The Myth of Slow Healing

When I describe how a patient’s feelings of depression or anxiety suddenly disappeared during a single session, some people look skeptical. They roll their eyes. Really? Can emotional change really happen that fast? Is this real, or am I being conned?

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. When my patients recover, it’s nearly always in a flash. In fact, rapid changes in thoughts and feelings are absolutely consistent with how the brain has always worked.

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.

This idea isn’t new. Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher, Epictetus, said that humans are disturbed, not by things or events, but by our thoughts about them.

And the very moment our thoughts change, our feelings will change.

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 distorted negative thoughts truly cause negative feelings and whether change can happen rapidly.

The results were striking. Both studies showed strong, rapid causal effects of negative thoughts on negative feelings, exactly as Epictetus predicted two millennia ago. In the 2023 app, users reported reductions of 50 percent to 60 percent in seven negative feelings within three days of starting the app. In the 2025 app, users reported average reductions of 60-70 percent in seven negative feelings—along with large increases in feelings of happiness and joy—in less than two hours.

Terri’s Story

Let me bring this to life for you. Terri is a woman who came to me after ten years of panic attacks and depression. She’d had five panic attacks every week, and during each attack, she told herself that she couldn’t breathe deeply enough and was about to die. She’d seen many doctors and therapists, with numerous emergency room visits, but nothing helped. She kept having terrifying panic attacks, thinking that she was about to die.

During the first five sessions, I tried roughly 15 techniques to help Terri—"identify the distortions," "examine the evidence," the "double standard technique," "externalization of voices," and more—but nothing worked. Every week, she came back just as depressed and anxious as ever.

I suggested a more powerful technique. I proposed to induce a panic attack at the start of her next session so we could test her negative thoughts directly with a bold experiment.

This scared the heck out of Terri and she cancelled the next two sessions! She let me know she was not dropping out of therapy, but did she have to have a panic attack during our next session?

I confirmed that it would be terrifying, but might end ten years of suffering once and for all. I reminded her that my office was just down the hall from the emergency room in the hospital, so she’d be safe. I said I really hoped she’d give it a try. She courageously agreed.

Once I induced a panic attack at the start of the session, Terri began to sob uncontrollably and begged me to stop. She said she was about to die and couldn’t breathe deeply enough. I encouraged her to hang in there so we could test her thoughts.

I asked her to stand and do some strenuous calisthenics—running in place and jumping jacks—to test her belief that she was about to die. She initially refused and insisted that if she tried to stand up, she’d pass out.

I told her we could check that out as well and asked her to stand up and try running in place.

After several minutes of running, I asked her to do some jumping jacks. She said she couldn’t possibly do that, and I said, “Try some anyway.”

After a minute of jumping jacks, she said, “I wonder if I could do this if I were having a heart attack.”

I replied, “Is that what you see in the Emergency Rooms of hospitals? Patients with massive heart attacks standing next to their gurneys doing jumping jacks?”

At that moment, she suddenly realized that her negative thought, “I’m about to die,” could not possibly be true, and she doubled over with laughter.

When she stood back up, I said, “Continue the jumping jacks. I’m sure you’ll pass out at any moment!”

She began laughing again and said, “I’m feeling a lot better!”

That moment ended ten years of intense suffering. I have published a 6½ minute video clip from that session, so you can see the exact moment when her symptoms suddenly disappeared.

How and why did this happen?

During the jumping jacks, it suddenly dawned on Terri that her negative thoughts—“I’m about to die” and “I’m not breathing deeply enough”—were false. And the very moment she stopped believing those thoughts, her symptoms vanished.

Do the rapid changes last?

Here’s the answer: rapid changes never last.

That’s because no one can feel happy all the time. There are bumps in the road of life for all of us. But if you do careful relapse prevention training, you’ll be prepared to pop out of those relapses quickly.

I treated Terri in 1988 and she did have another panic attack several years later. She called me for an emergency session, but called again later in the day to cancel the session. After doing jumping jacks, her symptoms had suddenly disappeared again.

Keep in mind that the method that was helpful to Terri will be different from the method that’s helpful for you. The jumping jacks were only helpful for Terri because they caused a sudden change in her belief she was about to die. If your negative thoughts are different, the method that works for you will be quite different.

But here’s what’s cool. The method that works for you the first time you recover will probably always be helpful for you whenever you’re upset.

The Takeaway

Rapid recovery isn’t a miracle or a trick. It’s the natural outcome of understanding how your brain creates emotions.

Changing your thoughts and feelings may take courage, and it may require some guidance, but it doesn’t have to take years. That’s because the very moment you stop believing your distorted thoughts, your feelings can change.

And that’s not a con. It’s simply the science of how the brain works, and how healing actually happens.

To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.