Self-concept

[CalebSC]

"Tragedy occurs when we would rather be right than happy, when we would rather sustain the illusion that we are in control than notice that reality is not the way we have told ourselves it is. If we hold negative self-concepts of which we are unaware, if we hold self-sabotaging beliefs of which we are unconscious, we are their prisoner. Only when we become conscious of our self-sabotaging beliefs do we become able to change our behavior.
"As we see ourselves, so do we act. And our actions tend to produce results that continually support our self-concept."

--Nathaniel Branden (The Psychology of Romantic Love)

 

 

My questions:

 

Why would someone continue to have negative beliefs about themselves when they aren't true?

 

Why would someone be unaware of the beliefs they hold about themselves?

 

How would someone become aware of negative beliefs they hold about themselves, when they thought that they only held positive beliefs about themselves?

Why would someone have conscious beliefs and unconscious beliefs that contradict each other?

 

 

 

 

[Drew.]

Everything that we do has some kind of benefit to it. It might be that the benefit has long vanished, but when we began the action, there was a benefit. Someone who holds negative beliefs about themselves viewed this as preferable over something else. We are unaware of them because we normalize and identify with them. They don't seem like negative self-evaluations, they just seem accurate. Something like, I am not very good at drawing is equally as much of an existential axiom as I am not worthy of love. What I have done in the past is to challenge every single belief that I have about myself, find what evidence there is to support it, and attempt to draw a better conclusion, and part of this has involved therapy work. Regarding conscious and unconscious contradictory beliefs, once again, there was some benefit to it in the past.

[dsayers]

Why would someone continue to have negative beliefs about themselves when they aren't true?

Abusers isolate in order to prevent their target from being able to escape. In the parent-child relationship, this can be as easy as inflicting conclusions rather than methodology. The victim had to believe the conclusion in order to survive. Once they develop the capability to overcome it, they're not trying because they were not taught to verify conclusions.

 

Why would someone be unaware of the beliefs they hold about themselves?

Because they've internalized or normalized the abuse. I have a step-uncle who went years as a child seeing double. He was able to function, so he had no way of knowing that this was not the norm. He had normalized it because he had no reason not to.

 

How would someone become aware of negative beliefs they hold about themselves, when they thought that they only held positive beliefs about themselves?

Questioning their conclusions. Asking themselves "How do I know?" Then, if they find a conclusion to be false, ask themselves, "Who benefited from me thinking/feeling this way?"

 

Why would someone have conscious beliefs and unconscious beliefs that contradict each other?

Because they were forced to. Subconsciously, I knew that Christianity didn't add up, because humans are universality machines. Consciously though, a great deal of fear was inflicted upon me to make me behave as if it were real. So out of fear for burning for an eternity, I believed in something that was irrational.

 

I hope these answers were of some use to you. How much/long have you listened to the call in shows? I know when I first found FDR, I listened to quite a few and was able to apply a lot of the same thoughts and questions to my own life, which was very helpful in learning how to understand all of this.

[CalebSC]

As the years go by these beliefs probably pile up on top of each other as a person forms new beliefs in response to certain situations. And it's interesting how a person can go on holding on to a belief after the benefit of having it has passed.

[Drew.]

Well, the belief is likely learned from a traumatic event and experience. Every time it is approach, those old feelings arise. It overwhelmed them as children, and it overwhelms when because these feelings are sort of frozen and unresolved. So the dysfunctional strategy continues.

[CalebSC]

I've been listening since Fall 2013. I've taken some pretty detailed notes on some of the shows, especially when I thought Stefan was getting into the nuts and bolts of psychology. Some of my favorites are:

 

 -- Genetic Ostracism - Ideology vs Reproduction

 -- Somebody to Love

 -- The Downside of Being a Pickup Artist

 -- The Hidden Origins of Conflict - Avoiding Divorce

[rosencrantz]

Why would someone continue to have negative beliefs about themselves when they aren't true?

 

 

Irrational ideas are connected to strong emotions that are seen as negative. 

 

 

Why would someone be unaware of the beliefs they hold about themselves?

 

 

 

Few people reflect on what they believe and why they believe it.

 

 

How would someone become aware of negative beliefs they hold about themselves, when they thought that they only held positive beliefs about themselves?

 

 

Using introspection, going down the rabbithole and trying to find the core irrational belief that underlies a bunch of symptomatic dysfunctional creeds we may have.

 

 

Why would someone have conscious beliefs and unconscious beliefs that contradict each other?

 

 

 

Why not? Our brain didn't evolve to be contradiction free, rather to notice patterns. 

[CalebSC]

Good answers Rosencrantz.

[Danske]

What is it like to uncover a core belief?

Does the feeling come first?

[rosencrantz]

Does the feeling come first?

 

 

No. Feelings and ideas / beliefs are connected. Here is why, in very broad strokes.

 

During the evolution, the brain grew in size from the inside to the outside. Reptiles don't have feelings. You can't annoy a snake, no matter how hard you try. 

Mammals have feelings that are connected to their survival. When a mouse hears a falcon cry, the mouse's fight / flight mechanism is activated. The mouse gets an energy boost, by amping up metabolism (heartrate goes up, digestion is stopped) to escape or to fight. 

Primates as social beings in a group have to calculate their standing in a group and they try to improve it to spread their genes. Humans are a form of primate that have enhanced cognitive possibilities. There is a problem though. Your conscious mind is pretty small compared to your unconscious mind. You can only have 6 to 8 ideas at the same time and be also aware of them. 

Compare that to the many thoughts you aren't aware of and you have the problem of filtering those ideas that make it to your conscious mind. To do that, our mind uses emotions that are connected to ideas. The ideas that are connected to strong emotions make it through, the rest remains in your unconscious (Think of the following example. You are in a car and suddenly you have the idea "Oh fuck, did I leave the stove turned on?" or "Did I lock the door properly?")

This mechanism is useful when it comes to survival, because ideas that are connected to sex and food are often those that have the strongest connection with powerful emotions. However, it makes Cognitive Therapy very hard. If you only fight irrational ideas without disrupting the connection to strong negative feelings, the irrational ideas will always come back. 

 

 

What is it like to uncover a core belief?

 

 

 

It's both liberating and frightening. On one hand you see why you do stupid actions all the time. On the other hand it's frustrating becasue knowing you are being irrational doesn't mean you will act smarter in the future. Unless you replace the irrational core ideas with more functional ones you are fighting a losing battle. However, third generation cognitive approaches like Acceptance and Commitment therapy, mindfulness CBT or Coherence Therapy allow you to make progress.

 

[D-Light]

 

"Tragedy occurs when we would rather be right than happy, when we would rather sustain the illusion that we are in control than notice that reality is not the way we have told ourselves it is. If we hold negative self-concepts of which we are unaware, if we hold self-sabotaging beliefs of which we are unconscious, we are their prisoner. Only when we become conscious of our self-sabotaging beliefs do we become able to change our behavior.

"As we see ourselves, so do we act. And our actions tend to produce results that continually support our self-concept."

--Nathaniel Branden (The Psychology of Romantic Love)

 

 

Q - Why would someone continue to have negative beliefs about themselves when they aren't true?

 

A - A person will hold to the beliefs that allow them to make sense of the world and their experiences. It's a matter of security. Holding negative beliefs about oneself often have more to do with habits, insecurities, and fears than they have to do with truth or reason..

 

Q - Why would someone be unaware of the beliefs they hold about themselves?

 

A - A person may have never consciously challenged any beliefs about themselves because they have not had any reason to do so. Pain is not sufficient to abandon the security of a consistent perception, even when the perception is false.

 

Q - How would someone become aware of negative beliefs they hold about themselves, when they thought that they only held positive beliefs about themselves?

 

A - Careful introspection about one's beliefs about one's abilities qualities and comparing these to others' perceptions about their abilities and qualities.

 

Q - Why would someone have conscious beliefs and unconscious beliefs that contradict each other?

 

A - Generally, this does not happen. However, there may instead be some unconscious self-sabotage, or beliefs about one's moral goodness measured against one's standard of moral goodness or the standard of moral goodness we impute to another.  In other words, if you consciously think you're awesome, but subconsciously, you think you don't deserve something or someone who is totally awesome because of something you've done or haven't done and so you self-sabotage. That's just one way/example.

[CalebSC]

Just found this term called "Self schemas"... Very interesting:

http://www.slideshare.net/someshsh/self-schemas