September Video of the Month
🎥 SEPTEMBER VIDEO OF THE MONTH
Timeless Presentations from Erickson Foundation Events
This is a series exploring keynotes, workshops, and dialogues from past Erickson Foundation conferences—featuring the field’s most influential voices.
These recordings from The Milton H. Erickson Foundation archives offer historical interest and hold lasting clinical value. Each session distills complex therapeutic ideas through lived examples, practical experience, and the subtle choices of the presenters and participants. These sessions continue to invite reflection, offer perspective, and reconnect us with core principles that remain relevant across time and context.
This month’s selection is…
Feeling Great: High-Speed Cognitive Therapy – David Burns, MD
Brief Therapy Conference 2018 | Burlingame, CA
📌 About the Speaker
David D. Burns, M.D., is Adjunct Clinical Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine and a leading figure in the development of cognitive therapy. Known for bestselling books like “Feeling Good” and “Feeling Great”, his work has reached millions and reshaped how clinicians treat anxiety and depression.
Dr. Burns is the creator of TEAM-CBT, a structured approach to therapy that helps people feel better, faster. It’s built around four steps: Testing (tracking progress in real time), Empathy (deep, attuned listening), Agenda Setting (working with instead of against resistance), and Methods (choosing the right tools for the job). Together, they form a roadmap for therapy that’s both emotionally responsive and results driven.
🧠 Keynote Highlights: *Feeling Great – High-Speed Cognitive Therapy*
In this provocative keynote from the 2018 Brief Therapy Conference, Dr. Burns outlines the evolution of TEAM-CBT and presents compelling evidence for why traditional therapy models may be underestimating client capacities for transformation. Through a powerful video demonstration of a single-session treatment with a fellow clinician suffering from depression, anxiety, and guilt, Burns contests the idea that change must be slow or insight-based.
Burns has a persistent curiosity about the reasons why people stay stuck, and he invites the audience to explore that terrain just as deeply. He urges them to consider hidden resistance, therapist blind spots, and empathy failures as opportunities to shift the trajectory of treatment.
🎥 In this clip, Dr. Burns introduces the “Miracle Question,” a key moment in the TEAM-CBT agenda-setting process. Watch as he invites the client to imagine what meaningful change would look like as a specific emotional shift. Her answer begins the pivot from symptom to aspiration, setting the tone for collaborative, values-driven work.
⏳ Why It Still Matters
Even years after this keynote was recorded, Burns’ approach remains highly relevant in today’s mental health landscape. As the demand for brief, effective treatments continues to rise, TEAM-CBT offers an empirically supported, accessible model. Clinicians grappling with issues of client motivation, stuckness, or rapid relapse will find actionable tools here…especially in the emphasis on testing and resistance reduction.
🌀 Ericksonian Threads in Burns' Work
David Burns is not traditionally labeled an Ericksonian, but many of the elements in his keynote will resonate deeply with those familiar with Erickson’s work. At several points, Burns emphasizes the use of paradox, experiential immediacy, and therapeutic timing…qualities central to Ericksonian psychotherapy. His emphasis on asking permission, honoring resistance, and activating the client’s own resources aligns with the Ericksonian ethos of evocation over imposition.
Additionally, his method of reframing symptoms as signs of integrity and his strategic use of testing echoes Ericksonian utilization: making use of the client’s current state to promote transformation. Burns' challenge to diagnostic labels and his shift away from insight-driven work towards experientially triggered shifts also mirrors Erickson’s focus on the present-tense moment of change rather than long analytic narratives.
🗓️ Don’t Miss David Burns at the 2025 Anxiety and Depression Conference (September 27–28, virtual)
If Dr. Burns’ keynote on high-speed therapy caught your attention, you won’t want to miss his return to the Erickson Foundation’s virtual stage this fall.
He’ll be delivering Keynote 2 — “What REALLY Causes Depression and Anxiety?” — in which he explores a provocative update to an ancient debate: Do our feelings come from events, or our thoughts about them? Drawing on a study of nearly 7,000 users of the Feeling Great app, Dr. Burns will walk us through striking new findings that challenge conventional assumptions about mood, meaning, and mental health.
📊 You’ll gain insight into:
The philosophy of Epictetus, and why it still matters in therapy
Competing theories about the relationship between thoughts and emotions
What role (if any) a digital tool can play in transforming negative beliefs in real time
Later in the conference, Dr. Burns will lead the workshop “Advanced Empathy for Beginners (and Beginners’ Empathy for Advanced Practitioners)”, offering hands-on tools to improve empathic attunement and strengthen the therapeutic alliance. With topics ranging from The Five Secrets of Effective Communication to The Law of Opposites, this session is a powerful tune-up for clinicians at all levels.
🧰 Learning objectives include:
How to measure empathy with real-time tools
Why “joyous failure” is key to communication growth
How to handle critical or resistant clients without defensiveness
Dr. Burns brings clinical warmth, data-driven clarity, and a sincere invitation to consider what truly helps. Whether you're a longtime student or new to his work, these sessions promise depth of contemplation and a practical impact.
