C O G N I T I V E

B E H AV I O U R A L T H E R A P Y
P R A C T I T I O N E R C O U R S E

THE CORE
ASSUMPTIONS OF CBT
 THE CORE ASSUMPTIONS OF CBT
Every life science has a set of core assumptions it operates out of. The core assumptions
of CBT is based on the assumption that the quality of our thoughts impact how we relate
to our life’s experiences. This means that the attitude and approach we take towards
life, relationships and people will influence the outcomes we experience throughout
life. Similarly, the core ideas of the assumptions we operate out of as CBT therapists will
determine how effective we will be when working with other people.

1. PEOPLE ARE PROCESSORS OF EXPERIENCE RATHER THAN PASSIVE VICTIMS OF CIRCUMSTANCE.

Humans are meaning-making machines: nothing has meaning until we assign meaning to
it. People are quick to assign definitive conclusions onto events in life, be they positive or
negative. The problem with this behaviour is that it endorses an ignorant belief that the way
they see things is the way things actually are. Perception is not the truth: two people could be
in the same place at the same time and come away with two entirely different stories about
what happened during that period. In order to grow, we have to become skilled at looking
at our interpretations and perceptions of life from multiple perspectives to arrive at a more
balanced and grounded conclusion.

There are only two mindsets we can have when it comes to this core assumption: we are
happening to life or life is happening to us. If we are of the mindset that we are happening
to life, we take the role as processors of life. We accept that things will happen to us, but we
take everything that comes our way and respond to it with wisdom and peace. People who
believe they are victims of circumstance become disempowered, helpless, hopeless, down in
the dumps and they lose faith in their capability to change their life.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?

2. PEOPLE ARE NOT BROKEN ENTITIES WHO NEED TO BE FIXED: THEY JUST NEED TO BE
UNDERSTOOD.

People who believe they are broken entities are subconsciously subscribing to the belief that
they are in need of ‘fixing’. Therefore, they spend their lives waiting for someone to enter their
lives to do so: they hope a new romantic partner will fix their depression; that their mother
will tell them what to do with their life and make the pain go away; they hope a therapist can
cure their OCD or they hope their friend can take away their loneliness for them. This attitude
makes people needy; they need a certain person to be a certain way to make them feel a
certain way.

Most people who come to a CBT practitioner will come with a victim mindset. They will
be haunted by their past life events and proclaim themselves as a useless failure who
will never succeed. A client will always use their past as a reference point for their future
failures, so what CBT practitioners need to draw their attention to is not the facts of their past
circumstance, but rather the lessons they may have learned from them.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?
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3. IF PEOPLE LEARN UNHELPFUL WAYS OF THINKING, THEY CAN ALSO UNLEARN THEM AS EASILY.

People get easily trapped in their ways of thinking which have usually become ingrained
through their interpretations of past events. Whilst they may seem deeply rooted in our belief
systems, CBT practitioners need to show their clients that thinking patterns are not illnesses
or diseases which are fixed: anything a mind can do can also be undone. CBT practitioners
need to earn their clients’ trust by demonstrating that they are present when their client is
speaking by demonstrating active listening. Our job is to show our clients that they are not
victims of what happens to them, but are rather autonomous beings who can regain their
power by changing their responses to circumstances.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?

4. EVERY PERSON IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR THOUGHTS, FEELINGS, ACTIONS AND
BEHAVIOUR.

We do not become empowered in an area of our life until we take full responsibility for it.
It empowers us because this rationality sets us free from needing other people to come
through for us and make things better. In most cases, it’s our thoughts which disturb us most
in life rather than other people and circumstances; which means taking responsibility for our
thoughts equals more effective emotional management. This assumption means that our role
as CBT practitioners isn’t to fix or modify people’s thoughts, feelings or behaviours, but to be
the conduit of change which enables and encourages clients to take more responsibility for
these aspects of their lives.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?

5. WE CAN’T CONTROL THOUGHTS ENTERING OUR MIND, BUT WE CAN CHOOSE TO ACT UPON
THEM OR NOT.

Many people assume that because they believe something is true, it is true. However, both
thoughts and feelings are fleeting entities: they come and they go (provided we let them).
The assumptions which impact us the most in life go on to form our beliefs, and maturity
is about growing up and out of the limiting beliefs we adopted when we were young and
into something more grounded and stable which serves other people. Our role as CBT
practitioners is to help people examine their thoughts objectively and critique these thoughts
to determine how their quality of thinking is impacting their quality of life and emotional
experience.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?

6. ALL PEOPLE HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHOOSE A NEW SET OF HABITS, THOUGHT PATTERNS AND
BEHAVIOURS.

The past does not determine the future. Just because a person has succumbed to a set of
thought patterns in the past does not mean that they will for the rest of their life. No one else
can take responsibility for growing and changing a person other than that person. People
must choose to grow through experiences rather than choose to be crushed by them.
We can’t choose what happens to us, but we can choose how we respond to life as it
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changes and unfolds.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?

7. THE MEANING OF OUR COMMUNICATIONS IS DETERMINED BY OTHER PEOPLE, NOT BY US.

When we go through life speaking our minds and speaking our hearts to others, we rarely
consider how our message or our attitude is being received and interpreted by other
people. CBT practitioners must encourage their clients to be far more reflective with their
communications and consider not only what they say, but how they say what they say
because the way we speak may create barriers between ourselves and others without
our knowledge. How we say what we say is affected by our prejudices, biases, beliefs and
assumptions which, when left unchecked, formulate what we say into an agenda. We
need to teach clients to observe the responses they get from others when interacting with
them rather than focus solely on what they’re saying and pushing their message across
inconsiderately.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?

8. BEING BETTER IS BETTER THAN FEELING BETTER

Most people are desperate to feel better. When we are experiencing emotional, physical or
spiritual pain, our instinctive need to feel better can take on a life of its very own. Most of us
don’t even realise our subconscious is working in overdrive to do whatever it takes to avoid
these negative feelings. However, the problem with this is that what makes us ‘feel’ better
usually is not what actually makes us ‘get’ better.

Feeling better can come about through a variety of different remedies; although some
will look better than others, they usually all have the same result. The truth is that such
remedies are only ever temporary diversions from our emotions or situations we’re facing
in life, and they often prolong the underlying issue. In essence, remedies that make us feel
better are like putting a plaster over an infected would: it doesn’t deal with the root of the
issue. Excessive work, busyness, shopping, exercise, eating, computer games, and TV can all
provide a mental escape and help us feel better in the short term – but the problem is just
that: it’s a temporary solution!

If your escape is exercise, work, or volunteering, others might admire how driven and
committed you are. On the other hand, if your answer is alcohol, drugs, or gambling, others
will most likely judge you for it. Most forms of dysfunction stem from the same root: an
innate need to avoid undesired emotions (most often some form of anxiety). Common ‘drugs
of choice’ are usually busyness, food and control. Keeping busy can be very destructive; it
allows us to run from our emotions, so much so that we don’t have the time or energy to even
feel our emotions. In the same way, being a control freak can give us a sense of power, but
can also be incredibly harmful in our relationships. Eating can soothe your anxiety within the
moment, but the consequence is most often a life-long struggle with weight.

Getting better often demands feeling worse for a period which can seem counter-intuitive.
Many claim counselling doesn’t work because they felt worse when they went. Getting better
doesn’t feel better right away, and that can be discouraging for many people. We could
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liken it to psychological chemotherapy: we must be willing to feel worse in the short term in
order to get better in the long term. Getting better is about growing in self-awareness, better
understanding ourselves and adopting new strategies into our lives to help us become more
effective and of more value to other people.

As potential CBT practitioners, one of the greatest responsibilities we have is to encourage

clients to take greater responsibility for their lives. If a client’s goal is simply ‘feeling
better’ then they have not yet assumed responsibility for ‘being better’. Unfortunately, as
practitioners, it is not our responsibility to make people’s debilitating and undesired feelings
go away. However, we can help people to understand where their emotions are coming from
and help them to better understand themselves.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?

9. OUR INTERNAL WORLD MANIFESTS ITSELF IN OUR OUTSIDE WORLD

Thought power is the key to creating our reality. Everything we perceive in the physical world
has its origins in the invisible, inner world of our thoughts and beliefs. To become the master
of your own destiny, we must first learn to control the nature of our habitual negative thinking
patterns. In doing this, we begin to attract into our lives more of the things we actually want as
we come to recognise this truth: our thoughts create our reality.

For every ‘outside effect’ there is an ‘inner cause’: every effect we see in our outside world
has a specific cause which originated in our inner or mental world. This is the very nature of
thought power. In other words, the circumstances and conditions of our lives are a result of
our collective thoughts and beliefs. Every aspect of our lives, from the state of our health to
the state of our finances and our relationships, reveals our thoughts and beliefs.

It’s an ‘inside job’: most people get it back to front and believe that they think or feel a
certain way as a result of their external circumstances. They do not know the truth that it
is their thoughts which are creating these very circumstances (whether desired or not). By
internalising and applying the truth that our thoughts create our reality, we can go on to
create the changes that we want to see and begin working towards achieving our life goals.
Reality is an inside job.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?

10. HURT PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE

Do you know any difficult people in your life? Individuals who are easily offended by words?
You have to watch everything you say around them through fear that you’ll set off a trigger
in them that leads them to lash out in anger. Or perhaps this person is you. Do other people
walk on eggshells around you? Do they avoid you? Do they hold back for fear of how you will
react?

If you don’t deal with your own hurts, you end up hurting others. When you don’t forgive
other people, you hurt. When you don’t forgive yourself, you hurt. This is true on a physical,
emotional, relational, and spiritual level.
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Here are ten indicators of hurt people who hurt others:

1. They are easily threatened so are quick to attack with their words.
2. They misjudge others and often assume other people are against them.
3. They don’t see or understand the pain they inflict on other people.
4. They don’t understand why others don’t understand them.
5. They won’t let down their guard, so they are always on the defensive.
6. They don’t take responsibility for their behaviour.
7. They are easily offended.
8. They are quick to react in anger.
9. If they feel backed into a corner regarding an issue, they’ll come out fighting.
10. They rarely have close, intimate friendships.

It’s very difficult to help a hurting person unless they want your help. If you are the one that is
hurting, recognise that your pain is causing other people pain and get help for yourself and
the people around you. It really does matter.

Here are some common traits hurt people display when they’re interacting with other people.
•• Hurt people usually transfer their inner anger onto their family and close friends. Often,
the people around them become the recipients of fits of rage and harsh tones because
they have unknowingly become the recipients of ‘transferred rage’.
•• Hurt people interpret every word that is spoken to them through the prism of their pain.
This means that words are often misinterpreted to mean something negative towards
them. As a result, they are extremely sensitive and respond out of pain, as supposed to
reality.
•• Hurt people tend to interpret every action through the prism of their pain. They often
jump to incorrect conclusions about other people’s motives or evil intent behind their
actions towards them.
•• Hurt people often have a ‘victim mentality’ where they believe that they are ‘victim’ to
the circumstances and situations life throws their way.
•• Hurt people often find it very difficult entering into a trusting relationship.

•• Hurt people often carry around a suspicious spirit.

•• Hurt people often alienate other people and wonder why there is no one there for them.
They are often so focused on their own hurt that they disregard and disrespect others
without even realising it. They continually hurt the people they love and need the most
as a result of their self-destructive behaviours.
•• Hurt people are often depressed or frustrated because they allow past pain to contin-
ually spill over into their present. Much of the time they are not even aware of why they
are always depressed or frustrated because they have coped with the pain by compart-
mentalising it.

Q. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards life
and other people change?
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11. WHAT WE FOCUS ON HAS AN EMOTIONAL CONSEQUENCE.

Have you ever stopped yourself abruptly after realising you’d been focusing on something
unhelpful for too long? Perhaps it was something that didn’t go well in your day or something
offensive that someone else said. Whatever the situation was, it was something you knew was
not a big deal in the grand scheme of life, and yet you felt the need to mentally replay it over
and over in your mind.

Every time you give power to the little things that seem to bother you — when another driver
is rude to you on the road, or someone doesn’t return your email right away — you’re choosing
to be that anxious, unproductive energy. Every time we get caught up in our need to feel
liked, approved of and respected or focus on how other people have wronged us, we are
choosing to be the fear of being mistreated. Thinking is more than just an activity: it actually
manifests as a state of being.

It’s not that we must swallow our feelings about the life events we’re experiencing (big and
small) in fear they will somehow define us. But what if we were to begin questioning the
thoughts that create our feelings, instead of creating unease and drama over something
that we may not even remember in a few days from now, we prevent the negativity from
consuming us. We tend to spend so much of our time focusing on things that don’t really
serve us when the thing that would actually help us the most is to focus our attention inward.
If we can pay attention to and understand how our thoughts are influencing us, we will
change who we’re being and how we are experiencing the world. It starts with a simple
realisation: we can feel free, present and be open in this present if we choose to let go of the
worries that stand in our way.

Qu. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards
life and other people change?

12. PLASTERS DON’T HEAL WOUNDS

As previously mentioned, there are many things we can do to make us ‘feel better’. However,
such things are only ever temporary diversions from the emotions or situations we’re facing
in life. Plasters don’t heal wounds, but dealing with the root of the problem does. Dealing with
the root of the problem means learning to identify and grow up out of the limiting beliefs and
destructive thought patterns that we developed at an earlier stage in life.

Destructive thought patterns are repetitive and unhelpful thoughts. They serve no real
purpose and lead to negative and debilitating emotions. The truth is that we have a choice
about how we react to these destructive thought patterns and once we learn to recognise
and identify them, we can start to make wiser and more well-informed decisions about what
we focus on. So how do we move through life in a way that is practical and authentic without
getting drawn into negative thought patterns?

Become the watcher of your thoughts in order to become free from the negativity you must
become more aware of what you’re thinking! Begin paying more attention to what’s actually
going on inside your mind at any given time. Pay close attention to any patterns of negative
thinking that arise. Become a curious observer of what is going on in your inner world. Our
minds are similar to a record player, playing the same habitual songs over and over again.
Through lack of awareness, the record continues playing because its momentum is used to
moving in the familiar grooves.
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By becoming more conscious of your own negative thinking patterns, you bring in a new level
of awareness: you become mindful. When this happens, you’re able to step back from the
thoughts and become an observer. As a result, thoughts and emotions immediately start to
lose their grip on you. Every time you become aware of these patterns of destructive thinking,
it’s like you’ve put a small scratch in that habitual old record. After a while, the record never
quite plays the same again, and eventually, it doesn’t play at all.

With practice, you can begin deliberately choosing to focus on constructive thoughts instead

•• thoughts that help you effectively face your day-to-day situations. We’re going to be
unpacking negative thought patterns (also known as cognitive distortions) in more detail
later on in the course.

Qu. If you were to accept that this assumption was true, how might your attitude towards
life and other people change?