David D. Burns Quote
Pride and Shame. Intimacy requires humility and the willingness to examine your own failures in your relationships. This can be painful because feelings of shame get in the way, especially when we care about the person who’s criticizing us and we sense that her criticisms are true. We don’t want to hear it. So instead of listening and acknowledging the truth in the criticism, we put up a wall and get defensive. We tell ourselves that the other person doesn’t know what she is talking about. Of course, this annoys the other person, and she intensifies her attack. What might have been a golden opportunity for intimacy simply becomes an endless battle of egos.
David D. Burns
Pride and Shame. Intimacy requires humility and the willingness to examine your own failures in your relationships. This can be painful because feelings of shame get in the way, especially when we care about the person who’s criticizing us and we sense that her criticisms are true. We don’t want to hear it. So instead of listening and acknowledging the truth in the criticism, we put up a wall and get defensive. We tell ourselves that the other person doesn’t know what she is talking about. Of course, this annoys the other person, and she intensifies her attack. What might have been a golden opportunity for intimacy simply becomes an endless battle of egos.
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About David D. Burns
Burns popularized Albert Ellis's and Aaron T. Beck's cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) when his books became bestsellers during the 1980s. In a January 2021 interview, Burns attributed his rise in popularity and much of his success to an appearance in 1988 on The Phil Donahue Show, to which he was invited by the producer after helping her teenage son with depression.