The Myth of Slow Healing

"I used to think it was a con, too. During my psychiatric residency, therapy was defined by patience and silence. I was taught to listen quietly, encourage patients to vent, and maybe prescribe an antidepressant. We didn't set measurable goals, and we certainly didn't expect recovery anytime soon. Progress was supposed to take months, or years. And it did! But now that I've been in practice with TEAM CBT for many decades, my experience is the opposite."

"Here's an example suggested by neuroscientist and professor Mark Noble: Imagine a caveman 50,000 years ago. It's dusk. He hears a twig snap behind him and thinks, "Yikes! A tiger!" His heart races with terror. He turns around and sees it was only his wife. Instantly, the fear vanishes. Nothing in the external world changed-the twig snapped, the sound was the same-but his thoughts suddenly changed, along with his feelings."

"But is there any convincing evidence that sudden changes can happen with negative feelings like depression, anxiety, shame, loneliness, and anger? The answer is "yes." We now have lots of evidence. In 2023 and in 2025, my colleagues and I analyzed data from nearly 7,000 people who used two digital self-help tools, the Feeling Good app (2023) and the Feeling Great app (2025). We used advanced statistical modeling to test whether disto"

Rapid changes in emotions commonly occur when thoughts shift, sometimes within a single session. Traditional psychiatric training emphasized slow progress, silence, and medication with recovery expected over months or years. TEAM CBT practice often produces near-instantaneous recoveries during sessions, consistent with how the brain processes interpretations of events. Evolutionary and philosophical examples illustrate that identical external events yield different emotions depending on thought. Analyses of nearly 7,000 users of the Feeling Good and Feeling Great apps (2023 and 2025) using advanced statistical modeling provide substantial evidence that sudden reductions in negative feelings are real and measurable.

Read at Psychology Today