Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Kindle Edition

The ideas in this book are so simple, yet so powerful. We all have an inner voice (the Buddhists call it "monkey mind") that creates thoughts in our brain. These thoughts then make us feel a certain way. In knowing that our thoughts create how we feel, we can drastically improve the quality of our lives.This book shows that it's not what happens to us in life, it's what we think about it.For example, say you lose your job. Many people would then catastrophize and think negative thoughts about how awful it was, how we're going to be homeless and go broke and then we get depressed. Instead of thinking like that, we should think realistically about how it's tough that we lost our jobs, but we'll eventually find another one and that we will overcome the current crisis.I was a pessimist for years. Negative thinking becomes a habit and changes brain chemistry. By thinking more realistically and talking back to our negative thoughts, we can live much happier lives.

Let me start by saying I have been an Amazon customer for twenty years and I have *never* reviewed anything before. But I consider this book to important for me to keep my mouth shut. It was a life-changer for me. Don't know why some reviewers are saying it is not helpful for people with severe depression - maybe some people with severe depression need a different approach, but let me speak for the rest of us. I was having suicidal thoughts, and on the highest doses of meds available. I was also in therapy. I tried two different therapists, both of whom wanted to talk about other people in my life - my parents, my husband, etc. - which was not helping me at all. I was at my wit's end, really scared that I was going to hurt myself if things didn't get better soon, when a friend recommended this book. You have to do the exercises - yes, they seem silly, but if they work, who the heck cares? Get a nice little notebook and a pen that you enjoy writing with. I made mine a sort of journal that I doodled in and added little inspirational quotes here and there. And yes, it is deceptively simple. Again, who cares? If standing on my head and whistling "Dixie" would have made me feel this much better, I'd be doing that, too. I started reading the book a month ago. I do not do all the excercises, but I did try all of them. I do what works for me. It's also true that there is the usual filler crap that you get in self-help books "Janet is a 40-year old dental assistant who came to me in 2005 suffering from..." blah, blah, blah. Just skip it. My depression is so much better that I am shocked. I am no longer thinking about suicide, and I am actually able to picture a future that is not completely empty and black. A future!!!!!! I have not had a future in years! I can't express what that means to me, but if you have depression, I don't have to. Try the book. If it doesn't work, I hope you will try something else, and keep on trying. You are not alone, and you deserve to be happy.

Wish I had read through more reviews before I bought it. And I actually read the WHOLE book, it is long with very small print. The author believes that depression ONLY comes from feelings that are distorted from reality. He does not believe depression can arise from dealing with death or illness or disability or loss of marriage or other trauma (only if your feelings are distorted and you have low self esteem). People in his examples frequently say how they feel worthless. He ends up magically changing their lives by pointing out that, wow, they have worth and then they're cured. To deal with people who put you down he suggests that you agree with them, "yes, I am a piece of crap". He believes that anger is not a real emotion, it is just a state of mind that we put ourselves in in response to things that happen to us so we should have enough control not to suffer from it. For the woman who's step daughter is abusive and rude to her and steals from her his advice is to just accept that this is how she is so as to not be upset over it (and not cause an issue with her spouse). Apparently he has never heard of making sure you are heard, respected and setting boundaries. To the wife whose marriage had centered around abuse and indifference and whose husband left her for another woman, he supports her use of limited contact, then praise, sex and affection to win him back and he does come back. Is she so weak that she wants that back again? For the woman whose husband cheated but wouldn't leave her his advice was, "try to understand how HARD this was for him". Maybe he should have helped her learn to value herself more than keeping a cheating husband and she wouldn't feel so WORTHLESS. The author speaks endlessly about how great his method is and how great he is, many pages on that but he is clearly very misogynistic. Cognitive Therapy is real, but it is also not the only helpful method out there. Also, depression that is NOT based on low self esteem is real too and he does a real disservice to suggest otherwise. It became apparent to me as I read through the book that it does not appear to have been updated since its original publication date of 1980. I read the whole book, hoping to learn something of value. The best section is the "Consumer's Guide to anti-depressant medications" in the back of the book. I would highly recommend finding an alternative.

Readable but long winded.A concise version of this book,Get YOURSELF into the habit of painting pictures in your mind’s eye of how you really want to be.Fantasize about YOU being confident, happy, prosperous, wealthy, sociable ,,,,,, etcThe more you do this, the more you generate good feelings, the more your subconscious mind take notice, the more your subconscious makes YOU act like that.Habits, mental or physical, take 90 days to form ….. GET BUSY!!Think failure to achieve failure, think SUCCESS to achieve SUCCESS!You get more of what you focus on.An exampleIn a book by a world famous hypnotist, he tells of an experiment conducted with a group of manic depressives. Their task was to collect photos of any happy times in their life and stick them to surfaces such a fridge doors along with smiley face pictures. They had to have them all over the home and in the work place if allowed.Each time one of these depressives looked at a ‘happy time photo’ or smiley face picture, they had to force themselves to picture a happy situation in their mind so to allow good feelings.The experiment was a three month period. When assessed after the three months, it was found that the brains of those in experiment had been “rewired” and total contrast to the former manic depressive state they’d been in. They were now happy and had an optimistic outlook on life.

Fascinating book that helps me think more clearly and avoid avoid cognitive distortions. It's surprising how easy it is to jump to incorrect conclusions and after reading this book it helps you stop doing that. It's changed the way I view the world significantly, an excellent book.

Badly, cheaply printed. Can’t read the middle of the pages as the margins are so tight - see pictures. Some pages have black print, others a faded, fuzzy light grey. Terrible publishing.Can’t comment on the content because I can’t read it. I’ll buy a decently printed second hand copy instead.

I was having suicidal thoughts, and on the highest doses of meds available. I was also in therapy. I tried two different therapists, both of whom wanted to talk about other people in my life - which was not helping me at all. I was at my wit's end, really scared that I was going to hurt myself if things didn't get better soon, when a friend recommended this book. You have to do the exercises - yes, they seem silly, but if they work, who the heck cares? Get a nice little notebook and a pen that you enjoy writing with. I made mine a sort of journal that I doodled in and added little inspirational quotes here and there. And yes, it is deceptively simple. Again, who cares? If standing on my head and whistling "Dixie" would have made me feel this much better, I'd be doing that, too. I started reading the book a month ago. I do not do all the excercises, but I did try all of them. I do what works for me. It's also true that there is the usual filler crap that you get in self-help books "Janet is a 40-year old dental assistant who came to me in 2005 suffering from..." blah, blah, blah. Just skip it. My depression is so much better that I am shocked. I am no longer thinking about suicide, and I am actually able to picture a future that is not completely empty and black. A future!!!!!! I have not had a future in years! I can't express what that means to me, but if you have depression, I don't have to. Try the book. If it doesn't work, I hope you will try something else, and keep on trying. You are not alone, and you deserve to be happy.

Do a favour for yourself and buy it! I was unable to read anything whatsoever, could not focus. Took the book in hand and started reading and it felt good. This book has helped me a lot and I keep it on my shelf whenever I need some reassurance.