BEHAVIOUR and BELIEF

Some client problems are triggered by a specific event or situation. Other clients have behaviours which they recognise are not helpful, but which are not associated with a particular time, place or event. These behaviours can be based on personal beliefs. Each person has an unconscious view of themselves which governs all of their behaviour and to a large extent determines their personality. This unconscious view centers on a series of beliefs. Core beliefs play a key role in the maintenance of long term problems. If you want to change your behaviour then you have to change your core beliefs.

Core Personal beliefs are stable and consistent over time, but can be altered. These beliefs are context dependent, that is they do not necessarily apply equally to every part of a person's life. For example, you can believe one thing about yourself in the work environment, and believe something quite different about yourself in the social environment. Beliefs can be changed by hypnotic suggestions.

 

HOW CORE BELIEFS ARE FORMED

Core Beliefs are formed early.

Indulgers and Discouragers

Some beliefs are formed as a result of repeatedly being told something by parents, teachers and other authority figures. You can be told repeatedly that you are a very special little girl and everybody loves you no matter what and that belief will stay with that little girl her whole life. Or you can be told that you are useless and will never amount to anything and you will go through life never amounting to anything. You can also be told indirectly. The indirection can be done in words: the child says "Mummy, what's an astronaut?" and is crushed by the reply "Don't worry about it, you'll never be one". Or it can be done by implication - a mother who makes it clear that she is happiest when Johnny is playing quietly in the hall is sending the message "you're not important enough for me" and little Johnny carries that belief all through his adult life. He may try to overcompensate and become a nuclear submarine commander or a mountain climber in order to get Mum's approval, or he may decide that all he can do is to try to be useful but invisible and become a bus driver or a shop assistant.

Direct Experience

Beliefs are also formed directly by childhood experience, where the child is involved in a situation and learns how things usually work out in that situation. Children are extremely good at picking up erroneous beliefs. When I was small my family lived in an apartment block. Each Sunday I was dragged along to visit sick relatives. These relatives all lived in the suburbs in small houses. To this day I associate houses without stairs with decay and illness. Children are the centre of their world in their early years, and believe that everything that happens, happens because of them. Many adults are walking around today filled with a permanent feeling of guilt based on the child's belief that Daddy left Mommy because the child was bad.

Child Centered Logic

Children have very little logical ability. When a trusted adult tells them about something or someone else, the child will just internalise it without question. What they are told becomes a fixed belief. This is how biases and cultural values are transmitted. Mummy may tell her daughter that 'good girls don't do that sort of thing' to keep the little girl safe, but it becomes a problem when the little girl takes that belief into her marriage.

Unconscious Imitation

Children are also very malleable and will automatically imitate things. They pick up cultural values, ways of talking, ways of thinking and specific beliefs from other people. These are usually stated as rules, often unconsciously. Very few people can tell you the rules for constructing a valid English sentence, but they know instantly when one is not valid. Everyone has internalised the incredibly complicated rules of English and did it automatically and unconsciously. So it should be no surprise if a man gets depressed on losing his job. The child absorbed the belief from Daddy that the man of the house brings in the money and also learned from Mummy that the man next door was no good because he didn't work. That belief is at the root of the problem.

 

 

Using Beliefs in Therapy

Knowing how beliefs are formed lets me know how to undo them. When I first meet a client, beliefs are the things that I listen carefully for. How does this client define himself? What does she say about her abilities? What is the client's view of the world they live in?

Learning the client's belief system is the first step to identifying where they can be helped. Once I know what negative beliefs the client has about themselves then I know where to aim hypnotic suggestions.

 

 

• Script Example

 

 

• Topic: Hypnosis Research