Chapter 4
Taking a Fresh Look at Your Past
In This Chapter
Putting your current problems into context
Identifying your core beliefs
Strengthening your beliefs
Acting in accordance with your new beliefs
Developing alternative beliefs
Your past experiences have an effect on how you think and function now. Sometimes, you may endure bad experiences and be able to make some good things happen from them. At other times, you may be wounded by unpleasant events and carry that injury with you into your present and future.
This chapter encourages you to examine openly whether your past experiences have led you to develop core beliefs that may be causing your current emotional difficulties.
People are sometimes surprised to find out that CBT considers the past an important aspect of understanding one’s problems. Unlike traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, which focuses intensively on childhood relationships and experiences, CBT specifically investigates past experiences in order to see how these ...
