white skin or i'm swedish or whatever you think makes you superior and then the negative distortion would be your group is inferior your your rats we can exploit you we we can kill you if you want and then the the awful thing which is hard to admit is that all human beings like exploiting others no one wants to admit it we hide behind religion for example i'm doing this in the name of god or i'm doing this for some political cause but we had we our whole country enjoyed taking advantage of black people viewing them as slaves and it caused tremendous wealth it caused us to feel we had the right to exploit and hurt blacks and that we were black people were somehow superior and we all have that inside of us sadly we also have a capacity for great love and compassion and creativity and in inventiveness humans are a weird mix of good and evil motives simultaneously

Channel: PESI Inc

Views: 29,449

Keywords: pesi, pesirehab, healthed, mental, health, behavioral, therapy, david burns, dr david burns, anxiety, depression, pesi publishing, feeling good, feeling great, amazon best-seller, emotional problems, antidepressant, chemical imbalance, Social pressures, Environmental factors, social injustice, poverty, prejuidice, neglect, abuse, substance abuse, chronic stress, new book, new treatment techniques

Id: N4Pq0ozKeLc

Length: 8min 52sec (532 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 21 2020