Like many people, you may hold core beliefs that you're unlovable, unworthy or inadequate - these beliefs are about your basic worth, goodness or value. Or perhaps you hold beliefs about your capability to look after yourself or to cope with adversity - these beliefs are about how helpless or powerful you are in relation to other people and the world.
Mahesh, for example, may believe ‘I'm helpless' because he's experienced tragedy and a lot of bad luck. He may also hold beliefs that ‘the world is against me' and ‘other people are uncaring'. Looking at these three beliefs together, you can see why Mahesh is feeling depressed.
Detecting Your Core Beliefs
Because core beliefs are held deeply, you may not think of them or ‘hear' them as clear statements in your head. You're probably much more aware of your negative automatic thoughts or your rules than you are of your core beliefs (see Figure 16-1).
The following sections show you some methods you can use to really get to the root of your belief system.
Following a downward arrow
One technique to help you pinpoint your problematic core beliefs is the downward arrow method, which involves you identifying a situation that causes you to have an unhealthy negative emotion, such as depression or guilt. (For more on healthy and unhealthy negative emotions, check out Chapter 6.)
After you've identified a situation that brings up negative emotions, ask yourself what the situation means or says about you. Your first answer is probably your negative automatic thought (NAT). Keep asking yourself what your previous answer means or says about you until you reach a global, absolute statement, such as ‘other people are dangerous' or ‘I'm bad' in Beth's case.
For example, when Rashid uses the downward arrow method to examine his feelings about failing a university entrance exam, he has the negative automatic thought:
NAT: ‘I'll never get into a good university.'
What does this NAT mean about me?
‘I've disappointed my parents again.'
What does disappointing my parents mean about me?
‘Every time I try to do well at something, I fail.'
What does failing mean about me?
‘I'm a failure.' (Rashid's core belief)
You can use the same downward arrow technique to get to your core beliefs about other people and the world. Just keep asking yourself what your NAT means about others or the world. Ultimately, you can end up with a conclusive statement that is your core belief. The following is an example of how to do this, using the situation of getting a parking ticket:
NAT: ‘These kinds of things are always happening to me.'
What does this mean about the world?
‘Bad things are always just around the corner.'
What does this mean about the world?
‘The world is full of tragedy and hardship.'
What does this mean about the world?
‘Life is against me.' (Core belief)
Picking up clues from your dreaming and screaming
Imagine your worst nightmare. Think of dream scenarios that wake you up screaming. Somewhere in these terrifying scenarios may be one or more of your core beliefs. Some examples of core beliefs that can show themselves in dreams and nightmares include:
Drying up while speaking publicly
Being rejected by your partner for another person
Being criticised in front of work colleagues
Getting lost in a foreign country
Hurting someone's feelings
Doing something thoughtless and being confronted about it
Letting down someone important in your life
Being controlled by another person
Being at someone else's mercy
Look for the similarities between your nightmare scenarios and situations that upset you in real life. Ask yourself what a dreaded dream situation may mean about yourself, about other people or about the world. Keep considering what each of your answers means about yourself, others or the world until you reach a core belief.
Tracking themes
Another way of journeying to the core of your core beliefs is to look for themes in your automatic thoughts. A good way of doing this is by reviewing your completed ABC forms (which we describe in Chapter 3).
For example, if you find that you often have thoughts related to failure, getting things wrong or being less capable than other people, you may have a core belief of ‘I'm inadequate' or ‘I'm incompetent'.
Filling in the blanks
Another method of eliciting your core beliefs is simply to fill in the blanks. Take a piece of paper, write the following, and fill in the blanks:
I am ______________________________________________
Other people are ___________________________________
The world is _______________________________________
This method requires you to take almost a wild guess about what your core beliefs are. Ultimately, you're in a better position than anyone else to take a guess, so the exercise is worth a shot.
You can review written work that you've done, which is a good technique for discovering your core beliefs. Going over what you've written again enables you to refine, tweak or alter your beliefs. Be sure to use language that represents how you truly speak to yourself. Core beliefs are very idiosyncratic. However you choose to articulate them is entirely up to you. The same is true of the healthy alternative beliefs you develop (see the ‘Developing Alternatives to Your Core Beliefs' section, later in this chapter). Make sure that you put alternative beliefs into language that reflects the way that you speak to yourself.
Understanding the Impact of Core Beliefs
Core beliefs are your fundamental and enduring ways of perceiving and making sense of yourself, the world and other people. Your core beliefs have been around since early in your life. These core beliefs are so typically engrained and unconscious that you're probably not aware of their impact on your emotions and behaviours.
Spotting when you are acting according to old rules and beliefs
People tend to behave according to the beliefs they hold about themselves, others and the world. To evaluate whether your core beliefs are unhealthy, you need to pay attention to your corresponding behaviours. Unhealthy core beliefs typically lead to problematic behaviours.
For example, Milo believes that he's unlovable and that other people cannot be trusted. Therefore, he tends to be passive with his girlfriends, to seek reassurance that they're not about to leave him, and to become suspicious and jealous of their interactions with other men. Often, Milo's girlfriends get fed up with his jealousy and insecurity and end the relationship.
Because Milo operates according to his core belief about being unlovable, he behaves in ways that actually tend to drive his partners away from him. Milo doesn't yet see that his core belief, and corresponding insecurity, is what causes problems in his relationships. Instead, Milo views each time a partner leaves him for someone else as further evidence that his core belief of ‘I'm unlovable' is true.
Sybil believes that she mustn't draw attention to herself because one of her core beliefs is ‘other people are likely to turn on me'. Therefore, she's quiet in social situations and is reluctant to assert herself. Her avoidant, self-effacing behaviour means that she doesn't often get what she wants, which feeds her core belief ‘I'm unimportant'.
Sybil acts in accordance with her core belief that other people are likely to turn on her and, subsequently, deprives herself of the opportunity to see that this is not always going to happen. If Sybil and Milo identify their negative core beliefs, they can begin to develop healthier new beliefs and behaviours that can yield better results. We look more closely at how to develop new, more positive core beliefs later in this chapter.
Understanding that unhealthy core beliefs make you prejudiced
When you begin to examine your core beliefs, it may seem to you that everything in your life is conspiring to make your unhealthy core belief ring true. More than likely,
your core belief is leading you to take a prejudiced view of all your experiences. Unhealthy beliefs, such as ‘I'm unlovable' and ‘other people are dangerous', distort the way in which you process information. Negative information that supports your unhealthy belief is let in. Positive information that contradicts the negative stuff is either rejected, or twisted to mean something negative in keeping with your unhealthy belief.
The prejudice model in Figure 16-2 shows you how your unhealthy core beliefs can reject positive events that may contradict them. At the same time, your core beliefs can collect negative events that may support their validity. Your unhealthy core beliefs can also lead you to distort positive events into negative events so that they continue to make your beliefs seem true.
Figure 16-2: The prejudice model illustrates how you sometimes distort positive information to fit in with your negative core beliefs.
For example, here's how Beth's core belief ‘I'm bad' causes her to prejudice her experiences:
Negative experience: Beth's boss is angry about a missed deadline, affirming her belief that ‘I'm bad'.
Positive experience: Beth's boss is happy about the quality of her report, which Beth distorts as ‘he's happy about this report only because all my other work is such rubbish', further affirming her belief that ‘I'm bad'.
Beth also ignores smaller positive events that don't support her belief that she's bad, such as:
People seem to like her at work.
Co-workers tell her that she's conscientious at work.
Her friends telephone her and invite her out.
However, Beth is quick to take notice of smaller negative events that do seem to match up with her belief that she's bad, for example:
Someone pushes her rudely on a busy train.
Her boyfriend shouts at her during an argument.
A work colleague doesn't smile at her when she enters the office.
Beth's core belief of ‘I'm bad' acts as a filter through which all her experiences are interpreted. It basically stops her from re-evaluating herself as anything other than bad; it makes her prejudiced against herself. This is why identifying negative core beliefs and targeting them for change is so important!
Making a Formulation of Your Beliefs
When you've identified your core beliefs using the techniques outlined in the previous sections, you can use the form in Figure 16-3 to make a formulation of your beliefs and rules. Filling out this form gives you an ‘at a glance' reference of what your negative core beliefs are and how they lead you to act in unhelpful ways. The form is a handy reminder of the beliefs you need to target for change and why.
Follow these steps to fill out the form:
1. Relevant Early/Past Experiences. In this box, write down any significant past events that you think may have contributed to the development of your specific negative core beliefs.
For example, Beth records:
• Father was physically abusive and had unpredictable mood swings
• Father told me that I was bad
• I received severe and unreasonable punishment from teachers
2. Core (‘Unconditional') Unhelpful Beliefs. Write your identified core beliefs about yourself, other people and the world in this box.
Beth records her beliefs like this:
• I am bad
• Other people are unpredictable and dangerous
• The world is full of bad things
The word ‘unconditional' is used on this form to remind you that core beliefs are those beliefs that you hold to be 100 per cent true, 100 per cent of the time, and under any conditions.
Figure 16-3: Make a formulation of your beliefs with the help of this form.
3. Rules/‘Conditional' Beliefs. In this box write down the rules or demands you place on yourself, other people and the world because of your core negative beliefs.
Beth writes:
• I must be ‘good' at all times (demand on self).
• If I am criticised then it means that I'm a bad person (conditional rule).
• Other people must not find fault with me or think badly of me (demand on others).
• The world must not conspire to remind me of how bad I am by throwing negative experiences my way (demand on the world).
4. Avoidance and Compensatory Behaviours. Use this box to record how you try to avoid triggering your negative core beliefs, or unhelpful things you do to try to cope with your negative core beliefs when they're triggered.
Beth records:
• Being a perfectionist at work in order to avoid any criticism
• Avoiding confrontation and thereby not asserting myself at work or with friends
• Over-apologising when I do get criticised or make a small mistake
• Always assuming that other people's opinions are ‘right' and that my own opinions are ‘wrong'
• Being timid in social situations to avoid being noticed
• Not trusting others and assuming that they're ultimately going to hurt me somehow
5. What I've got going for me. Write down positive things about yourself that fly in the face of your negative core beliefs.
Beth writes:
• My work colleagues seem to like me.
• I am very conscientious at work and this has been commented on by my boss and by colleagues.
• I have some good friends who are trustworthy.
• There have been some good things that have happened to me, such as finishing college and getting a good job.
• I am generally hardworking and honest.
• I care about other people's feelings and opinions.
Information you write down in this box is important because it can be used to help you develop more balanced and helpful alternative core beliefs. (We explain more about how to construct healthy core beliefs in the following sections.)
Limiting the Damage: Being Aware of Core Beliefs
To reduce the negative impact of your unhelpful core beliefs, try to get better at spotting the beliefs being activated. Step back and consider a more unbiased explanation for events rather than getting swept along by the beliefs.
One way of improving your awareness of your core beliefs is to develop a core belief flashcard. This written-down statement includes the following:
What your core belief is.
How your core belief affects the way you interpret events.
How you tend to act when the core belief is triggered.
What a more unbiased interpretation of events is likely to be.
What alternative behaviour may be more productive.
For example, Sybil wrote the following core belief flashcard:
When my core belief of ‘I'm unimportant' is triggered, I'm probably taking something personally and wanting to withdraw. Instead, I can remember that most people don't hold this view of me, and then I can stay engaged in the social situation.
Carry your flashcard around with you and review it often, even several times a day. Use your flashcard, especially when you notice that your core belief has been triggered, or just before you enter a situation where you know that your old core belief is likely to be triggered.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy For Dummies Page 29