RE: "I found Dr. Burns and his stupid book completely useless. It works wonderfully, I'm told, on mild depression of the single-episode sort."

I’m not going to get in a contest with anyone to prove “nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” That my woes are bigger than yours. I think it's inappropriate for you to imply that you can diagnose how severe someone's illness is by whether he/she found found cognitive behavioral therapy effective.

One of the things that the Psychological Forums does very effectively is validate that each person’s feelings are as real and deep to him or her as anyone else’s.

I would be the last to say that Dr. Burns' techniques caused an "Eureka" moment and a sudden cure to my depression. A multi-pronged approach has been helpful. I'm still not out of the woods yet, and I'm not sure that I ever will be, given that depression seems to be lifelong and cyclic.

I would not expect that Dr. Burns' books could help all people, anymore than one med is able to help all people. But the topic here is how we cope with triggers, not what "cures" depression and not bashing what may have helped someone else.