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David D. Burns, M.D., is a clinical psychiatrist. His bestselling Feeling Good: The New 
Mood Therapy has sold more than three million copies to date. 
Dr. Burns has become a popular lecturer for general audiences and mental health 
professionals. Plus, a frequent guest on national radio and television programs. 
Feeling Good -Summary 

How Depression Occurs 
In the United States, 5.3% of the population has depression. The lifetime risk of depression is 
7-8% in adults and higher for women. Forty years ago, the mean age for the onset of 
depression was 29.5. Today, it has halved to 14.5 years. This reduction in age can be 
attributed to more significant mental health awareness and social media’s impact on the 
younger generation. Though rates differ around the developed world, the incidence of 
depressive illness has risen dramatically since 1900. 
Prior to the 1980s, depression had been the cancer of the psychological world. Depression 
was widespread but difficult to treat. Additionally, the taboos associated with it made the 
problem worse for most people. Many of these same problems still persist today. As with 
cancer, finding a ‘cure’ has been the holy grail of depression. Everything from Freudian 
psychoanalysis to shock treatment has been applied to the problem. Although some of these 
treatments have had initially promising results, the improvements have not been substantial 
and are unsustainable. Subsequently, anti-depressants and other medications have been 
introduced. Although these medications have changed some people’s lives, the problem of 
depression is still more impactful today than in the past. 
Dr. Burns provides an outline of how depression occurs: 
1. An event takes place in the outside world that has the potential to be 
experienced by you. 
2. You interpret the event through a series of thoughts. These thoughts are called 
your internal dialogue and impact on how you process the event. 
3. Your feelings are created by your thoughts and not the actual event. In other 
words, the way you think in any situation will determine how you will feel 
about it. 

Seeing Through Black Magic 
In the history of psychiatry, depression has always been seen as an emotional disorder. As a 
result, most therapy has aimed to help patients get in touch with their feelings. Subsequently, 
most therapists have believed that maturity means opening up and expressing what’s inside. 
This is an assumption based on the view that one’s feelings “…represent a higher reality, a 
personal integrity, a truth beyond question.” 

Despite these assumptions, there is a wealth of evidence suggesting depression is not an 
emotional disorder. This point is supported by one of the most effective depressive treatments, 
cognitive therapy, not focusing on emotions. Instead, cognitive therapy identifies cognition, or 
our thoughts, as the cause of depression. The bad feelings associated with depression all stem 
from negative thoughts. Therefore, treatment must focus on challenging and changing those 
thoughts. 
Burns includes a list of ten ‘cognitive distortions,’ such as all-or-nothing thinking, 
overgeneralization, disqualifying the positive, jumping to conclusions, and giving ourselves 
labels. By understanding these distortions, we can better understand the idea that ‘feelings 
aren’t facts.’ Instead, feelings are only the reflections of our thoughts. 

Cognitive Distortions 
After introducing readers to the importance of cognition, David Burns outlines the underlying 
factors. When you interpret an event as negative, you are engaging with cognitive distortions. 
Burns describes these interpretations as cognitive distortions as you are creating distorted 
thoughts that lead to unpleasant emotions. Occasionally, events are genuinely unpleasant and 
need to be interpreted accordingly. However, we still have to remain realistic about these 
interpretations. For people who suffer from mild levels of depression, those cognitive 
distortions become habituated. Subsequently, these individuals start perceiving everything in 
black and white. The following sections will cover the most common cognitive distortions 
identified by David Burns 

All-or-Nothing Thinking 
Let’s say that you want to learn stand-up comedy. You took some classes. Then, after a 
month, you decided to give it a shot and go live. You go on stage and start cracking the lamest 
jokes because you are nervous, and it is your first time. The audience gets bored and leaves. 
As a result, you start to think that you never have a chance to become a comedian. In fact, you 
might even think that you are never going to be good at doing anything. This kind of 
cognitive distortion is called “All-or-Nothing Thinking.” In essence, you are holding a belief 
that you will either be good at this skill now or I never will be. This type of cognitive 
distortion is conveying an exaggeration of a negative event. The event itself is negative, but 
instead of perceiving it as a passing experience, you hold on to the negative associations. 

Mental Filtering 
This leads us to the second cognitive distortion, which is called Mental Filtering. Mental 
filtering involves taking one negative experience from any situation and dwelling on it for an 
extended period of time. No matter how much time you put into making valuable content, 
there will be that one guy or girl who will leave a negative comment. They will filter all the 
value and just leave a comment about the wrong punctuation in one paragraph. People who 
perceive reality from a mental filter will always find something negative. Therefore, no matter 
how hard you try to convince them that the event is actually positive, you will fail. 

Subsequently, David Burns recommends never dwelling on the past as you no longer have 
control over those decisions. Similarly, do not dwell on others’ opinions as people will always 
find the negatives in any situation. Plus, you have no control over others’ opinions and 
decisions. 

Jumping to Conclusions 
Imagine that you get hit by a car, so you’re on your way to the hospital. The doctors tell you 
that you just got dizzy, and you’ll be ready to go home in three hours. However, you keep 
thinking to yourself: “Oh my god, what if I got brain damage? And if my brain is damaged 
will my girlfriend still want to go out with me?” 
This type of cognitive distortion is called Jumping to Conclusions. This distortion involves 
exaggerating your expectations and projecting to unrealistic conclusions. Specifically, this 
form of cognitive distortion generally involves making a negative interpretation. This 
interpretation is made even though no clear facts are supporting your conclusion.  
Jumping to conclusions can be further broken down into two types: 
a. Mind reading: You arbitrarily conclude that someone is reacting negatively to you, and you 
don’t bother to check this out. 
b. The Fortune Teller Error: You anticipate that things will turn out badly, and you feel 
convinced that your prediction is an already-established fact. 
 Since the process of emotion formation happens in a fraction of a second, we have little to no 
control over it. However, even if those thoughts get distorted, and you fall into a depression, 
you still have a chance to re-construct them after their occurrence. You have the opportunity 
to re-frame those distorted thoughts. Subsequently, you also have the opportunity to change 
your mood. It is scary how one thought can have the power to change someone’s life for the 
better or the worst. 

Magnification and Minimization 
“Perfection’ is man’s ultimate illusion. It simply doesn’t exist in the universe… If you are a 
perfectionist, you are guaranteed to be a loser in whatever you do.” 
When you magnify, you look at your errors, fears, or imperfections and exaggerate their 
importance. This has also been called catastrophizing because you turn commonplace 
negative events into nightmarish monsters. 
In comparison, when you minimize, you inappropriately shrink things until they appear tiny. 
Common examples are your own desirable qualities or others’ imperfections. This is also 
called the “binocular trick.”