Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy is a book written by David D. Burns, first published in 1980, that popularized cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).^[1]

Origins

Feeling Good grew out of dissatisfaction with conventional Freudian treatment of depression. Burns’s mentor, Dr. Aaron T. Beck (considered the "father" of cognitive therapy; Dr. Albert Ellis is considered the "grandfather"), concluded that there was no empirical evidence for the success of Freudian psychoanalysis in treating depressed people. The idea that negative feelings such as depression and anxiety are triggered by our thoughts or perceptions has a long history, dating back to the Greek philosopher Epictetus, who said that people are disturbed not by things but by the way we think about them.

Popularity

The book has sold over four million copies in the United States, and has also been published in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Yugoslavia and many other countries. It was named one of the top ten behavioral science books of 1980 by the journal Behavioral Medicine, while according to The Authoritative Guide to Self-Help Books (New York: Guilford Press, 1994) it is the book most frequently recommended for depressed patients by mental health professionals in the United States. It was also rated the top self-help book for depressed individuals, based on a national survey of more than 500 mental health professionals’ evaluations of 1,000 self-help books. Burns's The Feeling Good Handbook was rated #2 in the survey. A commentary on Feeling Good is included in 50 Psychology Classics (2006) by Tom Butler-Bowdon^[2]

Benefits of bibliotherapy

Weak evidence suggests that bibliotherapy based on cognitive behavioral therapy will help some people when they receive some additional guidance.^[3]

Feeling Good has been studied in its use in self-directed bibliotherapy for depression. One study of older adults with mild to moderate depression found that reading this book, with brief intermittent phone check-in sessions, was an effective treatment for depression.^[4]

In her text on Cognitive Therapy, Beck's daughter Judith S. Beck recommends it as a "layman's book" to be used by patients undergoing CBT.^[5]

Criticism

Brigid Philip says that the book encourages its readers to regulate themselves according to liberal virtues which stifles "debate about depression, disavowing the socio-political context in which individuals become depressed, and promoting a model of 'active citizenship' that limits how individuality can be expressed".^[6]

Notes