# Changing Negative Core Beliefs as part of CBT



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

Just wondered if anyone here had had any amount of success with this, and if so how you approached the task? 

This is something I've just started to attempt myself at the moment but am struggling with quite a bit so far. So far I've managed to identify quite a number of core beliefs that contribute alot to my current SA problems and have also worked out what kind of alternative beliefs I'd prefer to have in place of these unhelpful one's. But so far am having trouble figuring out how to get to the point where I can start fully believing in these alternatives rather than just seeing these ideas as something I feel that I should believe in, but still not feeling as if I can. Would be very interested to know if anyone else has experienced this kind of problem, and if so how you dealt with it. 

Many thanks for reading.


----------



## STKinTHEmud (Jun 21, 2009)

Yeah, I've recently been trying this too. It felt like it was working for a couple of weeks (off and on), but yesterday, I just felt terrible, and I just couldn't figure out what mistaken thought or belief was causing it. But I feel a bit better today (but still pretty bad), so I guess it's something that you just have to keep practicing despite those feelings like it won't work. Maybe keep telling yourself that it will work and it will help your life improve. Keep the faith, sister!


----------



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

Sorry to know you're having the same kind of experience STinTHEmud. Funnily enough yesterday happened to be a bad day for me as well - in terms of having one of my beliefs triggered, and feeling alot of negative emotion. Which is what led to me making this thread really. Can appreciate how frustrating that must have been for you.

Many thanks for your advice, much appreciated. Hope that soon things start to get easier for you too. ;-)


----------



## shychick2 (Oct 20, 2008)

I think practice and just doing it anyway. presumably it's just engrained and you automatically go to the negative thoughts and need time to change this.
However, it's not something I've been able to master. I'm in the process of setting up new therapy.


----------



## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

Black_Widow said:


> Just wondered if anyone here had had any amount of success with this, and if so how you approached the task?
> 
> This is something I've just started to attempt myself at the moment but am struggling with quite a bit so far. So far I've managed to identify quite a number of core beliefs that contribute alot to my current SA problems and have also worked out what kind of alternative beliefs I'd prefer to have in place of these unhelpful one's. But so far am having trouble figuring out how to get to the point where I can start fully believing in these alternatives rather than just seeing these ideas as something I feel that I should believe in, but still not feeling as if I can. Would be very interested to know if anyone else has experienced this kind of problem, and if so how you dealt with it.
> 
> Many thanks for reading.


with cbt it can take ime for the actual beleif to change cos for it to change you have to ermm beleive in the beleif

instead of ''im worthless'' you might want to beleve '' im worthy'' but at the same me it may be hard to beleive that cos u might be thinking 'well how can i beleive im worthy if i actually think i am worthless''

to change beleifs like this you need to find evidence that supports the new beleif and evidence that condradicts the old beleif.

its usually very easy to find evience tha contradicts the old beleif. i remember i had a the beleif of i ''i am unapealing ''. what i did 1st was discovered when i created this beleif. i discovered that i created it when i was about 5 years old and my mum kept givig me this disaproing look as if i was unappelaing , and she would never show me any effection. as a kid, cos of my mothers behaviour towards me , i just beleived that iw as unapealing

no i asked myself now how much i beleive im unnapealing . and it was about 90%. then i did a bit of research on my past and discovered that my mum wasvery insecure and the reason she treated me the way she was becasue he didnt know how to express love to me cos she was so insecure and had paretns who had problems with expressing emotion.

after that my beleif went from 90% to 30%

actaully beleiving the new beleif can take time though. it requires carrying out a behavioural experimet and then using the evidence from it to confirm your new beleif. for example if an agoraphobic is scared of leaving the house cos they beleive ''everyone is out there to attack me'' then theyd have to change that beleif to '' i am safe when i leave my home'' or something like that .

now it may be hard for them to actually beleive that . therefore they would have to go outsde (bhaviour experiment ) for a few hours and then look at the evidence when they get home. the evidence ould be ''well i went out for a few hours and nothing happend , im sill in one peice''.

that one experiment come bring there new beleif from 10% beleiving it to 50% beleiving it. to beleive it 100% would take a lot of time, a lot of behaviour experiments and a lot of evidence

i like to ombine cbt with things such as nlp and hypnosis cos cbt wors on the concious mind and nlp works on the unconcious mind.

the unconious mind beleives everything you tell it therefore if you tell it you are worthy it accepts that beleif.

*CAN I ASK YOU HOW YOU UNCOVERED ALL OF YOUR BELEIFS. IM VERY GOOD AT CHANGING MY BELEIFS BUT UNCOVERING THME IS AN ISSUE (IVE ONLY EVER BEEN ABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY UNCOVER A FEW''
USUALLY WHEN IM TRYING TO PUT THEM INTO WORDS MY MIND JUST GOES BLANK


----------



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

socially inept said:


> instead of ''im worthless'' you might want to beleve '' im worthy'' but at the same me it may be hard to beleive that cos u might be thinking 'well how can i beleive im worthy if i actually think i am worthless''
> 
> to change beleifs like this you need to find evidence that supports the new beleif and evidence that condradicts the old beleif.
> 
> ...


Many thanks for sharing your thoughts SE. You are certainly right that it can be easy to find evidence that contradicts your original deep rooted negative beliefs if you take the time to really look for it or think about your past experiences. I did the latter today, with the current belief I'm having so much difficulty with when working through a suggested exercise in a self help book - and actually realised that I have had past experiences that proves my current belief isn't accurate and proves that my new belief is more logical/correct. I still think I've got a long way to go before I can actually say I feel on a gut level that the alternative belief is 100% true, but doing that today definitely made some difference. I'm now feeling a bit more confident than I did before that this is a technique I can get to work for me - rather than feeling the way I did when first posting this thread which was that I was being hopeless at it.



socially inept said:


> *CAN I ASK YOU HOW YOU UNCOVERED ALL OF YOUR BELEIFS. IM VERY GOOD AT CHANGING MY BELEIFS BUT UNCOVERING THME IS AN ISSUE (IVE ONLY EVER BEEN ABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY UNCOVER A FEW''
> USUALLY WHEN IM TRYING TO PUT THEM INTO WORDS MY MIND JUST GOES BLANK


Well so far I don't think I've uncovered all of them. But in uncovering the one's I did, I just took the time to think about the types of experiences I've had in the past that trigger strong negative feelings such as depression, anger and anxiety - and asking myself why it was I felt these emotions. Luckily for me I was able to figure out quite a few answers pretty quickly. For example, one of the situations that has bothered me alot in the past is coming across work colleagues or bosses who upon meeting them haven't appeared to like me. In turn this has created much anxiety. And when asking myself why I thought this was, I just knew straight off that it's because I feel like i need the approval or liking of other people at work in order to feel confident and comfortable in a work environment. Which is one of my deep rooted beliefs that I've had for years. I realise that it's not that easy to uncover a deep rooted belief in all cases though.

Many thanks for your reply too Shychick2. I agree, that just continuing to practice what I'm trying to do at the moment is the right thing to do. As thinking further about things, I think I was putting pressure on myself to get more results more soon than was actually realistic - which wasn't really helping me at the time.


----------



## AAAli (Jul 18, 2009)

Great to see that you are trying to change your beliefs as I think that will really help you reduce and overcome sa 

What has helped me is using this worksheet:
http://www.thework.com/downloads/onebelief.pdf

It basically questions your belief, holds it up t the light to see if it really is true, finds out what happens when you believe that thought then you turn it around to see a belief which is just as true or truer than the original belief.


----------



## sadie08 (Sep 17, 2008)

Yes I agree you really do have to have the "experience" part to solidify and find evidence for the new beliefs. Just by thinking it alone, the SA will trick you into finding reasons why that isn't really true, you're lying to yourself, etc. It is good to do some looking at why you developed the belief but experiencing a situation that reinforces the positive thoughts will really help cement it in your mind and help you reach a new awareness of how things really are.


----------



## millenniumman75 (Feb 4, 2005)

AAAli said:


> Great to see that you are trying to change your beliefs as I think that will really help you reduce and overcome sa
> 
> What has helped me is using this worksheet:
> http://www.thework.com/downloads/onebelief.pdf
> ...


:con - Try saying that three times fast :lol


----------



## AAAli (Jul 18, 2009)

millenniumman75 said:


> :con - Try saying that three times fast :lol


:lol I was tired when i wrote that:b
But it is a great way to turn around negative beliefs into positive ones
I use it all the time


----------



## UKPhobe (Oct 22, 2008)

I like this idea of uncovering hidden negative beliefs; it's surprising what can emerge when you don't actually expect it.


----------



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

AAAli said:


> Great to see that you are trying to change your beliefs as I think that will really help you reduce and overcome sa
> 
> What has helped me is using this worksheet:
> http://www.thework.com/downloads/onebelief.pdf
> ...


Many thanks for including that in here AAAli. Much appreciated. I'll be sure to take a good look at that. Looks as if it could be useful!


----------



## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

I've found talking to my therapist to be a huge help with this. We can be sitting there talking about something that seems so simple, and seemingly unrelated, and then these things just start to emerge. Are you in therapy? If not, then perhaps its something to consider, as I had started Dr. Richards' programme, but just did not get far with it on my own.


----------



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

leonardess said:


> I've found talking to my therapist to be a huge help with this. We can be sitting there talking about something that seems so simple, and seemingly unrelated, and then these things just start to emerge. Are you in therapy? If not, then perhaps its something to consider, as I had started Dr. Richards' programme, but just did not get far with it on my own.


Unfortunately not Learnardess :-( Been on an NHS waiting list since towards the end of last year waiting to see a CBT therapist. This is exactly why I've been struggling. Sometimes when it comes to trying out self help techniques I manage ok on my own but at other times not. And it's at those times I really could do with the advice of a therapist. I guess though am just going to have to continue to wait and just do the best I can in the meantime.


----------



## UKPhobe (Oct 22, 2008)

Black_Widow said:


> Unfortunately not Learnardess :-( Been on an NHS waiting list since towards the end of last year waiting to see a CBT therapist. This is exactly why I've been struggling. Sometimes when it comes to trying out self help techniques I manage ok on my own but at other times not. And it's at those times I really could do with the advice of a therapist. I guess though am just going to have to continue to wait and just do the best I can in the meantime.


There are quite a few self help books on CBT you could try, it won't be quite the same as seeing a proper therapist but it might help get you started.

The Gillian Butler book is the obvious first choice.


----------



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

UKPhobe said:


> There are quite a few self help books on CBT you could try, it won't be quite the same as seeing a proper therapist but it might help get you started.
> 
> The Gillian Butler book is the obvious first choice.


Many thanks for the suggestion UKPhobe. Yup, I have collected a few CBT self help books. And that did include the Gillian Butler one. The best one that I feel I've so far read through - that offers some really good comprehensive practical advice - is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies. I'm currently working with it at the moment, and it's what helped me get started with tackling my negative core beliefs, and I've also been finding it very helpful for identifiying certain types of unhelpful negative thinking too. The only thing is though, that while I feel that - as well as some of the other books I've collected - explain certain things quite well is that there usually comes a point where I either feel I'm struggling a bit with an exercise (despite having followed the instructions as listed in the book in question) or else would like further clarification on something described - and that is where I feel I really could do with the help of a therapist. Still I guess it's just one of those things that I'm just going to have to be patient over. As unfortunately I'm not in a position to consider any kind of private therapy right now.


----------



## leonardess (Jun 30, 2009)

Sorry to hear that - it *can* be a real struggle. I guess persevering even though it's difficult is your only choice right now. One thing I did was write out some counter beliefs on index cards, and i carried them around with me, in my bag. When i had a moment or two, I'd re-read some of them. Several times a day.


----------



## UKPhobe (Oct 22, 2008)

Black_Widow said:


> Many thanks for the suggestion UKPhobe. Yup, I have collected a few CBT self help books. And that did include the Gillian Butler one. The best one that I feel I've so far read through - that offers some really good comprehensive practical advice - is Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies. I'm currently working with it at the moment, and it's what helped me get started with tackling my negative core beliefs, and I've also been finding it very helpful for identifiying certain types of unhelpful negative thinking too. The only thing is though, that while I feel that - as well as some of the other books I've collected - explain certain things quite well is that there usually comes a point where I either feel I'm struggling a bit with an exercise (despite having followed the instructions as listed in the book in question) or else would like further clarification on something described - and that is where I feel I really could do with the help of a therapist. Still I guess it's just one of those things that I'm just going to have to be patient over. As unfortunately I'm not in a position to consider any kind of private therapy right now.


Yep the CBT for Dummies is well worth a look.

It might be that your struggling with the exercise is down to being over whelmed, have you tried leaving it for a bit and coming back later.

CBT therapists often have long waiting lists, although I only had a 3 month wait.


----------



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

UKPhobe said:


> Yep the CBT for Dummies is well worth a look.
> 
> It might be that your struggling with the exercise is down to being over whelmed, have you tried leaving it for a bit and coming back later.
> 
> CBT therapists often have long waiting lists, although I only had a 3 month wait.


I have tried that, and yes it does seem to help to a certain extent thanks UKPhobe. Though at the same time, there will be times that I do something like a thought record or try to think up an extra argument to strengthen an alternative belief but no matter what I do a believable idea won't come. It's a bit like writers block in a way for me. Pretty frustrating when it does happen, as it's at moments like that that I really wish I had a person in front of me to ask for help - but things being as they are feel that I can't progress.



leonardess said:


> Sorry to hear that - it *can* be a real struggle. I guess persevering even though it's difficult is your only choice right now. One thing I did was write out some counter beliefs on index cards, and i carried them around with me, in my bag. When i had a moment or two, I'd re-read some of them. Several times a day.


Many thanks for the thoughts Leanardess. And also thanks for mentioning that suggestion. That's something I hadn't properly considered before, I think I might well give that a try.


----------



## britisharrow (Jun 18, 2009)

Are you working with a therapist, this can be helpful as they can suggest things you might not think of. If you're not, then a good CBT book is essential.

Can I recommend the book MIND OVER MOOD by GREENBERGER and PADESKY? You'll find it on Amazon. Type in CBT to Amazon and look at the reviews and you'll find other good books.

With CBT stick with it, don't expect life changing results in a week or even a month, practice the worksheets on your beliefs and ideas reguarly as prescribed by the book. Say to yourself, okay I'm going to spend two months on this and do it regularly, and at the end of those two months I'll see how different I feel.

It's difficult to find the motivation to put in two months of work though, maybe each day remind yourself of your goals in life and how doing these exercises will gradually (day by day) improve your mind and get you towards them.


----------



## Black_Widow (May 23, 2008)

britisharrow said:


> Are you working with a therapist, this can be helpful as they can suggest things you might not think of. If you're not, then a good CBT book is essential.


Hey there British Arrow, thanks for the suggestions there. ;-) Unfortunately that's the whole problem - that I can't work with a therapist at the moment because I'm still on an NHS waiting list to see one, as mentioned a little earlier on in here. I've been trying to get to see one since October last year, and still haven't got anywhere after all this time because I'm going through the NHS system over here, and can't afford to go private. It could still be several months before I get to see one (even though I've been waiting several months already). And in the meantime, that's why I'm struggling on my own. But as mentioned before, I do feel I'm making some progress on my own. Even if it's nowhere near as much progress as I would like - some is better than none. So I'm just going to keep doing the best I can until eventually my luck changes and I can finally get allocated a therapist that I can talk to.



britisharrow said:


> Are you working with a therapist, this can be helpful as they can suggest things you might not think of. If you're not, then a good CBT book is essential.
> 
> Can I recommend the book MIND OVER MOOD by GREENBERGER and PADESKY? You'll find it on Amazon. Type in CBT to Amazon and look at the reviews and you'll find other good books.


Many thanks for the recommendation. Much appreciated. This is a book I've already tried. In all honesty - though I found it pretty useful as an introduction to some of the basics of CBT - I personally found Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies much more helpful. Particularly because I preferred the style in which it was written, and found it included alot more suggestions. But thanks for the mention anyways. ;-)



britisharrow said:


> With CBT stick with it, don't expect life changing results in a week or even a month, practice the worksheets on your beliefs and ideas reguarly as prescribed by the book. Say to yourself, okay I'm going to spend two months on this and do it regularly, and at the end of those two months I'll see how different I feel.
> 
> It's difficult to find the motivation to put in two months of work though, maybe each day remind yourself of your goals in life and how doing these exercises will gradually (day by day) improve your mind and get you towards them.


Will be sure to bear that all in mind - many thanks for the advice


----------



## socially inept (Mar 6, 2009)

Black_Widow said:


> Just wondered if anyone here had had any amount of success with this, and if so how you approached the task?
> 
> This is something I've just started to attempt myself at the moment but am struggling with quite a bit so far. So far I've managed to identify quite a number of core beliefs that contribute alot to my current SA problems and have also worked out what kind of alternative beliefs I'd prefer to have in place of these unhelpful one's. But so far am having trouble figuring out how to get to the point where I can start fully believing in these alternatives rather than just seeing these ideas as something I feel that I should believe in, but still not feeling as if I can. Would be very interested to know if anyone else has experienced this kind of problem, and if so how you dealt with it.
> 
> Many thanks for reading.


in cbt fordummies here is a geat section called ''moving beleifs from your head to your heart''

it explains that the 1st step is to see the logic int he new beleif and to decrease the old beleif from beleiving it 100%. if you can see that there is no logic in ''everyoe will reject me'' and move that beleif from 100% down to 50% and if you can at least see the logic in your new beleif and know that you should beleive it then thats the 1st step.

this is like knowing thats its right and beleiving it in your head. but the next step isto really feel it in your heart. to know it and truly beleive it. to achieve the second step you basically have to keep taking action. the more actions you take the more you prove you newbeleif to be true and the more you will beleive it


----------

