Americans. Hah!

I'm working through a book recommended nearly three years ago by my CBT therapist. It's called "the Feeling Good Handbook" by David Burns and is so thick and heavy that thrown with a good aim it could probably brain a police horse.

It's a well thought out book, easy to follow, and successfully designed to teach one to spot patterns of distorted thinking in oneself and others.

But it has one flaw - being american, the examples it gives of individuals with flawed thinking patterns are all on the following pattern:

"Courtney is a successful bond trader, who feels that whatever she achieves, whatever amount of money she earns for her company, it isn't enough"

or

"David is Senior Partner in a New York Law Firm, and as soon as he enters his office in the morning he feels overwhelmed and anxious at the amount of work he has to do"

Not a single "Don used to be a tool maker for a car manufacturer just outside Detroit, but since the company relocated to Mexico six years ago he's been unable to find work and feels hopeless about his and his family's future"

Or "Lateesha is a young widow working a twelve hour night-shift as a grocery clerk in a small store in a violent and run down ghetto of Baltimore. She is anxious that she has neither the time nor the money to raise her two young daughters well, and fears for what might happen to them should she be shot dead during a robbery".

American psychologists seem unable to recognise that there are more people out there than the wealthy and professional classes. I wonder whether it's because American senior medics work almost entirely in private medicine where they almost never meet anyone even as ordinary as a school teacher or dental nurse, never mind a crack whore or HIV+ rent boy.