Core beliefs are assumptions we develop that help us understand how the world works and who we are. These beliefs start to form in early childhood and act as rules for managing relationships and daily life.
We can unknowingly absorb messages from family, friends, teachers, and the media, and those messages may influence our worldview. If our core beliefs are positive and helpful, we do not need to take further action. However, negative core beliefs can lead to problems, including automatic negative thoughts about self or others.
These beliefs can be rigid and are not necessarily reasonable, accurate, or based on evidence. Some examples of negative core beliefs are: “I am unlovable”, I am not good enough”, “I am a bad person”, I am worthless”, or “Nobody likes me”.
A good starting point to explore our core beliefs is to identify the underlying themes behind our reoccurring thoughts and feeling. Once we identify our automatic negative thoughts, we need to evaluate and challenge them to improve how we feel about ourselves, reduce negative thinking and improve our mood.
Cognitive- Behavioral Therapy can help us identify the connection between our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Once we understand the role of these thoughts in our life, we can replace them with thoughts that are more reasonable, balanced, and accurate. This is called cognitive restructuring. Here are some examples of it would look like this:
Core Belief: Replaced with:
“I am worthless” I am not doing as well as I’d like, and I could be doing better
“I am unlovable” I would like to have closer relationships with others
“I have no future” I am not sure what the future holds
Next, we need to build support for this new, modified belief. Every time we “catch” ourselves thinking the old belief, we need to correct ourselves with this new belief and find evidence to support it and solidify even further into our thinking. We need new experiences to help us change these old beliefs, find more evidence to support them and contradict the old ones. We can start by taking small risks and try new things even if it gives us a little anxiety or is out of our comfort zone. As we gain more experiences, we will be able to challenge and change our old beliefs, get more evidence to support it and expend our rules and assumptions about self and others. Changing old beliefs takes time but can lead to a more fulfilling life and be a better reflection of the type of person we want to be.
References:
Beck, A. T. (1979). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. Penguin.
Ellis, A. (2001). Overcoming destructive beliefs, feelings, and behaviors: New directions for rational emotive behavior therapy. Prometheus Books.
Leahy, R. L. (2015). Cognitive therapy techniques: A practitioner’s guide. Guilford Publications.
Dobson, K. S. (Ed.). (2009). Handbook of cognitive-behavioral therapies. Guilford Press.
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