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In the next two podcasts, you will hear the live therapy session that Dr. Jill Levitt and I did with Nazli, a young woman from Turkey, at our recent \\u201cDavid Burns Live\\u201d workshop on May 22, 2022. Nazli has been struggling with intense performance anxiety and generalized anxiety, and generously who volunteered to be a \\u201cpatient.\\u201d Jill and I are very grateful for Nazli\\u2019s courage in sharing herself so courageously with all of you, and hope you enjoy the session and learn from it.

Although the facts of your life are probably quite different from Nazli\\u2019s, you may be able to identify with the almost universal theme of feeling like you are not \\u201cgood enough.\\u201d The ultimate antidote to this type of suffering is simple, but so basic that you may not \\u201csee it\\u201d at first, especially when it comes to your own negative thoughts and feelings.

Although we all have many flaws and shortcomings, our inadequacies are rarely or never the cause of our emotional distress. Our emotional distress, in terms of anxiety, depression, inferiority, loneliness, hopelessness, and anger, nearly always results from our thoughts, and not so much from what\\u2019s actually happening in our lives.

In addition, the thoughts that trigger those kinds of feelings are almost never valid. Instead, they are loaded with cognitive distortions. As you probably know very well, I have often said that depression and anxiety are the world\\u2019s oldest cons.

And here\\u2019s the really good news. The very moment you change the way you THINK, you can change the way you FEEL!

Sounds wonderful. But isn\\u2019t it just a little, or a lot, too good to be true? And can you really trigger real change at the gut level by changing the way you think?

Let\\u2019s find out!

In today\\u2019s podcast, you\\u2019ll hear the first half of Nazli\\u2019s session, including T = Testing and E = Empathy. Next week, you\\u2019ll hear the exciting conclusion of her session, including the A = Assessment of Resistance and M = Methods, followed, of course by the final of T = Testing so we can see if Nazli really changed, and if so, by how much. We\\u2019ll also see and how she rated Jill and David on Empathy, Helpfulness, and more.

If you\\u2019ve followed the Feeling Good Podcasts, you know that doing live therapy to challenge your own demons is part of therapist training in TEAM-CBT This experience greatly deepens your understanding of team and allows you to give this message to your ow patients:

\\u201cI know how you feel because I\\u2019ve been there myself. And it will give me great joy to show you how to CHANGE the way you FEEL, too!\\u201d

I think of this personal step as the transition from technician to healer. But you cannot take this step with credibility if you haven\\u2019t yet done your own \\u201cwork.\\u201d

At the start of the session, Nazli explained that she\\u2019s struggled with anxiety ever since she was a child, and that\\u2019s what triggered her interest in a career as a clinical psychologist. In my experience, this is true of many if not most mental health professionals. Although the general public often have the impression that shrinks have it all together, nothing could be further from the truth. Most went into the field hoping to find a solution to their own suffering, and a great many\\u2014probably nearly all\\u2014are still searching and hoping to find a their \\u201ccure.\\u201d

After completing her master\\u2019s degree in counseling 10 years ago, Nazli got a job at a counseling center, and in spite of the fact that she received consistently good feedback, she quit after 2 and 1/2 years and took a job in administration. This was because of the intense anxiety she experienced during sessions, resulting from the constant and relentless bombardment with negative thoughts that popped into her mind when treating\\xa0 patients.

However, she still yearned to do clinical work, so she decide to go back to clinical work several years ago and has been doing therapy for patients being treated for cancer. But the negative thoughts and feelings still continued to haunt her.

You can review them on the Daily Mood Log that Nazli showed us at the start of her session. As you can see, when she\\u2019s treating patients, she feels severe depression, anxiety, shame and inadequacy. She also feels humiliated, hopeless, and discouraged, along with some moderate feelings of anger and resentment.

Nazli explained that she has no fear of public speaking, but said that when she\\u2019s working with a client, she constantly criticizes herself for fear of making a mistake and tell herself:

• I\\u2019m not doing a good job.

• This job is not for me.

• Should I just quit?

• My friends are at a better place in life.

• I\\u2019m 38 years old and missing out on a lot.

• Why am I like this?

Recently, she went to visit one of her patients, a young woman struggling with lung cancer; but when Nazli entered the room, her patient said: \\u201cI don\\u2019t want to talk to you!\\u201d

Nazli said, \\u201cI was devastated and felt like crying.\\u201d

When you review Nazli\\u2019s Brief Mood Survey (BMS) at the start of the session, you\\u2019ll see that the only feeling that was elevated was anxiety, and that was minimal. However, her score on the Happiness Test was only 8 out of 20, indicating that she didn\\u2019t feel very worthwhile, happy, hopeful, motivated, or satisfied with her life. This meant that her negative thoughts and feelings when she was seeing patients were making a huge impact on her capacity for happiness and self-esteem.

Her minimal scores on the depression, anxiety, and anger scales on the BMS also reflect the fluctuating nature of anxiety and other feelings for many people. For example, you may have little or no anxiety most of the time, and when you\\u2019re having a session with your shrink you may not feel especially anxious, either. But when you encounter the situation that triggers your anxiety, the feelings suddenly spike tremendously, along with a host of other negative feelings, and then the emotional discomfort can be overwhelming.

End of Part 1 of the Nazli Session: T = Testing and E = Empathy. Next week, you will hear Part 2: A = Assessment of Resistance and M =\\xa0 Methods.

Thanks!

Rhonda, Jill, Nazli, and David