The Five Secrets: Communication Skills that Transform Therapy and Everyday Life

Great therapy depends on great communication. In this powerful training, Dr. David Burns—renowned psychiatrist, best-selling author, and pioneer of TEAM-CBT—joins master clinician Dr. Jill Levitt to teach the Five Secrets of Effective Communication, a set of evidence-based tools that can transform your therapy sessions and the relationships in your everyday life. Whether you’re a therapist, coach, educator, or someone looking to communicate with more empathy, clarity, and confidence, this training gives you practical skills you can use immediately. You’ll learn how to turn conflict into connection, repair empathy ruptures in real time, and help clients feel deeply understood—using simple communication principles that work across all types of relationships.

 

⭐ What You’ll Learn

• How the Five Secrets of Effective Communication strengthen therapeutic alliances
• How to use Disarming to reduce defensiveness and resolve tension
• Practical empathy skills that help clients feel fully seen and heard
• How to apply Inquiry and Stroking to deepen trust and openness
• How to use “I Feel” statements to express vulnerability without blame
• How the Law of Opposites can transform anger, resistance, or criticism How to turn communication failures into breakthroughs through joyous failure
• Real-time demonstrations and role-plays showing each technique in action Ideal for therapists, counselors, psychologists, social workers, coaches, and mental health professionals seeking powerful tools that improve every conversation.

 

⭐ About the Five Secrets

The Five Secrets of Effective Communication were developed by Dr. David Burns as part of TEAM-CBT. They offer a structured, compassionate way to navigate difficult conversations, build connection, and strengthen empathy—whether in the therapy room or your personal relationships.

 

⭐ About the Instructors

David Burns, M.D. • Psychiatrist & Adjunct Clinical Professor Emeritus at Stanford • Author of Feeling Good, Feeling Great, and Feeling Good Together • Creator of TEAM-CBT and the Five Secrets of Effective Communication

Jill Levitt, Ph.D. • Level 5 Master TEAM-CBT Therapist & Trainer • Co-founder of the Feeling Good Institute • Expert in empathy, communication, and clinical training

 

SUMMARY:

 

IN THIS VIDEO:

 

Jill Levitt: To start with a poll, to get we like to start with a poll, to get to know who our audience is, let me run this poll for you guys and you can see on the poll we are just asking you to tell us about yourself. Do you fall into which of these three categories: "I am not a therapist, I am a member of the general public wanting to learn some empathy skills myself," or "I am a therapist that's currently enrolled in Feeling Good Institute's, FastTrack course," or "a therapist who's not enrolled in the FastTrack course." So I will give you a minute to complete the poll and then we will just share the results briefly. Okay, I am going to end the poll here, although I see that maybe about 80% of you have filled it out so far. And here are our results: today, 40%, 41% of our attendees are not therapists, members of the general public, so that's a pretty big percentage. Then We have got 55% of you who are therapists not enrolled in the FastTrack course, and 4% of you are currently enrolled. We have got about 60% therapists and 40% general public today.

 

Dr. David Burns: And that's great to have more general public; that's what I have been pulling for, so thank you all for attending. we will see if we can have more appealing classes and courses for the general public as well as therapists.

 

Jill Levitt: So, let me start just by telling you a little bit about who David is, and David probably needs no introduction, but David is a world-renowned psychiatrist, a CBT legend, one of really the fathers of cognitive behavioural therapy. He is a best-selling author and He is also developed the amazing Feeling Great app, which He is going to tell you about at the end of the webinar today. And I will tell you a little bit about who we are at Feeling Good Institute: our mission is to help therapists deliver better outcomes so that patients can recover faster and more fully, and we train and certify therapists in TEAM-CBT, the framework that's been developed by David Burns. We offer a structured five-level certification path that really reflects the depth of the TEAM-CBT model, which we will be telling you a bit about today. Feeling Good Institute began back in 2014 with one vision, which stemmed from a shared frustration amongst Angela Krumm and myself because back then the only way that you could learn TEAM-CBT was to study directly with David at Stanford, often for many years, and sometimes if you were lucky enough to get to see David in one of his intensives around the world, but the model was super powerful but often wasn't super accessible to many therapists, and so we set out to change that to make David's tools, techniques, and training style more accessible to more therapists. We wanted therapists everywhere to be able to learn these tools deeply, flexibly, and with lots of support. On this slide I just want to mention to you that it might surprise you to hear this, but experience alone as a therapist doesn't actually make therapists better. So just doing more sessions doesn't necessarily lead to better outcomes, and we know this is true based on psychotherapy research studies. And if anything, we all get a little bit less effective with time.

 

What does work actually is learning, practicing, getting feedback, something called deliberate practice, and repeating that cycle, and so that's what we emphasize in all of our trainings. We don't just teach techniques; we really replicate David's training style which is built on this idea that we only get better from practice and feedback. And so we emphasize this in all of our trainings. We are even going to do some practice with you today. One of the trainings that I will share with you at the end of the webinar today is an opportunity, if you are interested in what you learned today, to get more practice and training. So we will share with you this program that we have just developed that's called CBT All Access; it's a new subscription program that gives therapists everything they need to build strong, effective CBT skills, which is practice, feedback, and mentorship, including CE credit and a great community. So we are hoping to share with you what sometimes took therapists years and years to master, now learning it in a structured, highly effective training that only takes about 6 months to complete. So we will touch on David's app and also other opportunities to learn and grow and train with us at the end of the webinar today. I will just briefly mention if you are a therapist wanting your CE credit and you registered and paid for the CE option, we are going to do something different than usual. We are not going to drop the CE survey in the chat today. We are going to email it to you. So if you registered to get CEs, you'll get an email today at 1 p.m pacific with the CE survey. Please make sure that you complete that by the end of the day today, and then you'll receive your CE certificate of completion within a week. So look for an email from us when the webinar is over today and make sure you are here till the very end.

 

These are our learning objectives today, and I won't read them to you, but this is what you'll make sure that you learn from us today. And then I will start by telling you a little bit about the TEAM-CBT model and then I am going to turn it over to David to talk more specifically about how he got interested in empathy, which is what we are going to be focusing on today. So the TEAM-CBT model is a framework for how all effective therapy works. It means that when we work with patients and train therapists, we focus on testing or measurement. We take measures of symptoms and of the therapeutic alliance at the beginning and end of every session, we track change over time, we use measurement or testing to make sure that we totally understand our patients and also that our patients are getting better to keep therapy on track. We focus a lot on teaching therapists empathy skills and that's what our webinar is going to be focused on today: The Five Secrets of Effective Communication. And this is to help therapists to be able to connect with and empathize with even the most challenging of patients, because we can't use powerful methods if we haven't first understood and connected with our patients. We also teach and practice with our patients what's called assessment of resistance, or addressing or melting away resistance. We look at what are good reasons not to change, what are good reasons not to do the hard work of therapy, so that we are not just throwing methods at patients, but we are really melting away resistance to change before using methods. And then what many people think of when they think of CBT is the M in TEAM, which stands for Methods, and we use lots of cognitive behavioural, interpersonal, and other kinds of methods to help patients get better faster. So, I just want you to know that what We are teaching you today, which is empathy tools, is just one piece of an overall model for systematically working with patients to help them to get better. And I am going to turn it over to David to tell a story to start us off today.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, So some of you who have read my book Feeling Good may recall this story of Sterling Morey, but in the early days of cognitive therapy, when we were all just getting started in the mid-1970s, Beck had his center for cognitive therapy up on the fifth floor of the Girard Bank building right across the street from the University of Pennsylvania. I had just opened my clinical practice and I had an office on the third floor. And one day Dr. Beck called me and he said, "David, I have got a problem. When I was in England, I gave a lecture on cognitive therapy, and a medical student named Sterling Morey approached me and asked if he could come and study at our center for cognitive therapy. I told him, 'Yeah sure, come on over anytime, we'd love to have you.' Well, I forgot that I invited him and he showed up today from London, and he is expecting to get a month of training and we don't have anything to offer him."

 

"So I told him he could sit in with you on your patients, is that okay? And that he could watch you doing therapy, and that way he would feel like he was getting training in the new cognitive therapy." I was really shocked because I didn't want some medical student sitting in the office watching me do therapy; I didn't think the patients would like it either. But I felt under pressure and I didn't want to let them down and I said, "Well, I don't know if my patients will tolerate that because they're paying for sessions and they probably don't want a stranger watching their therapy, but I could maybe try him on one or two sessions and then see if it works out. I can't promise more than that, but we could at least check it out." He said, "Well okay, I will send him right down right now and he can start." We got on the elevator and three minutes later he was in my office and I was just getting ready for my next patient. And Sterling seemed like a very nice fellow, he seemed a little insecure and meek and he told me that he'd never had any psychology in college and no psychiatry rotations yet in medical school. He said he didn't know anything and he just wanted to sit in the corner and watch so he wouldn't have to say anything. I said, "Sterling, that would feel very abnormal, but we have three nice comfortable chairs in the office and we can kind of sit in a circle. Don't worry, I won't put you under any pressure or anything, I will carry this session, but at least the patient will feel more comfortable like we are all working together." The very next patient I asked permission if it would be okay if a medical student from London sits in on our session with us, and the patient thought that was just fine. He actually had severe paranoid schizophrenia and he thought that God had sent Sterling from London to help with our therapy, like some kind of expert, and he got all excited and he did not mind at all.

 

So, when we sat down and started talking, this was a patient I was totally stuck with. Typically, he came in and started shouting and he said, "Dr. Burns, I was walking to your office today." and he was a Penn student and he said, "I walked past the Episcopal church and the door was open.” and I said, “There's a reason that door is open.” And then I saw John the Baptist standing in the doorway beckoning me. I went up and knelt at his feet and he started telling me secrets about the spiritual future of the human race.And the damn minister got jealous because John the Baptist wanted to talk to me and not to the minister, and he called the police. The police came and said I wasn't allowed to go into that church and that I had to leave them alone.And there was a conspiracy to prevent me from seeing John the Baptist and he is trying to give me important secrets about the spiritual future of the human race, and I want to know what you are going to do about it, Dr. Burns." And my jaw just dropped and I felt on the spot. And my only thought was, "Listen, I know you are not taking enough of your anti-psychotic schizophrenia medication and we are going to have to up the dose," and things like that. This is how the sessions went, I was not getting anywhere with this fellow at all. I turned to Sterling and I said, "Tell me Sterling, what would be the British approach here?" And poor Sterling looked like a deer caught in the headlights at night and his eyes started spinning in their sockets. He was in a total panic and he didn't say anything for 30 seconds. And the patient, we can call him Jerome just to give him a name, leaned forward like, "What's this great expert that God sent from the Maudsley Institute in London to help me? What's he going to say?" And Sterling finally, after 30 seconds, leaned forward to Jerome and said, "Well you know Jerome, we in England have a great interest in religious things and I have even taken two courses on religion in college. And I am fascinated by what you are saying, and if John the Baptist was telling you some spiritual secrets about the future of the human race, I'd like to know what they are. What was he telling you?"

 

And Jerome was shocked and he said, "You really want to know?" and Sterling said, "Yes, I am dying to find out. What was John the Baptist talking about? What was he telling you?" They got involved in this very animated discussion and I was entirely shut out of it. They were just happily chattering back and forth. About halfway through, the patient turned to Sterling—he started calling him Dr. Morey now even though he was still just a medical student—and said, "Dr. Morey, you helped me so much with that problem. I am feeling a lot better now." I am thinking, "What did he do? How did he help you? What just went on? This is so different from my sessions with Jerome." And then Sterling said, "Oh, I am glad it's helpful to you. Actually, I can help you with just about anything." The patient said, "Well, I have another problem that maybe you can help me with." Sterling said, "What's that?" Jerome said, "Well, I am horny all the time." how they response to these? And Sterling said, "Well that's sad. Tell me why is that a problem to you?" Now this fellow was very psychotic and he had been screaming at night and he had the word 'death' on his dormitory door. The other students were frightened and that's why he was sent to me for treatment. He thought his sexual thoughts were being broadcast all across the University of Pennsylvania campus and he was enraged about it. And he told Sterling, "Well you know Sterling, I don't know how to talk to girls and I don't know how to talk to guys either. In fact, I don't have any friends." And Sterling said, "That's sad. Tell me why that is." He said, "Well, there's something different about me. I can't seem to connect with anybody, and when I look at people, I notice just how different they are from me." And then Sterling says, "Well, I noticed that about you right away." Jerome said, "What did you notice about me?" Sterling said, "I noticed that You are very different, but I know something else about you."

 

Jerome said, "Well what's that, Dr. Morey?" He said, "I bet you never bother to notice what you have in common with other people. Like when you and I talk about religion, that's something we have in common, that interest, and we have a great conversation." Jerome says, "Wow, I never thought of that. How could I find something in common with some really horny girls?" They started talking about that and they went to the end of the session. At the end, Jerome looked to me and said, "Dr. Burns, this is by far the best session we have ever had, will Dr. Morey be here again next week?" I said, "Oh, he'll be here for the full month, I can guarantee it." And I was so impressed. He sat in on another patient that I was kind of stuck with and the same thing happened after 15 seconds the patient opened up, started sobbing, and related to him. And I told him, "Sterling, I am seeing 70 hours of patients back-to-back this week and every week, and I'd love to have you sit in with me on all of them." Sterling said, "I would love to do that." It was one of the best months of my life. I was teaching him cognitive therapy because I knew all the techniques and we had many exciting techniques, and we were developing new ones on a weekly basis, it was an exciting era. But I realized that Sterling had something that I didn't have, something that was missing. I told myself, "I am the teacher here, but I think I better be the student and learn from Sterling. I will teach him what I have got to teach him, but I am going to figure out what he is doing. I am going to give a name to the techniques he uses." That was what got me. So I thought if I give names to these techniques, I can maybe learn them myself, if I could become half of what Sterling's got, that would transform my career. And that was the start of what I eventually developed called the five secrets of effective communication. They were just techniques I saw Sterling use, and then I developed training methods for them, and that's what you are going to learn about today. Thank you, Sterling. I love you, Sterling. I have always admired him. He is now a very prominent British psychiatrist and he is teaching. We actually saw a patient together about a year ago on Zoom and he is the same Sterling he always was, of the most delicate, gentle, loving approach.

 

Jill Levitt: And now we will shift gears and David do you want to lead us here and talking a little bit about what is empathy?

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, I feel like accurate empathy, we sometimes call it, has three components. And this is for the general public as well as for therapists: if You are talking to your angry teenage son or to a colleague you are not getting along with, the first part of it is thought empathy. And that's where you understand exactly how the patient is thinking and the patient will confirm that, "Yes, Dr. Burns, how do you know he understood exactly how I was thinking." That's thought empathy. Then feeling empathy is you understand exactly how the patient is feeling inside. What are the names of the patient's feelings: sad, anxious, hurt, angry, lonely, discouraged? Whatever the feelings are, Dr. Burns nailed it. And the third part is did you convey an attitude of warmth, acceptance, compassion, and trust? Make the person feel cared about, loved, and accepted. And that's a more intangible component. Now We have got a poll to ask you a crucial question, Jill.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah. So we'd like to ask you before we kind of talk at you for the remainder of our time together and teach you empathy skills, we are curious, Do you believe that your perceptions of your own empathy skills are accurate? So how accurate do you think you are at assessing your own empathy skills?

 

Dr. David Burns: And yeah, but you said therapeutic empathy and let's call it human empathy because we want parents and the general public to say: "How empathic do you think you are in understanding how your family and the important people in your life think and feel?"

 

Jill Levitt: So, let me end the poll and I will share it with you. People are still answering. Let me give you a.

 

Dr. David Burns: between zero and 100, zero is "I don't understand people at all," and 100 is "I am fantastic like Sterling Morey."

 

Jill Levitt: But our question here was yes or no. So, do you believe that your perception, you might think of your not empathic you know how accurate is your perception?

 

Jill Levitt: Here are the results. 64% said, "Yep, I do think my perceptions of my empathy skills are accurate." and 36% said, "No, I am thinking maybe I am not so accurate at assessing my own empathy skills."

 

Dr. David Burns: That's a great thing for us to build on here. I did a study to find out the answer to this question at the Stanford inpatient unit. I was validating my easy diagnostic survey on 178 consecutively admitted inpatients. And each of them had an interview by an expert interviewer, about a 2-hour structured interview asking the patient all about their emotions so as to assign the DSM diagnostic categories. And that way my easy diagnostic survey's self-assessment test was validated and show that it was actually getting at these diagnostic categories but in a quicker, easier way and then but what I did at the after the expert had spent hours like one, two, three hours and sometimes more just asking the patients about their depression, anxiety, suicide, and anger you know all of these questions what they didn't know I was going to do was turn their chairs in opposite directions so they couldn't see each other. And then I gave them my brief mood survey, which is a very short survey that is highly accurate that assesses how depressed are you feeling right now? How suicidal are you feeling right now? How anxious are you feeling right now? and How angry are you feeling right now? And also how empathic was this therapist that you just spent two or three hours with? And at the same time, the expert filled out the same survey, guessing how depressed the patient is at this many. You just spent two hours talking with him or her or that person about their depression. So, how do you rate it on a 0 to 100 scale? How suicidal do you think they are? How angry do you think they are? and How empathic do you think you were? The question you folks just answered and then I was able to put the data in a computer and calculate the accuracy of the experts in detecting after an intensive interview, how the patients were feeling? and the results were shocking.

 

The most of the mood variables, the results were between zero and 5% accurate. The ability to pick up the changes in depression was 3%, the experts to detect how suicidal the patient was feeling was 0%. Anxiety was about 5%, anger was 0%. It was amazing that a taxi driver could have guessed on that test and gotten just about the same ratings as the psychiatric experts. Then on empathy, they were 9% accurate. So the bottom line was that you think you're empathic but you're not. The experts' idea of how empathic they were had nothing to do pretty much with how these 178 patients were seeing them. And it was shocking. Then you say well may be that was just some silly work that Dr. Burns was doing that isn’t valid. But I am also put in your slides an independent study by Hatcher and colleagues from 1995 that came to similar conclusions. Their estimate on accuracy of empathy, the shared empathy experience was only 9%. And so the bottom line here, we are going to show you how to drastically boost your empathy skills, but it's good to start from a position of humility. Because we have the illusion that we understand other people when in fact we don't.

 

Jill Levitt: And so we're going to start rolling out many of these methods that you are all probably super curious about. How do I become more empathic?We are going to start out by just mentioning a couple of really challenging statements that you as a therapist might hear from patients. And then we are going to invite you to share therapist and general public just challenging things people might say to you in the char box. So, One: "How would you know how I feel? You're not living on the street, you've never been hooked on drugs." Or, "I just saw an ad for Prozac. Should I be seeing a real doctor or should I stick with you?"

 

Dr. David Burns: That's actually the most terrifying one to students that We have worked with at Stanford, like psychiatric residents: "Are you a real doctor?"

 

Jill Levitt: This would be a pretty angry patient saying, "I hope you feel suicidal someday and have to talk to someone just like you."

 

Dr. David Burns: That was a teenager talking to a colleague who works with teenagers; that blew his mind.

 

Jill Levitt: You want to do the remaining?

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, another common one is, "I did what you said, doctor, and now my marriage is worse." A very common one that therapists hear is, "You don't really care about me; You are just in it for the buck." When we teach empathy, we teach how to respond to these difficult statements because if you can handle these and get an A+ in your response to these heavy-handed challenges, then you are really in the expert range. If you are a general citizen, I am sure you can come up with a similar list of things, you have heard from your angry teenagers shouting at you or arguing with you or being very difficult.

 

Jill Levitt: Now what we'd like you to do is share a statement a patient might have said to you, or a loved one, something really challenging or critical that you have heard, something that feels hard to respond. We'd like you to put it in the chat box. Right? Mike is going to read some of these to us or actually I can even read them. Mike, if participants enter them in the chat box we can just kind of read them out from you. What are things patients or loved ones say that are hard to respond to? And also you can also share with us: how do you feel when people say these kinds of things to you?

 

Dr. David Burns: Do you feel anxious, angry, defensive, hurt, pissed off?

 

Jill Levitt: And we are just going to take a minute to read a few of these and connect with each other over some of the hard things that we sometimes hear. So David I will start reading them: a patient saying, "I don't want to get better, I just want someone to listen." and "I am never going to find someone who will love me"—a hopeless patient."

 

Dr. David Burns: Right? And the therapists are not sharing how they response to these?

 

Jill Levitt: And not yet, but maybe people will start so start sharing your feelings. How would you respond?

 

Dr. David Burns: When you heard that as a parent or a therapist, how did you feel?

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah, and I am never going to find someone who will love me. You abandoned me as a patient." Someone who said, "My daughter said you don't care about me."

 

Mike: It’s fairly intense one here somebody said, "You haven't been raped; You are a man, you don't know what it's like."

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, that a good one. But, no one's sharing their feelings; it's so interesting.

 

Jill Levitt: We are getting them here. It’s just that we probably didn’t we didn’t ask right away. Okay, so "shocked," "sad," "embarrassed,"

 

Mike: "inferior," "upset," "hurt," "anxious."

 

Dr. David Burns: There we go, now we have got the whole picture. Thank you.

 

Jill Levitt: We got one here: "ChatGPT does the same job as a therapist.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, right. Only better."

 

Jill Levitt: Someone said, "I feel misunderstood. I tried to tell you what I was feeling but you didn't listen to me.", "You are not a parent of an autistic child so you don't understand what I am going through."

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. How sad is that?

 

Jill Levitt: And Someone said, "I feel sorry for your future clients," and the therapist felt hurt and offended.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah.

 

Jill Levitt: We have got hundreds of things that people would feel terrible hearing.

 

Dr. David Burns: Well, we are going to go through all of your examples. We are extending the workshop by seven hours.

 

Jill Levitt: So, should we move on David and share what we are going to be teaching you now for the remainder of the webinar is how to talk with your EAR. And we are going to spell out what all of that is. But EAR stands for Empathy, Assertiveness, and Respect. All three of these pieces are crucial to really connecting with people, particularly when they're angry with you. The E stands for Empathy: we are going to teach you the disarming technique, thought and feeling empathy, and inquiry. Assertiveness: We are going to teach you how to share your feelings openly. This is not what most people think of as assertiveness, but sharing your feelings with patients or people in life, so you are not just listening and feeling like a doormat; You are sharing a part of yourself in a way that's warm, genuine, and not threatening. Then, how to express yourself respectfully using stroking even when things are difficult. By the way people are commenting in the chat box that they can’t see the examples. Yes, the chat is restricted to us because there’s so many people in the webinar and people comment that’s very distracting. We don’t want you spending a lot of time in the chat reading other people’s answer. That’s why we are sharing them out loud.

 

Dr. David Burns: Let's take a closer look at the five secrets. The disarming technique is defined as finding the truth in the criticism or what the other person's saying, even if it seems illogical or irrational or self-serving, or unfair. Thought empathy is paraphrasing the other person's words: "What I heard you say just now was A, B, and C." Feeling empathy is acknowledging how the other person's feeling given what they said, and you might add, "I wouldn't be a bit surprised if You are feeling a bit hurt, or angry, or sad, or discouraged right now." And then Inquiry is asking gentle, probing questions like, "I am wondering if I heard you right? Is this how You are feeling? Or can you tell me more?" And I feel statements is the formula here is "I feel X and Y." And if you look on page four of your handout, you'll find my feeling words chart. So it's "I am feeling sad and a bit ashamed right now because I am concerned that I have been letting you down and not been helpful to you." And that’s especially painful for me because I really like and respect you. And the last piece there was called stroking conveying liking or respect.

 

Now the hardest and most important of these by far—and some people never get this in their life and some people don't even want to learn this technique, which is sad but it is finding the grain of truth in what the other person said, even if it seems unfair, exaggerated, or just plain wrong.And while you find the truth, you avoid defending yourself. If you can, and we will find out if you can. And the disarming technique is based on something I created called the law of opposites. And you can find it on page three of your handout.

 

Jill Levitt: I am sorry, David hold on a second.

 

Dr. David Burns: And the law of opposites says if you disagree with a criticism which is untrue and unfair, you'll immediately prove that the criticism is entirely valid. That's a paradox. What everybody does when criticized, 99% of people, 99% of the time, is you defend yourself because you think what the other person is saying is wrong. It’s untrue. And so you want to straighten them out. And when you do that, you'll actually prove that they're right. We will bring that to life for you in a minute but it’s a paradox.

 

The other side of the paradox is also true, this is the part that is very hard to learn and it’s a massive breakthrough and this was what Sterling Morey was doing. In contrast, if you genuinely agree with a criticism which seems untrue and unfair, you'll immediately put the lie to it. This was what Sterling Morey was doing. Even when he was not being criticized. You see when Jerome said, "I saw John the Baptist," I knew that was wrong, so I was all set to tell him to take more pills and let’s get real guy. Sterling went the opposite direction and found truth in it, saying, "Wow, if John the Baptist was telling you secrets, I want to know what they are. Tell me, I am excited." That instantly transformed the interaction. The law of opposites just takes that and applies it to criticism and all kinds of conflicted situations.

 

Jill Levitt: And you can also imagine that the simplest example of that is if someone says, "You are not listening to me," and you defend yourself, you are doing a really terrible job of listening to them. If someone says, "You are not listening to me," and you say, "You are absolutely right, I haven't been doing a good job of listening to you," in that moment you have suddenly become an incredible listener. And so we have lots of example of when you just see the truth in what other person says, suddenly it does not seem true anymore.

 

Dr. David Burns: Beautifully stated. Now this disarming is the hardest for people because everyone including everyone of you right now believes that when people criticize you, they're saying things that really are wrong. They say, "How can I disarm something that's not true?" in point of fact, there aren’t any things that aren’t true. But we have to give an example like I was teaching some Stanford residents how important it is to find the truth in what the patient says. One resident, who had an MD from Harvard Medical School and a PhD in engineering from MIT and he asked the question. He said there was a you know a an involuntarily hospitalized teenager on the inpatient unit today and he was trying to you know trick me into letting him out of the hospital and I knew from the nurses that they told me that he was trying to get out of the hospital so he could complete his suicide attempt and when I told him we weren't going to let him out of the hospital he shouted at me and said, "You're stupid." And then the resident said, "How could I possibly agree with a statement like that?" And let me ask you folks who were here, "What do you think about that?" When the when this hospitalized suicidal teenage boy shouted at his psychiatrist and told his psychiatrist, "You're stupid." Was he saying something that's true or false? and maybe we can get a couple of chat answers.

 

Jill Levitt: Okay, we've got a couple people saying, I guess people are maybe making attempts at disarming. I really am sometimes. Sometimes you're right. I don't know everything. I'm stupid about a lot of things.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Like, well, those are beautiful examples, right? the response that one of my residents, Anthony Mascal, gave in this situation was to say to the young man, you know, I am feeling pretty stupid right now, because I haven't been helpful to you at all, and you have every right to be angry with me, the nurses told me that you're trying to get out of the hospital to so you can complete your suicide attempt and I can tell you that if I let you out and you died, I don't think I could live with myself for the rest of my life. But I agree that I've really failed you because I haven't been at all helpful to you and I'd like to hear more what it's been like for you and how angry and pissed off you feel and how frustrated. And if you say that, you're agreeing with him, you know, I am pretty stupid, but he'll suddenly conclude, wow, this guy's listening. This guy's pretty smart. And in point of fact, the young man melted and cried and opened up and formed a real a meaningful connection. And that's how the disarming technique works. But you have to be able to learn how to do it and it won't come naturally. It can be learned. I had to learn it. I worked two months to learn how to disarm what seemed like ridiculous criticisms.

 

Jill Levitt: And David, lots of people had, you know, some people put caught on and put in the chat box, you're right, I can be stupid. And of course, it goes a lot deeper than that, really seeing the truth in what the patient is experiencing. But some people were defensive in the chat box. You know, from your perspective, I might be stupid or, you know, everyone's stupid sometimes or, you know, and I'm just sharing that to say that we all of us have a lot to learn around, how to disarm effectively. And it's so tempting to defend ourselves and to say, I can see how you might think that, or different things that kind of qualify, you're trying to disarm, but you're really kind of being sneakily defensive. So we're going to do a challenging disarming exercise with all of you. This one we're just going to do in the chat box, although later there's going to be an opportunity to actually practice with us live. But in this exercise, we are going to imagine that the patient says to you, you're not helping me, you don't get me, and you don't even like me. How would you respond to that using the disarming technique? And we are going to teach you so many other techniques today too. That will be really helpful. But for now, just how can you see the truth in what the patient is saying?

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Now keep in mind, we have given you an easy example previously and this is challenging. And the disarming technique is you have to agree literally agree with three things. You're not helping me. Okay? You have to agree with that. You don't get me. Okay? You have to agree with that. You don't even like me. The patient is saying to you or the teenager or your son or daughter who whoever you have to agree with that. How are you going to do it? Let's you can stuff if you like and put it in the chat. But this but one of our philosophies today is called learning joyous learning through joyous failure. And then if you're willing to failure to fail and set your ego aside that's how you're going to learn. And this is an exercise there's a high likelihood you'll fail on. So, put your best shot in the chat and check your ego at the door and we will give you some feedback.

 

Jill Levitt: And someone asked the question, hopefully you should believe what you say to disarm. Yes, absolutely. It has to be.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. When you disarm, you have to come from the heart and it has to be 100% true, right? So, what's 100% true? You're not helping me. You don't get me. What's 100% true? you don't even like me. If a patient says that or your teenage son or daughter says that, what's the 100% true response to that?

 

Jill Levitt: So, should I read some that are coming in, David?

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, sure.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah. So, we got you're absolutely right. I'm not helping you. Probably even blocking you from talking about what's important to you.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Let's stop right there. I'd give that one an A+ on you're not helping me.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah. Yep. Absolutely right. Someone said, "You're right. I'm not helping you and I don't get you. I don't like your behavior. How can I best help you right now?"

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. The I don't like your behavwell, you give your feedback on that.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you. So, you know, you're right. I'm not helping you and I don't get you or I'm not understanding you. I think that part is the beginning of a good disarm, right? At least to the you're not helping me part and maybe I don't get you. I think the I don't like your behavior in this context feels off-putting. Definitely not disarming at this point. And it could feel.

 

Dr. David Burns: It's not genuine disarm. It's the therapist trying to m preserve your ego and be an expert. I don't like your behavior. You're you're saying, you know, you're denying that their statement, you don't even like me. And it's you're just putting them down, which proves that they're right.

 

Jill Levitt: This one actually, I think, does it something similar, but I think, you know, stronger here is you're right. I haven't been helping you. I think it's true. I don't understand you and right now I'm having a hard time liking you. And again, there'd be a lot more that I think would go into a strong five secrets response, but from the perspective of disarming, I think that's right on the right track.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, that's a beautiful first step. Kudos to whoever put that in the chat.

 

Jill Levitt: Samantha, we've got some people doing some inquiry, like, can you explain to me what I've done so that I can do better?

 

Dr. David Burns: that's kind of a problem-solving thing and a severe avoidance of the disarming tech technique.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah. We have a this is an error we sometimes highlight. David, I'm so sorry I'm not helping you. How can I help you?

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. That's like apologizing and problemolving and not acknowledging the truth in these statements.

 

Jill Levitt: Right? Yeah, there if people if you practice it with partners or with loved ones, you realize there's so much relief that comes from someone saying, "You're right. I really haven't been helping you. The work we've been doing together hasn't been.

 

Dr. David Burns: Should we just model a good maybe a decent response to these, Jill?"

 

Jill Levitt: Sure and just to say, "Yep, we've got lot." So, if you sent in your response, thank you. And we've got hundreds and hundreds of them. So, I won't be

 

Dr. David Burns: Oh, that's so cool.

 

Jill Levitt: But that is so cool. And I'm thrilled that people are, you know, giving it a good shot here.

 

Dr. David Burns: Any more you want to highlight, Mike?

 

Mike: Yeah. And I think Jill's really captured the essence of so many of them. There's some real brilliant ones in there, and there's some that are definitely got some work to do.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Cool.

 

Jill Levitt: So, David, why don't I should I hurl this one at you and you can give us a beautiful response.

 

Dr. David Burns: Sure. Well, I'll do my best. I might, you know, get a F also.

 

Jill Levitt: Okay. So, Dr. Burns, you are not helping me. You don't get me. And you don't even like me.

 

Dr. David Burns: You know, it's really painful to hear what you're saying, Jill. Because I have to say that I am with you 100% on all three things that you just said and I feel kind of sad and ashamed because I you know I do have a tremendous amount of respect for you but you know the scores and the tone of the last few sessions—I thought we were doing well up till two or three weeks ago, but then I have just been totally not connecting with you and understanding you. in last two or three weeks and what I have been doing has not been helping, in fact, your depression scores have been getting worse every week. During the sessions, instead of working together as a team, this adversarial thing has come in where We are almost defending and arguing and rather than me giving you support for the tremendous pain that you are feeling inside. Yes, I have had feelings of dislike and frustration and anger for you in the last couple of sessions, and I wouldn't be surprised if you're feeling like that as well. And I want to hear about that. But as painful as this is, I think this is exactly what we need to talk about to get on the same page together and start doing the kind of compassionate effective work that you're hoping for and that I'm hoping for as well. So with that in mind, tell me more. I can imagine this has been very painful for you that you're feeling hurt that you know, probably feeling a bit angry and for good reason and discouraged. I'm eager to listen. I want to hear what you have to say.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah. Beautiful, David. I'll give you an A+ on that. And I'll just I want everyone to know number one, yes, you did beautiful disarming. So you were able to disarm kind of all three parts and agree with all three parts of the patient statement. And then you know you definitely used many many of the other five secrets too. You shared your feelings with the patient. You did some stroking about caring about the patient. You ended with some inquiry inviting the patient to share more. So just to let everyone know that was kind of a beautiful five secrets response with all the bells and whistles. And that's what we're going to be right sharing with you for the remainder of today. But it's, you know, hard to get there, right? And you did a beautiful job, David.

 

Dr. David Burns: One of the reasons is that our ego gets in the way, and this requires humility and the great death that the Buddha talked about 2500 years ago, the great death of the self and seeing things through the eyes of the other person. And for those of you who are not therapists, this slight change in that could be your teenage son or daughter or your partner during a marital argument or any dispute with any anyone. You know, you don't get me. You're not helping me. You don't even like me. I can imagine a you know, I you don't love me. You don't care about me. You know those things are so hard for us to agree with because our ego won't permit us to see that we actually haven't been coming across in a loving caring way and we really are pissed off at the other person.

 

Jill Levitt: And David, I'm going to before we move on, I want to address one comment that a therapist made, which was they said, "I wonder if some of this could be received as passive aggressive." And I want to address that right off the bat because if you were thinking that would leave a really bad taste in your mouth. I want to say that everything that we're teaching and everything that we practice is totally coming from the heart. It's authentic. We actually believe that our patients have a right to feel what they're feeling and that there is truth in what they're saying. We're not bullshitting. We're not being passive aggressive. We're not doing anything sneaky or manipulative. In truth, I've been practicing this for 18 years now. And in truth, when I'm empathic and disarming in my personal life, it is 100% true. When my kids say, "Mom, you're being so annoying." And I say, "I know. I was just being so annoying, bugging you about this thing." I totally mean it. I'm not being passive aggressive. I see the truth in what people are saying when they're critical of me. So that'll be important for people to actually feel and experience right as you practice. We do need to keep moving David. So maybe you could just make a quick comment on this slide.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. And then you know disarming is incredibly hard as that last challenging question brought out that instead of doing it and being genuine, people want to act fake and passive aggressive. Why is it so hard? Well, one thing is you may not know how to listen to the music behind the words. You see that the patient's words or the your son or daughter's words are distorted and illogical and exaggerated, but there's something they're trying to tell you that is 100% true. And it also requires the great death of the self. Humility and genuiness. These are not techniques to try to manipulate someone.

 

Jill Levitt: So, let's we just did disarming, right? And so, the next secret or doesn't really matter what order, but the next secret we'll talk about is thought empathy. And this one is straightforward, although still challenging. The idea is that you're going to repeat what the other person said using their words so that they know that you're listening to them. And writing down what your patients say during session and especially if someone is saying something that's kind of angry or accusatory. Jotting down notes while you're listening to them so that you can actually kind of repeat back what they're saying. It, you know, sounds like you're saying A, B, and C or yeah, I heard that you were tell sharing A, B, and C with me and really kind of repeating back exactly what they said. So, taking notes, repeating things back, using their words, and again, of course, not doing this in a robotic way, but in a way where I'm really understanding what you're trying to tell me.

 

Dr. David Burns: Beautifully stated, Jill.

 

Jill Levitt: And then feeling empathy. This is or sorry, I feel statements, which is actually one of my favorites, although some therapists really struggle with it because I feel like this is where you have a chance to be really open.

 

Dr. David Burns: Can I ask a quick question? Why are we going from thought empathy to I feel statements?

 

Jill Levitt: Oh, you're right. Did I skip one? I haven't I've been having trouble with the cursor today. I don't know. Wait, do we do thought empathy? Where is feeling empathy?

 

Dr. David Burns: Generally, we do feeling empathy and you know

 

Jill Levitt: I feel like our slide disappeared on feeling empathy, which I don't understand. Why don't

 

Dr. David Burns: let's tell them what feeling empathy is.

 

Jill Levitt: Go ahead. And I'm so puzzled because I know it was there.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, it is. It is a puzzle. But feeling empathy is the other half. There's thought empathy and feeling empathy. Once you know the other person's words, repeat their words. Like you told me that everyone's trying to screw you over all the time. And then I can imagine that you might be feeling A B and C something like that. And so how are they feeling if they think people are trying to screw them over? I can imagine you feel angry and frightened and tremendously insecure. And then the inquiry can you tell me if I'm reading you right? Can you tell me how you are feeling? You know that type of thing.

 

Jill Levitt: So the feeling empathy is, you know, wondering about how the patient might be feeling and using feeling words to bring that to life. And honestly, I know the slide was there, so I have no idea what happened. But I feel statement was what I was sharing with you guys, which is so thought empathy and feeling empathy and disarming are all about seeing the world through your patients eyes, right? Helping them to feel heard, understood, validated. And then I'm going to share my feelings with them in a direct but very respectful way. This is not an opportunity to dump my feelings on the patient. And I'm always going to be thoughtful about what I share. And quite often if a patient is angry with me, I might be saying, "I'm feeling really sad that I've let you down. I'm feeling disappointed that the work we've been doing together hasn't been helpful to you." We can share other kinds of feelings, even anger in a skillful and kindly way. I've been feeling a little bit irritated with kind of the tension between the two of us. But the goal of sharing I feel statements is, you know, to be a real authentic human being and insert yourself into this rather than it all just being sort of about the patient.

 

Dr. David Burns: And is this only about patience, Jill?

 

Jill Levitt: Oh, there you go, David. There's your I feel I have no idea why. Reversed order. No. Sharing your feelings with people in your life. When friends and family members disappoint me or let me down, I can share my feelings with them rather than go at them and be angry and critical. This was our I feel statement, which I don't think we should go back over, but somehow we reverse the order of them. But let's talk about stroking. So stroking is when you want to find something genuinely positive to say to the other person as we say even in the heat of battle. So even when someone is angry with you and you might be feeling defensive and attacked you know I appreciate how open and vulnerable you've been and I feel sad that you're facing so much pain and struggling in your life. So the I appreciate how open and vulnerable you've been is a stroking and I feel sad is an I feel statement right that you're that you're facing so much pain and struggling in your life. And then finally inquiry which David modeled for us when he was doing a five secrets response. And inquiry is using gentle probing questions to encourage the other person to open up and say more. Our goal isn't to have a great response that shuts the patient up, but rather to have a response that shows the patient that we care, that we're listening, or the loved one that we care that we're listening, that we're here, and then to invite them to share more. So, what you're saying sounds really important to me. Can you tell me more about how you've been feeling? Or what you're saying sounds really important, and I want to know, am I getting you? You know, am I reading you right? So inquiry kind of comes at the end where we want to invite the patient or the loved one to share more and to open up and we want to ask them to share about the hardest feelings. So you know you sounded like you were feeling worried. Were you also maybe feeling a little bit heard or angry? Were there feelings of resentment? So, we're inviting them to share some of the hardest or more forbidden feelings rather than trying to, you know, wrap it up in a bow and problem solve. And then David, why don't you share about this one?

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, this is kind of a fifth secret of effective communication called positive reframing. And the term can be used in a lot of different ways, but this is a specific way of using it. And often we're dealing with conflict. That what it's hardest to learn how to communicate effectively when there's hard feelings go going on. And I like to reframe it as this is painful for us, but this is going to lead us to greater love in our family or in our father son relationship or the same therapeutically. That this is painful. But we can talk this through and maybe hit a home run and you know say all this is really upsetting for both of us right now and it's hard to talk about I do care a lot about you and I think it's going to be extremely helpful for bringing us closer and improving our work together if it's therapy or improving you know and making our relationship more loving. And with that in mind, tell me what it's been like for you. I'm ready to hear about those hard negative feelings. U you know, something along those lines.

 

Jill Levitt: And positive reframing in this capacity because we do use it to refer to other things is so helpful in the real world, not even in therapy. If a friend were bringing something up to me that they were hurt about or upset about, I would very easily be saying, "It's kind of hard to hear this, and I'm feeling really badly and a little bit embarrassed." And also, honestly, I'm so glad that you're bringing this up. It feels so important for us to be able to talk about it in our relationship, right? Like, I want to have a relationship where we can be open and talk about things that are really hard. So, I appreciate that you're bringing it up as hard as it is. like what an opportunity kind of for growth and for connection. And you have to believe that again along with all of these things like you have to want to hear what the other person is saying and have a better relationship and really shine the light on yourself and your flaws. 

 

Dr. David Burns: All of this has to come from the heart or will fail completely. And the five secrets are fantastically powerful and effective, but it's really easy to screw up with any of the five secrets. And we'll go into some of the common errors later on, but it’s not going to be easy. These are not gimmicks. These are not simple things. And they're often hard emotionally as well as in intellectually because they do require the death of the self and humility.

 

Jill Levitt: So, David, now we're going to do a demonstration. We're going to actually invite two audience volunteers. And what we'd like you to do is send a message in the chat if you're willing to volunteer. You won't know yet if you're going to be the therapist or the patient. So, you have to be willing to play either role. And you're going to do just what David and I did. The patient is going to kind of hurl an insult or an angry comment at the therapist. And therapist is going to have a chance to respond using the five secrets. And then we're going to give feedback and you know we want you to volunteer with the intention of checking your ego at the door. And David, you can make a comment about learning through joyous failure. And in the meantime, Mike is going to unmute two volunteers and kind of bring you up visually for us and then we're going to do a quick practice with you.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. And you can volunteer too if it's a conflict with your son or daughter or you know someone in your personal life rather than a therapy example that works just as good.

 

Mike: We've got Katie and Chris are here and I you should be able to unmute and if you.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah. So let's see. Yep. Chris and Katie if you guys can both unmute yourselves. There you go. I can see both of you. And you're both unmuted, too.

 

Mike: Are you able to spotlight them as well, Jill?

 

Jill Levitt: Sure. And David, why don't you explain the Let's but and then you can we can have them introduce themselves, but David, do you want me to move the slide and you can kind of talk about how this is going to go?

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Is this going to be a therapy one of you know Katie and Chris?

 

Jill Levitt: I think so.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Okay. And then one of but then and the main thing are you both ready to learn through joyous failure then you know absolutely screw up and be grateful for it.

 

Chris: I'm good at screwing up. I'm glad to be grateful for it.

 

Dr. David Burns: Okay. Awesome. That's that's music to my ears. Now we're going to have one of you play the role of an unhappy disgruntled patient. Who can get into the mindset of an unhappy disgruntled patient?

 

Katie: I can.

 

Dr. David Burns: Oh, good. Yeah, that was very smart to volunteer quickly because you got by far the best role there. And the slides seem to be jumping around still.

 

Jill Levitt: Yep. Let's let's we're good. Let's keep going.

 

Dr. David Burns: Okay, you know, Katie, you can make any kind of hostile statement to the therapist. You can just make something up and you can be just as difficult as you want to be. You don't have to be polite. You don't want to have soft see if you can blow Chris out of the water. You've been, you know, pent up for some time. and he began using the empathy scale with you at the last session and he realizes he got a terrible score on empathy and he's asking you about it. Now is your chance to dump. The only thing this is a hard rule for you to follow. Casey

 

Jill Levitt: “Katie”

 

Dr. David Burns: Okay. Yeah. Katie, once you have made your statement, stop. Now, let's on the count of three together, let's say stop. 1 2 3

 

Katie: Stop.

 

Dr. David Burns: And do you know what stop means, Katie?

 

Katie: To stop.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Stop talking. Because he's going to respond to your criticism. And u he might be brilliant, but more likely he's going to be incredibly lame, which will make your anger increase. You'll have an irresistible urge to keep attacking him. Do not do that. And I'll say it one more time. Do not do that. instead “stop” because we're done with the demonstration and then we're going to analyze it because in you know he doesn't have to make more errors after his first response. She will have made so many we will have a lot to talk about and case Casey Katie you can give them a letter grade we'll give them a letter grade too tell you Chris what you did right what worked what didn't work and what would have to happen to get up you know maybe from a C to an A or some something of that type. So Katie, do you know what you're supposed to do?

 

Katie: Yes, I understand.

 

Dr. David Burns: And Chris, do you know what you're supposed to do?

 

Chris: Yes.

 

Dr. David Burns: You respond with the five secrets as effectively as you can. Do your best work. You might want to disarm her or acknowledge your feelings. I often say in this, that no therapist well, I've done over a thousand of these and only three therapists were able to acknowledge anger. And that's going to be so important in the feeling empathy, Katie. But I'm just telling you ahead of time, you'll forget to do that. And when someone's angry and you don't acknowledge it, they'll they'll get even more pissed off. But we'll check all of these all of these things out. But you might want to disarm, use an I feel statement, inquire, restro, whatever you think is going to work, Chris. And by the way, thank you for both of you because this is really a difficult exercise and you kudos to both of you for and love to both of you for being being brave. So are you ready? You both you know what you have to do Katie. You know what you have to do, Chris. Okay. and you in the audience, you should write down what Katie says and that way and also how Chris responds. That way, we'll be able to critique it. Okay?

 

Jill Levitt: So, if you just to reiterate that in the audience, write down what Katie says as best as you can. Make sure you're doing that. And then write down Chris's response as best as you can because what we want you to be thinking about is did Chris use disarming thought empathy, feeling empathy, stroking. We're not going to invite you to give feedback, but we want you to like be on your toes as if you were about to give feedback. See if you can see the five secrets in there. Okay. So, Katie, you're you're up.

 

Katie: All right. Chris, you're a horrible therapist. You're do a horrible job of listening. You don't even know how I'm feeling. I'm feeling so anxious and terrified and you're just trying to push me to like fix it. Like, can you go out and do this? It's like, no, I'm anxious. I feel I can't believe you've helped any other clients. I can't imagine how you continue to be a therapist because you're totally unhelpful.

 

Dr. David Burns: Now, if we could just give a little round of applause in the audience for that A+ attack. That was gorgeous. I'll applaud it.

 

Jill Levitt: Right. We're all applauding.

 

Chris: Yeah.

 

Jill Levitt: Oscar nominated a performance.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. And now your turn, Chris.

 

Chris: Hey, that was difficult to hear, but I'm so glad that you told me how you're feeling. You're right. I have not been a good therapist for you. I have not made you feel heard and I haven't given you the support that you needed. And I want to sincerely apologize for that. I want to do better. And so I would very much appreciate it if you could spend a few more minutes with me today to tell me more about how you're feeling so that I can learn to be a better therapist for you.

 

Dr. David Burns: Okay, I'm just writing it down. Well, thank you for that and let me start with you and then we'll get to Jill. But what letter grade did you give yourself? Chris on your response? Did you give yourself an A, B, C?

 

Chris: I would probably give myself a ”D” there.

 

Dr. David Burns: A what? a ”D”

 

Chris: ”D” Yep.

 

Dr. David Burns: a ”D”. A low grade. And that's a severe low grade. Where did you grade it so low? Or what did you think was missing? And what where did you think you screwed up?

 

Chris: I don't think I fully I don't think I got everything in there. I don't think that I disarmed well. And I'm concerned that I didn't do a good enough job acknowledging her anger. And I think that I didn't use enough of her words.

 

Dr. David Burns: Okay. Yeah. Good specific feedback. What grade did you give it, Katie?

 

Katie: I gave it a "B".

 

Dr. David Burns: Okay. And then tell us what you thought Chris worked and worked for you and what might have been improved a little bit.

 

Katie: What worked well is you started with acknowledging like you're right. I didn't and I haven't been helping you and you fully embraced that. what didn't work so well, but it didn't it wasn't that bad was saying tell me how I can be better or inviting me to like how can I be a better therapist which it felt genuine that you know and but didn't quite it was kind of like halfway there to like okay I get that you are wanting to help me but it was a little focused on your skills which part of me wants to support yeah I'd like you to be a therapist a better therapist.

 

Dr. David Burns: That was brilliant feedback.

 

Chris: Thank you.

 

Dr. David Burns: And Chris, I thought you I love your humility and your openness. I thought you were a bit hard on yourself and you did a lot of things right. Let's see what Jill what you.

 

Jill Levitt: Well, also I was going to compliment Chris. I mean, number one, yes, you were hard on yourself. You did a lot of things right, but also you had such fantastic articulate feedback for yourself. That was spot on. So number one, we so often see it's like nearly impossible, close to impossible for therapists to acknowledge patients anger with feeling empathy. Right. That's kind of and you highlighted that. You caught it, Chris. Right here. She is definitely angry, disappointed, hopeless, pissed off, and you missed that. And so I thought that was great that you saw that. That was the biggest thing that stood out for me. I also totally agree with Katie. There was something about your inquiry that it was not open-ended inquiry. It was not I would like to understand more about you and how you've been feeling, your anxiety, your anger, you know, tell me more. Instead, it was like I'd appreciate it if you could please tell me more about how you're feeling so I can learn to be a better therapist. It definitely felt self centered rather than patient focused.

 

Chris: Yeah, I see that now that you say it.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah, and it wasn't terrible. Again, I think like Katie said, she it still passed, but it wasn't it did it wouldn't invite her to sort of open up and share more. And there was one other piece I thought could have been a bit better disarmed, which is she did say in the beginning, you're pushing me to do things like the thought empathy is kind of like you're a terrible therapist because here I am so anxious and you're just telling me go out there and do this stuff. And I felt like that was her story and that's thought empathy would have been to repeat that. You're right. I have been pushing you awfully hard, right? I'm not seeing how hard these things are for you to do. So, yeah, I would have I'm with Katie with definitely giving you a “B”. There were a lot of things you did really well and then just some things that would be bells and whistles to make it even better.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yes. I'm with Katie and Jill and saying that Chris, you're I love your attitude and your humility. It's just mind-blowing and you're close to getting into world class area, but I thought the their feedback was really good. You know, I also thought that the thought empathy that you avoided certain words that were humiliating and it'll go away if I don't mention it, you know, you were you my goodness Katie, you and also when you said I'm so glad you told me. I don't think gladness was what you were feeling. You know, but well Katie, I'm feeling kind of shocked and a little bit ashamed, you know, quite ashamed right now because you're telling me that I'm not failing you, but I'm a horrible therapist. And you can't imagine how I could ever be helpful to anyone and that you've been in a panic and struggling with anxiety and you're terrified. And then I'm telling you things to do to fix it rather than giving you one ounce of warmth and support and acknowledgement and you're saying you can't imagine, you know, how I can continue being a therapist and seeing other patients and I can only imagine how hurt and disappointed and probably pretty damn I'm angry with me too that you're feeling and as awful as this moment feels to me and it feels bad because I do care about you and I respect you tremendously but I'm pretty amazed that you came in to share this with me and I'm very grateful that you did and let's talk it through because maybe this is just the dialogue we need to get on the same page together to do some really effective work and help you deal with these feelings of anxiety and terror. And with that in mind, tell me more. Tell me about your anger, your rage, your disappointment. This is incredibly important. How was that?

 

Chris: Thank you. That was fantastic.

 

Dr. David Burns: Oh, thank you. Yeah. Oh, thank you. That's a relief. Particularly when you're teaching, you know, really sucks when you're teaching.

 

Jill Levitt: No pressure, David. just give us an A+ response, you know, but no pressure. You're not the expert or anything.

 

Dr. David Burns: But yes, and then what we would be doing is you know, and we're going to give you a lot of resources you know, free resources, classes you could you can take, but then we would do role reversals back and forth. We're not going to do that here right now because we have a lot of more cool things to teach you. But go back with free resources until you both can get an A or an A+ on that. So to get it today, learn it today, not at some point in the distant future. But you guys gave us and thanks especially to your humility. Chris, Katie, your superb skills and beautiful accurate feedback and majestically horrific attack which was that's what we want. If you can learn to handle that, you can handle anything. And Jill for your you know as always incredibly beautiful teaching and feedback. And the last question I have is what was this like for each of you emotionally? And let's start with you Katie. Was this easy? Was it difficult? Was it anxiety provoking? Was it challenging? What was the experience like?

 

Katie: It was a little challenging and anxiety provoking and also I felt a little bad Chris who did a wonderful job. I felt so bad saying those mean things. But it was worth it. It was. And at the end, I felt really like almost like hearing your response and Chris's response, like my own anxiety and my anger just went down like it melted. Like I felt the empathy.

 

Dr. David Burns: Oh, yeah. Neat. That's so great to hear. Chris, what was this experience like for you? You're the hero actually to tonight or today.

 

Chris: It was yeah there was a lot of anxiety. Especially because it this experiment kind of actually mirrors what I'm going through in my actual life at the moment.

 

Dr. David Burns: Oh my goodness.

 

Chris: But at the same time it was it was so helpful. You know, I'm a little emotional, but

 

Dr. David Burns: yeah, let the tears come.

 

Chris: Read reading the slides is great and the information's fantastic, but when you when you went through it as I should have done it, like actually seeing it, you learn a lot better, a lot more effectively, I think. And I think this really helped me. Thank you.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Oh, that's so beautiful. And the only learning comes through practice. And today is like a Whitman sampler like trying to turn you on to here's some things which it's like playing the piano and you can't just sit down and pound on the keys. You've got to do a lot of practice and get feedback. And how beautiful are your tears. I love you, Chris.

 

Mike: Just there's there's a lot of in the chat box just admiration for you Chris right now, your humility and so touching and just people are going, "Wow, thank you for this gift."

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. And we'll show you so many resources at the end for those of you who want to pick this up and run with it and you know ways you can practice you know all kinds of free things. You can join Jill and David's weekly Stanford group. There's free five secrets training groups going on all over the world. There's the love bot and the feeling great app. We'll give you a lot to but thank you for hitting a home run, Chris.

 

Chris: Thank you.

 

Jill Levitt: I also totally relate to the idea that learning these skills feels empowering and exciting and also very emotional when we frequently realize just how we're not doing a great job of connecting with people in our lives or of truly, you know.

 

Dr. David Burns: It's shocking.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah. But it's also like an amazing opportunity.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Those are those are tears of joy.

 

Jill Levitt: Thank you so much. And we'll follow up with you and give you lots of opportunities to keep learning and growing. Kind of want to give you a little heart here. David, I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to sharing my screen and we do have to fly through.

 

Dr. David Burns: Okay.

 

Jill Levitt: Fly through the next bit.

 

Dr. David Burns: Okay.

 

Jill Levitt: And this slide we just wanted to share. you know, this was a patient example, but clearly you could be practicing the exact same thing with the other person being your son, your daughter, your partner, your boss, you know, anyone in your real life. So these empathy skills apply not only to therapy situations, but

 

Dr. David Burns: And I think that's what Chris was telling us, too.

 

Jill Levitt: Absolutely. Yeah. So, David, we have a couple of five secrets tips and five secrets common errors to go through here. Yeah, we've already talked about this one. It must be genuine and come from the heart. And there's nothing about these techniques that are designed to manipulate others or twist things around.

 

Dr. David Burns: And you saw Chris coming from the heart in the discussion at the end, and you saw how powerful and be beautiful that was. And that's what we're aiming for, not phony manipulation.

 

Jill Levitt: We also talked about this part, right? That tremendous practice with feedback will be required. I'm going to share my story with you at the end of the webinar, but learning these skills and learning them really well has definitely taken a lot of practice. And we have lots of ways that we're going to share with you that you can practice with us or on your own, I guess. Yeah, let's we can move through this one, but we talked about humility. We've talked about drive, hard work, and then willingness to change yourself instead of blaming others.

 

Dr. David Burns: So, you see, when Sterling sat down with me and I saw what he was doing, he wasn't doing it on purpose. He was just doing the only thing he knew how to do. But I developed an intense desire to learn from what he was showing me because I knew he had something I didn't have. I had a lot that he didn't have. I knew tons of clever techniques that I taught him that he, you know, he couldn't have figured out on his own, I'm sure. But he had the gift of love, the gift of healing, the gift of listening, the gift of empathy. And I just I desired that and I said, I'm going to, you know, learn this. I'm going to change my life and learn how to teach it to my students as well. Okay. There are errors with each of the five secrets. It's not easy as you've seen. And in the handout we created for you, we have all the common errors, but we're just going to point out some with a couple of the techniques to give you a feel. I'll turn it over to you, Jill, here.

 

Jill Levitt: Sure. Yeah. So, please take a look at your handout packet and you can read through all the common errors on your own. We'll talk about a few of our favorites or ones we see most frequently. So, we talked about disarming. You know what that is? is finding the truth in what the patient says even when it seems unreasonable or unfair. And so one we have a couple errors people frequently make with the disarming technique. And one which I saw lots of people do in the chat box was what feels kind of patronizing. So instead of saying you're absolutely right, I did keep you waiting and that was really disrespectful saying I can see how you might feel that way. which if you say that to someone in your personal life or to your patient, it actually doesn't feel like you are genuinely disarming or agreeing. It feels kind of patronizing. And

 

Dr. David Burns: It's a put down. You're saying I can see how you have screwed up ideas because you're such a sick disturbed person.

 

Jill Levitt: It's like it's your perception that right rather than there's actual truth in it.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. And some people go their entire lives never learning how to see the truth and what other people are saying.

 

Jill Levitt: Absolutely. And then the next disarming error that we frequently see and engage in ourselves is defensiveness. You know, trying to explain why the other person is wrong. Right. So someone says, "You kept me waiting and that was disrespectful." And then saying, "Oh, yeah, you're right. I did. It's because A and B and C happened.

 

Dr. David Burns: I had an emergency that I had to attend to and blah blah."

 

Jill Levitt: And there might be a time to share that, right? It's not that you have to hide that and you're never going to explain the circumstances. But when someone is angry, we are aiming to see the world through their eyes first, right? There's a round two can come later where you might want to explain things, but you know, not initially, not in the deescalation, not in the connecting phase.

 

Dr. David Burns: You know what you're saying, Jill? It's just plain wrong.

 

Jill Levitt: You're absolutely right. I frequently say things that are wrong. You haven't seen half of it.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah.

 

Jill Levitt: I also jump the slides around quite often, too.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah.

 

Jill Levitt: And then failure to understand, right? So, this is again not seeing the truth in the criticism, not really getting the truth. Were you going to say something, David?

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Well, just that this happens to almost everybody. There's always truth in a criticism. Once I figured out what the disarming technique was, I spent two months on the train going home from work trying to write down an impossible criticism of me that someone could throw at me. And I finally figured out there's nothing people could criticize me for that I couldn't completely agree with. But it takes it took me two months to figure out how to find the truth in any criticism

 

Jill Levitt: Right, and so a lot of people were putting in the chat, what if someone said this? What if someone Right? So it's very hard for you to imagine that someone would say something and that you would be able to find the truth in it. And we also want to remember if someone says you're the stupidest person that ever lived. The disarming is not you are absolutely right. I am truly the stupidest person that ever lived. Right? We're not saying you have to agree with the statement itself, but you have to find a grain of truth. I was acting like a total idiot just now. like that might be true whereas I might not think I'm the stupidest person who ever lived. So you've got to find the truth and that's hard and it takes practice. So the other secret we were going to do a few errors with is the I feel statements, right? So this remember is when you share with the patient I feel X when X is an actual feeling word. So, this one is kind of my favorite error that therapists make all the time, which is Oh, it's actually on the next slide. Sorry. I we'll do this one first. But, why do people fail to share their feelings? Sometimes it's your training. You were told not to share your feelings with your patients. Sometimes it's because you feel kind of ashamed of the feelings that you have. You think you're not supposed to have these feelings. You're not supposed to be irritated or angry or frustrated or feel hopeless. you feel embarrassed about sharing those feelings or you're just plain afraid of conflict. So, your goal is to kind of sweep your feelings under the rug, pretend you don't have any feelings, and just kind of plate the other person. And we don't recommend you do any of that. The problem is if you don't share your feelings with friends, family, patients, then you end up coming across as kind of phony. And so, you know, we see that one a lot. What I was saying that I was my favorite was that a lot of people will say I feel and then they say something that's not a feeling word, right? So, it's only an I feel statement if it's I feel followed by an actual feeling word, hurt, sad, lonely. But if you say I feel like you're being kind of defensive or I feel like you're not listening to me, let's say in your personal life, I feel like you're not listening to me. That's not a feeling at all. That's actually a criticism of the other person. So, I feel like you're defensive. I feel like you're wrong. I feel like you're acting like a jerk. So, any of these things is actually a criticism that you'd be attacking the other person with rather than an I feel statement. And even though we teach this, we see that particular error all the time because I think it's like part of the semantics of our language. How about you do this one, David?

 

Dr. David Burns: Well, another I feel error is going overboard in the other direction. I'll give a therapeutic example, but could be a family one, too. So, suppose the patient you go overboard with expressing your feelings. So, you overwhelm the other person. It's like trying to get them to take care of you. Like, if a patient says to you, “you know, Dr. Burns, you're not helping me and you don't understand me.” And then I might say, "Oh, you know, that's so true. In fact, you're my last patient. All the others have dropped out of therapy. My wife tells me the same thing, and we're getting a divorce. You know, I'm just a total screw-up." Well, that

 

Jill Levitt: Not helpful. That's not helpful to the patient, right? Like that's not done in the best interest of your patient.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah, exactly.

 

Jill Levitt: Patient feels like they've got to rescue you or help you, right? So, that's probably not what we're suggesting.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. But expressing your feelings with stroking and positive reframing can help. Like you patient might say, do Dr. Burns, you haven't been helping me at all. And I say it's I feel really sad and ashamed to hear what you're saying for a couple of reasons, but first because I totally agree with you. I've been missing the boat. But also because, you know, I think so much. I feel so strongly positive about you. I really respect you and care for you. And at the same time and then we'll do some positive reframing. This conversation while hard that this can get us on this on the same page together so we can do some really great work. And with that in mind, you know, tell me more. But that's a nice way to express your feelings with stroking and positive reframing.

 

Jill Levitt: And then David, sorry, let me just see this.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah.

 

Jill Levitt: Okay. So then we're going to quickly just talk a little bit about how one can learn whether or not they are an empathic therapist.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Because there's there's two steps and we hinted at the beginning is the hint that most therapists in fact nearly all therapists are not very empathic. They we think we are but we're not. And the general public family members it's the same thing. Now let just looking at therapy for the moment once you find out that you're failing in therapy that's step one to have the courage to know and then the second thing is how am I then going to develop some good or even world class the therapy skills and so this is the measurement and so at this is the empathy scale I created years ago and we still have every patient fill it out at the end of every session. Now look closely at this. It goes from not at all to completely true. And this person gave you this rating at the end of the therapy session. Completely true on four items and very true on number five. So out of a perfect score of 19 out of 20, you got a 19. And then I let me just ask people in the audience, what would you think of if you got this score from your patient? Maybe people could put in the chat what they think and then I'll tell you what this what this score actually means.

 

Jill Levitt: Just tell us if you got this score, what would you be feeling? So, we've got one I'd feel good about it. We've got one saying wonderful, awesome. Others saying it's a failing grade.

 

Dr. David Burns: So, yeah. Well, the correct answer is it if we can go to the next one.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. Well, it's yeah, it's a failing grade. “U” and let's go back and I'll tell you why. You see the patient is telling you that my therapist didn't quite understand how I felt inside and they may be condemning you here with faint praise. They may have wanted to put a two or a one here. And we're trying to make it easy for you to fail. We have an anti-perfectionism thing here. So, we're trying to make failure as easy as possible for the therapist and what this means particularly if you talk about this to this patient to say I'm really glad that you I scored good here in four of the categories, but I also agree with you that last session I didn't I wasn't getting how you felt inside and this is important. Tell me what about the part that I missed and then they'll open up and tell you and then you'll get a perfect score and so the idea with the empathy scale is to use it with every patient at every session have them fill it out a after the session there's a form called the evaluation of therapy session and they rate other things too but that's how one way that you can find out and when therapists use this scale they typically get failing same grades for most patients, sometimes all patients at every session. And if your ego can tolerate that, then you can begin to learn to get way better empathy scores, improve your empathy skills with patients. And then another fantastic Well, you want to do the this one, Jill?

 

Jill Levitt: Sure. The another way that you can assess your empathy is just live in sessions with patients. And therapists often bulk at this, but after you've done what you think is a good job of really listening and connecting with your patient, you can say, "How am I doing in terms of my empathy? It's important for me to understand before we move forward, and I wonder if you could kind of give me a letter grade. How am I doing at really understanding what you've been sharing with me? And how am I doing at understanding your feelings? And are you feeling like I'm getting you with a sense of kind of warmth, acceptance, and connection? And you can actually ask your patient to kind of grade you in each of these areas. And again, therapists areshy about doing this, but we're often giving examples of it, encouraging therapists to do this so that you can get honest, accurate empathy. And if the patient says, "Yeah, you know, I give you a B." Then we can say, "Yeah, I'm sounds like I'm not quite getting you yet. Is there can you tell me more about, you know, what you haven't shared or is there more about what I haven't gotten?" Or if they tell you haven't been warm or empathic, then you need to kind of double down on those skills.

 

Dr. David Burns: Yeah. This is one of the most powerful tools I've ever created to give those three letter grades. Even we were doing it in the Tuesday group doing live work with somebody a week or two ago and he gave us you know on thought empathy and “A+” feeling empathy and “A+” and then warmth and acceptance a “B” and that kind of stung at first and then we said well tell us more about that and that's important and then he said well what I haven't told you is I'm working first full-time as a high-tech engineer my love is coaching and I hope to become a full-time coach, but I'm sitting here with all of you know PhDs and all of these fancy people and I feel like I'm not one of the Tuesday group yet and you know I'm not feeling cared about or acceptance and then that led into doing some work with him that ended up in a home run. And so you don't need to be afraid of failing. The you know it the Buddhists say there's no such thing as success or failure. And I totally grasp that and endorse it. There's just stuff going on. But this is a beautiful way to get the information. And now Jill will give us the beautiful culmination of our empathy story for you folks.

 

Jill Levitt: Yeah. Well, I wanted to share a little bit of my story with you and then just to let you know what's coming. We're going to share some training opportunities with you and then we're going to do about 10 minutes of a Q&A. So, please do stick around till the end because we love answering your questions and you can submit your questions now and Mike will share them with us. But I wanted to share with you a little bit about my story very briefly. Which is about 18 years ago I moved to California and I sought out training with David and I was in the famous Tuesday group which at that time met in David's living room in Los Altos Hills and you know I came to the group actually with as a pretty seasoned CBT therapist and thinking that I had really excellent empathy skills. I felt really connected to my patients and really helpful and I felt like I had really satisfying and rewarding relationships. And then I learned the five secrets much as you are today. And I thought, "Wow, I think I still have a lot to learn." And I discovered through drills and practice exercises that I was not nailing it. And so I set out to really master learning the five secrets. I went to the Tuesday group with David. I actually paid for individual consultation with a great team CBT therapist, Matt May. I practiced in the car. I practiced, you know, before bed at night. And I started to realize that the tools that I was learning were helping me to feel really comfortable and connected with my patients kind of no matter what they threw at me, but also that I was learning these skills that I could use in my personal life. So, I started to realize that when my mom would call me complaining about something, I suddenly actually was able to really listen and connect and empathize and support rather than just rush to problem solving. And so, pretty quickly, I would say, and I don't think this is overstating it, but that learning the five secrets ended up really transforming my therapy practice and also my personal life. And then I discovered that it wasn't only helpful in these two realms, but that I also now had a toolbox that I could teach my patients for learning how to connect with their friends and family members. So my experience with the five secrets was that it was very challenging to learn that it took a lot of hard work, but also that it was really transformative for me. And so I'm kind of hoping that's where we leave you at the end of the webinar, which is recognizing that there's a lot of work to be done, but that there's so much kind of beauty and transformation available in learning these empathy skills.

 

And so I'm actually going to right now just lead quickly into kind of sharing if you've liked what you've heard today, kind of where you could go from here. And David will tell you a little bit, but then we're going to come back and do some Q&A. So, we're just going to spend a few minutes sharing some opportunities with you. So, kind of now that you've gotten a taste of the team CBT model, specifically just the empathy skills, we'd love to invite you to join our brand new like as of today program that's called CBT all access. And it's a monthly subscription program that's now our most kind of efficient and economical way for therapists to become really exceptional. So, over the years that I've been teaching and supervising and training therapists, I've heard from so many of you that you want a place to practice and get feedback, that you want mentorship from seasoned therapists, that you want to join a community because private practice can feel isolating kind of even when you're thriving. And so, we've created something that brings all of that together kind of in one monthly subscription. And actually I'll go back and just say that the CBT all access membership is includes live practice and consultation groups. It includes certification. The fast track to level three course is included in it and that begins in January 26th. It includes a curated home study CE library including 20 plus hours of content. It includes special events and a supportive community. And it's all $115 a month and we have kind of the link that you can join. And we would love it if you joined. And then I'll just mention because most people know of the FastTrack course. But essentially the monthly membership includes the FastTrack course and the FastTrack course is an opportunity for you to not only do home study but actually join us weekly for practice groups. So very much what you saw today, drills with feedback, deliberate practice, coaching, etc. And I won't go through this slide, but you learned a little bit about the five secrets today. There's so much more that you could learn from us, from the team CBT model, and these are actually just a listing of some of those methods. So we hope you're interested in joining the all access. We'd love to see you there. And I'll also mention that it's a monthly fee. You can cancel at any time and you can even get your money back if you're not super happy within the first 30 days. And now I want David to have a minute to talk about the app.

 

Dr. David Burns: Well, yeah. One of the cool things we've got this feeling great app and one of the things in there is something I call the love bot and you saw the practice going on and how powerful that was during the workshop and actually if you can practice with your son or daughter or a colleague if you're a therapist that those are the kind of exercises we do all the time like in of our free weekly training group at Stanford. But if you don't have access to that or if you're just interested, you can go to the LoveBot and it will practice the five secrets with you and give you feedback endlessly. It has more stamina than any human being. So it this is a really cool thing and you can download it for free. We're giving out, you know, free subscriptions to it right now. We have been all summer and we're still doing it. And so if you act fast and this is for therapists and for the general public alike and the main goal of the feeling great app is to help you change the way you think and feel, but this is just a you know a certain part of the feeling great app that will help you learn the five secrets. And this is kind of in the in your handouts actually showing you how to do this and how to use that love bot we'll we won't focus on those details right now.

 

Jill Levitt: And then I'll mention just before we go into the Q&A which we're going to do now again if you're a therapist and you registered to get CE credit today then you'll get an email shortly with a link to complete the mandatory CE survey for some reason you didn't register but you really want CE credit, then I said send an email to certification@feelinggoodinstitute.com. That's at the bottom of this slide and we will see if after the fact we can have you pay and get your CE survey and certificate. I'm not sure if that's possible. This is the first time we're doing this. If you're not a therapist and you're a member of the general public, we're actually going to put a link to a survey in the chat. It's really quick, but it's just a way that you can we value your feedback, too. So, it's a way that you can give us feedback very briefly about today, but know that is definitely not going to get you CE credit. It's just a really quick kind of general public survey. So, Mike, you're up with some questions.

 

Q&A Session