As you may realize as you read the articles on this site, the underlying core issue for many problems resides with irrational thinking styles. That, of course, is the basic premise of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). We develop styles of thinking based upon our learning experiences, our parents' thinking, and societal/community beliefs and expectations.

Learning Experiences. When we are growing up, we have many experiences and the outcome of these experiences contribute to beliefs or ways of thinking that we develop. For instance, as a child I was very shy and fearful of speaking in public due to fear of making a mistake and being ridiculed. In the 7th grade I had a teacher who encouraged me to attend speech competitions. I was so excited that she thought I could be good at this that I was willing to face my fear and engage in speech competitions which I continued even throughout high school. As a result, I developed the belief "Even though talking in front of people causes anxiety I am capable of doing it." Now, if I had not had that experience and my main experience was being embarrassed in front of my class because I couldn't say the word "peculiar" when I was reading out loud (it sounds different than it looks and I couldn't get my brain to switch from the visual to the auditory because I was so anxious), I may have developed the belief "Talking in front of people leads to embarrassment which I must avoid." The problem that causes this belief to be irrational is that it is black and white--it leaves no room for alternatives. I would be assuming that talking in front of people always leads to embarrassment. Instead, by doing speech competitions I learned that talking in front of people could be enjoyable and could lead to awards.

Trauma is an important subset of learning experiences that severely affects an individual's belief system. For example, an individual who survived a fire has a fear of low probability catastrophes. Due to the fact that a low probability catastrophe occurred to him or her, it is more difficult to challenge the thinking with a statement such as "It is unlikely to occur." Or a person who was raped and then told it was her fault because she left her door unlocked may tend to unreasonably blame herself for things that happen.  READ MORE...

Copyright © 2009 by Monica A. Frank, Ph.D. and  www.excelatlife.com Permission to reprint this article is granted if it includes this entire copyright and link.