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on Burns, Ellis, and CBT » cecilia

Posted by pseudoname on July 15, 2006, at 12:32:00 [reposted on July 15, 2006, at 13:30:49 | original URL]

In reply to Re: Can't Get Over It, posted by cecilia on July 15, 2006, at 9:36:43

> I hate David Burns and his smug "guaranteed to work" claims.

Burns is a moody fellow who seems very bitter that people think differently than he. He used to have a web site where he answered emails and would get *very* upset and fixated with people, apparently forgetting all of his books' techniques. He has reportedly claimed at his professional seminars that he permanently cures patients' depression in one day and has had only 10 patients relapse in his entire career! He has called psychiatric medication "horse$#*†". In his most recent NYT interview, he was openly bitter and carping, apparently oblivious to the irony of HIM publicly being that way about mental health issues.

Albert Ellis seems a lot more personally consistent than Burns, but Ellis also makes a lot of promises in his books that the techniques can solve almost any mental problem if YOU just keep doing them long enough. Which can make you feel just lazy & bad if you ever give up on one. I wish ALL therapists & authors would acknowledge the limits of what they offer more explicitly right upfront.

Like Scott, I too use Ellis to kick-start myself sometimes. I call it "Ellisizing" a situation and ask myself, with Ellis's snarl, "WHYYY should ___ be/do ___?" But like other CBT techniques, for me, it only works sometimes. I'm trying hard to get better at recognizing which techniques I've found or invented are likely to help FOR ME in which situations. But for sure they are no magic bullet.

I hope you don't feel alone about these things, Cecilia. Best wishes.


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