Insights from Psychology
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Part I: Core Beliefs
There is a certain power in naming something, to finally feel like you’ve gotten to the root of an issue. Maybe I’m an outsider, but I love connecting the dots of my own psycho-social history. It helps me understand why I am the way that I am. The way that we think, feel, behave, and view the world has deep roots, roots that are formed from both nature and nurture. Psychology helps bridge the gap between pathology and integration, providing tools that identify problematic roots, facilitating a lasting change.
Over the past few years, I have been pursuing a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling. Being exposed to concepts in psychology has been a rewarding process that has helped me in my own journey toward mental health, inner freedom, and a deeper sense of healing and flourishing. I decided to start a series that highlights what I have learned over the years. The first part of this series highlights Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), both because of its pride of place in the field and its practical applications.
At its core, CBT aims to promote behavioral changes through self-awareness and adjustment of one’s own cognition. CBT is based on the tenet that irrational thoughts negatively affect behavior. This is not meant to invoke feelings of shame and self-hate—rather, it is meant to reveal that certain thoughts can invoke strong, negative responses and reactions. It’s not so much about someone being irrational as it is about them acting from subconscious beliefs that have formed from repetitive, negative experiences in life.
Over the course of formal treatment, a client is brought to an understanding of how their cognition affects their unwanted behavior; adjusting maladaptive thoughts to positive/true ones can make a positive, lasting behavioral change.
People have countless thoughts throughout the day; some thoughts are implicit, others are explicit. CBT helps categorize these thoughts by organizing them into three different kinds: core beliefs, intermediate beliefs, and automatic thoughts.
Core beliefs: habitual, conceptual understandings that shape the way one views oneself, others, and the world.
Intermediate beliefs: the rules, attitudes, and assumptions that one makes about the world
Automatic thoughts: the immediate and unpremeditated interpretations one has of events.
Pedagogically, it’s easier to learn about these thoughts from the ground up, beginning with core beliefs and ending with automatic thoughts. However, when they are applied in real life, they are often discovered top down—since automatic thoughts are the most surface-level thoughts, it is easier to become aware of them first. Automatic thoughts have a way of unveiling intermediate beliefs, which have a way of unveiling core beliefs.
This article examines core beliefs more thoroughly, what they sound like, what they feel like, and how they affect a lot of our behaviors. Future articles in this series will explore intermediate beliefs and automatic thoughts.
Core Beliefs
Core beliefs are fundamental and provide the lens through which one sees the world. Early developmental history significantly influences the formation of these beliefs—both positive and negative childhood experiences (attachment traumas, abuse, neglect, poverty, etc.) impress an archetype of how one sees and relates to the world, others, and themself. There is something true about the importance of “first impressions.” The same applies to one’s “first impression” of the world after birth.
Early memories from childhood experiences, particularly in the first year of life, are implicitly housed in the amygdala, which is responsible for things like emotional processing, the fight-or-flight response, and social awareness. If one is affected by early adverse childhood experiences, they can have an implicit, negative view of the world, others, and themself. This can seriously impact emotional integration, cortisol regulation, and the ability to accurately interpret situations and people as they truly are. Core beliefs are not limited to one’s experiences in the first year of life, however. Core beliefs form throughout childhood development and create lasting, deep roots. Below are some examples of core beliefs:
I am unlovable
The world is a bad place.
People are untrustworthy
I am worthless
The world is a scary place.
People are inherently bad.
It is worth noting that core beliefs like these emerge over time and are based on experiential, repetitive patterns. Negative experiences form negative beliefs. People are naturally disposed to make sense of their environment and surroundings—the development of negative core beliefs is primarily a form of self-protection to make expectations low and future relationships less painful.
Operating from a negative core belief significantly impacts one’s experience of life. Core beliefs are not explicit; they are the undercurrent that forms the foundation of relationships, even our relationship with God. For example, one can intellectually accept the truth that God loves them. But, if they have been operating from the core belief that they are unlovable, the fundamental truth of God’s love for them has probably never been part of their “felt experience.” There is a world of difference between knowing intellectually the truth of who we are and living from that identity. Healing core beliefs is not going to magically fix everything, but it does help prepare the way.
Understanding one’s core beliefs is a slow process that is unveiled over time. Studying psychology helped me come to a greater awareness of my own core beliefs, some of which I wrote about in a previous article, which can be read below:
There is power in naming what has been true to our experience and having the verbiage to articulate it. If you find yourself approaching these vulnerable and oftentimes fragile areas, I want to encourage you to approach them with reverence, humility, and openness to what the Lord wants to do. The funny thing about roots is that the deeper you go, the thinner they become.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12: 2