Karl Rogers said that empathy is the “necessary and sufficient condition” for therapeutic change. Aaron Beck said that Rogers was wrong, and that empathy was necessary but not sufficient, because cognitive techniques are also needed for change. Albert Ellis said that they were both wrong. He insisted that empathy wasn’t necessary, sufficient, or desirable, because patients have to do their “damn homework” if they want to get better. Who was right? And what happens when a computer provides the empathy? And how might this affect your clinical practice? Dr. Burns will describe the unexpected results of a recent beta test with the Feeling Great App.
Educational Objectives:
1. Explain why the causal connections between empathy and changes in depression can be so difficult to estimate.
2. Compare the warmth and understanding from friends and family with the warmth and understanding of a computer.
3. Describe the impact, if any, of the computer’s warmth and understanding on negative feelings.
David D. Burns is an adjunct professor emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the author of the best-selling books Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy and The Feeling Good Handbook. Burns popularized Aaron T. Beck's cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) when his book became a best seller during the 1980s.