Core Beliefs and How They Shape Us
Two people get the same email from their manager: "Can we chat tomorrow?" One shrugs and goes back to lunch. The other spends their evening replaying every possible mistake from the past month. Part of the difference in those responses may be explained by core beliefs: the deep assumptions we hold about who we are, how other people behave, and what to expect from life.
Most of these beliefs formed early in life, and because they’ve been with us so long, they may even feel more like “facts” than beliefs. Below, we look at how core beliefs develop, how to recognize the unhelpful ones, and how therapy can help you relate to them differently.
What Are Core Beliefs?
Core beliefs are the conclusions you hold, usually without realizing it, about yourself, other people, the world, and the future. Psychiatrist Aaron Beck, who developed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), proposed that these beliefs sit beneath our everyday thoughts and shape them in ways we usually don’t notice.
Think back to the person who spent the evening worrying about their manager’s email. The first thing they’d likely notice is a thought like “I’m in trouble.” If they looked a little closer, they might find a “rule” they’ve been living by, such as “If I make a mistake, people will stop trusting me.” Underneath that rule, there’s often a belief like “I’m not good enough.”
The person who went back to lunch probably had a different first thought, something like “She likely wants to talk about the project.” Under that thought, they might find a more flexible rule, such as “I can handle this, even if things go wrong.” Further down, there’s often a steadier belief, like “I’m worthy, even when I make mistakes.” Both people read the same words, but the belief each one brought shaped what those words meant.
Most of us only notice the first layer, the thought itself. So when a reaction feels bigger than the moment, we tend to focus on the situation, wondering why she’d send that message, rather than the belief underneath. Because the belief stays out of view, it can keep shaping our reactions without us noticing.
Researchers describe core beliefs as organizing into stable mental frameworks called schemas, which shape how we interpret new information. Psychologist Judith Beck’s work grouped negative beliefs about the self into three themes: helplessness, unlovability, and worthlessness. Core beliefs aren’t always negative, though, and most people carry some of each.
Characteristics of Core Beliefs
Not every thought you have about yourself is a core belief. You might think “I’m bad at small talk” after an awkward party and forget about it by the weekend. Core beliefs run deeper and behave differently, which is part of why they can be hard to recognize. Here’s what tends to set them
apart from everyday thoughts:
Felt as facts. Most people don’t walk around thinking, "I believe I'm unlovable." The thought registers as true, so you don’t question it.
A lens on experiences. Like tinted glasses, a core belief colours how you read a tone of voice or a slow reply, often before you've had a chance to think.
Early roots. Most form in childhood or after major life events.
Self-reinforcing. Beliefs collect evidence that fits and overlook what doesn't. Someone convinced they're incompetent can forget ten compliments and remember one criticism for years.
Mostly hidden. You notice the anxious thought or the flash of anger, while the belief driving it stays out of sight.
Someone convinced they're incompetent can forget ten compliments and remember one criticism for years.
Examples of Core Beliefs
Therapists often group core beliefs into three areas: how you see yourself, how you see other people, and how you see the world and your future. A belief in any of these areas can be helpful or unhelpful. Helpful beliefs tend to be balanced and flexible, leaving room for mistakes, setbacks, and mixed experiences. Unhelpful ones are usually rigid and harsh, and they can feed anxiety, anger, or low mood.
Here’s how each type might look in both forms, and how it can play out:
Yourself: “I’m not good enough” or “I have worth, even when I make mistakes.” The first can lead to overworking, people-pleasing, or avoiding challenges. The second makes it easier to take a risk and recover when things don’t go to plan.
Other people: “People can’t be trusted” or “Some people are trustworthy and supportive.” One keeps you guarded, even with people who care about you, while the other leaves room to lean on others when you need support.
The world and the future: “Things never work out for me” or “Difficult situations can change, and good things are possible.” The first can make it hard to see the point in trying, and the second can help you keep going through a rough patch.
The same belief can also sound different depending on where you are. At work, “I’m not good enough” might sound like, “If I don’t over-prepare, I’m sure to make mistakes.” With a partner, it might be “They’ll leave once they see the real me.”
Because the thoughts look so different, it’s easy to treat them as separate concerns, like work stress in one area of life and relationship worries in another. Spotting the belief they share is often one of the first things therapy helps with.
Where Do Core Beliefs Come From?
Children work out how the world operates with limited information, and the conclusions they reach often become core beliefs. A child whose efforts are noticed and encouraged may come to believe “I’m capable.” One who can count on a caregiver for comfort when they’re upset may learn “People will be there for me.”
The same process can lead to more painful conclusions. As Judith Beck explains, negative core beliefs develop from how a child interprets an experience. If a parent is often critical, a child may decide, “I’m not good enough.” If caregivers are warm one day and distant the next, the lesson might be “People can’t be counted on.” Those conclusions made sense at the time, and some may even have protected the child from disappointment.
Several influences tend to shape core beliefs, both helpful and unhelpful:
Early relationships, especially with parents and caregivers
Repeated messages, encouraging or critical, from family, teachers, peers, and culture
Significant experiences, such as a mentor’s support or a close friendship, as well as loss, bullying, and trauma
Some adults with ADHD grew up hearing they were "lazy" or "too much," and those labels can harden into a lasting sense of failure. If painful experiences are part of your story, understanding the signs of emotional trauma in adults may help explain reactions that seem to come out of nowhere.
Core beliefs can also feel stronger at times than others. Judith Beck notes that most of us hold fairly balanced beliefs, with harsher ones resting underneath. If you’ve ever been passed over for a promotion, you might remember “I’m not good enough” stinging for a while before you could see the situation more clearly.
During depression, anxiety, or another mental health challenge, those harsher beliefs can switch on and take longer to settle. You might find yourself searching for proof, so even a slow reply from a friend feels like confirmation of the negative beliefs you’re feeling. You might also start avoiding situations that stir the belief up, which feels protective but can keep it in place longer. These patterns are common, and therapy can help you notice them and respond with more understanding.
Children work out how the world operates with limited information, and the conclusions they reach often become core beliefs.
How to Identify Negative Core Beliefs
You may not be able to see a core belief directly, but you can observe what it does. Watch for these patterns:
Recurring thoughts. The same self-critical thought keeps turning up in different parts of your life. A typo at work, a burnt dinner, and a forgotten birthday might all lead to “I always mess things up.” When one thought follows you across unrelated situations, the common thread is often a belief you’re carrying.
Strong reactions. Your emotional response seems bigger than the moment. A friend cancels plans, and for days, part of you hears, “Nobody wants me around.” Reactions like this are often responding to what an event means to you, which is where core beliefs live. For some adults with ADHD, this intensity overlaps with rejection sensitive dysphoria, a painful emotional reaction to perceived rejection or criticism.
Absolute language. Watch for words like “always,” “never,” “everyone,” and “I am...” A thought tied to one situation tends to be specific, like “I made a mistake in that report.” A core belief is broader and more permanent, like “I’m careless,” so sweeping language is often a sign you’ve reached one.
To trace a thought back to its source, CBT therapists often use something called the downward arrow technique. You take an upsetting thought and keep asking, "If that were true, what would it mean about me?" A chain might start with "My report had two typos," move through "My manager will think I'm careless" and "She'll stop trusting me," and end at "I'm a failure."
That last step is usually the core belief. Reaching it can hurt, especially when it's tied to painful memories, so it helps to have a therapist guide and support you in a way that feels safe.
Therapies That Help Change Negative Core Beliefs
There’s no single right way to work with core beliefs. The approach that fits best often depends on you, including your history, what you’re hoping for, and what feels manageable right now. Some therapies help you carefully test whether a belief still feels true, while others focus on loosening its hold, or on caring for the memories and unmet needs that gave it so much power. Many therapists draw on more than one, shaping the approaches based on client needs.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
In CBT, core beliefs are explored by starting with the thoughts that show up in your everyday life. Across your CBT sessions, you and your therapist trace those thoughts back to the belief underneath and get curious about how true it is. You might keep a positive data log, noting moments that don’t fit the old belief. Or you might try a small experiment, like sharing an idea in a meeting, to see whether the belief’s predictions hold up.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) doesn't try to win an argument with your beliefs; instead, it changes how much room they take up. It helps you get better at recognizing the internal experiences driving your outer experiences, including your core beliefs. One problem with core beliefs is that we can see ourselves as our beliefs. We don't question them. In ACT, you practice noticing your stable sense of self who can observe these beliefs and recognize when you're buying into ideas about yourself.
A key skill is cognitive defusion, which means seeing a thought as something your mind produced rather than a statement of fact. Even a small shift in wording, from "I'm not good enough" to "I'm having the thought that I'm not good enough," can loosen its grip. Your therapist might invite you to notice core beliefs by calling them stories: "There's the ‘everyone hates me’ story," or "Here comes the ‘I will never be worthy of love’ story." You aren't trying to battle or challenge them. Instead, you're learning to recognize these inner events as inner events, rather than hard facts that must drive your life and dictate your behaviours.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
In Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), negative core beliefs are viewed as being connected to traumatic events and experiences. These can include very serious and significant traumatic events, or negative experiences that build up and are reinforced over time, such as bids for attention that went unanswered or comments people made throughout your life.
These experiences can shape your self-identity and core beliefs.
An EMDR therapist works with you to identify memories or events from the past and present that connect to specific negative core beliefs. You hold the memory and its belief in mind, perhaps "I'm powerless," while following side-to-side eye movements, taps, or tones. These processing methods, which involve dual attention and bilateral stimulation, help you process negative memories and events so the beliefs connected to them can lose their charge and power.
As the memory is processed, your therapist helps strengthen a more adaptive belief you've chosen together, such as "I can protect myself now." This may include recalling positive experiences or visualizing your strengths, alongside processing methods that help these beliefs feel more accessible and believable.
Internal Family Systems (IFS)
Internal Family Systems (IFS) starts from the idea that the mind contains different "parts." Some carry old pain and the beliefs that came with it, while others step in to protect, sometimes fiercely.
An inner critic that drives you to overwork may be trying to keep a younger part of you from ever feeling "not good enough" again. Your therapist helps you identify these parts, understand where they came from, and navigate the parts driving certain core beliefs. Through this work, the beliefs can loosen their power, and your ability to navigate those parts can strengthen. Once you see what certain parts are guarding, self-compassion often comes more easily.
Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT)
Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) targets shame and self-criticism, which help hold negative core beliefs in place. Its founder, psychologist Paul Gilbert, describes three emotion systems: one for threat, one for drive, and one for soothing. Harsh self-talk keeps the threat system running. CFT strengthens the soothing side, which matters when a belief like "I'm worthless" won't budge with logic alone.
Like ACT and IFS, CFT helps you identify and work with different parts or aspects of yourself, while also explicitly focusing on developing your compassionate self. Exercises might include visualizing yourself embodying compassion or imagining another person with compassion. These practices help activate the soothing system, making kinder perspectives more accessible in the moments you need them most.
When a thought like "I'm worthless" comes up, you practice bringing compassion to the part of yourself holding that belief. You also learn to stand back from the thought without it needing to guide your actions. Your beliefs become one part of your experience, while you practice responding from a wise, calm, balanced, and compassionate part of yourself that can help you navigate the emotions that arise.
Schema Therapy
Psychologist Jeffrey Young developed Schema Therapy for deep, long-standing patterns that bundle together beliefs, emotions, and ways of coping. These patterns are called schemas, and they can shape what you expect from people, how you interpret everyday situations, and what you believe about yourself. Some examples include abandonment, the expectation that people close to you will leave; defectiveness or shame, the feeling that something is fundamentally wrong with you; and emotional deprivation, the expectation that your emotional needs won't be met.
It is an integrative approach that draws from cognitive-behavioural and psychodynamic theories, and other approaches. According to Schema Therapy, these patterns often trace back to unmet childhood needs, like safety, acceptance, or room to be independent. In therapy, you learn to recognize when a schema has been triggered and find healthier ways to meet those needs now.
Your therapist may use imagery exercises to revisit experiences connected to a schema and imagine your needs being met. These exercises help you understand old patterns and practice responding differently.
Someone who fears abandonment, for instance, might learn to catch the panic when a partner is slow to text back, and choose a different response.
An inner critic that drives you to overwork may be trying to keep a younger part of you from ever feeling “not good enough” again.
How Therapy Works with Core Beliefs
A belief can feel completely true and still be inaccurate. Many began as reasonable conclusions
drawn by a younger you, in circumstances you didn't choose, and seeing them that way can soften self-blame.
Change is usually gradual. Therapy often starts by naming the beliefs behind your strongest reactions, then catching them in real time, in a tense meeting or halfway through an argument. With practice, therapy can help you move toward a more balanced belief or relate to the old one more gently.
Reaching out to begin therapy takes courage, especially if you hold a belief that tells you to handle everything alone. At Radcliffe Psychotherapy Clinic, we offer Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in Toronto and online, alongside other evidence-based approaches, helping clients understand the beliefs behind their emotions and relationships. If you have questions about getting started, contact our team. We’re happy to talk things through with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are some examples of core beliefs?
Some common negative core beliefs are "I'm a burden," "I'm unlovable," "Others will hurt me," and "Nothing I do matters." Balanced ones may sound like "I deserve care," or “I can make mistakes, and I’m still worthy.” Most of us carry both kinds, and stress tends to push the negative ones to the front.
How do I identify my core beliefs?
Start by noting moments when your emotions feel strong. Write down what happened, how you felt, and the first thought that came to mind, then look back after a week or two for patterns. When a thought stands out, ask what it says about you if it were true. What you find may feel painful, so consider exploring it with a therapist who can help you go at a safe pace.
Can core beliefs be changed?
Yes, though it takes time and practice. Negative core beliefs may not disappear completely, and changing them isn't always the main goal. Therapy can help you notice these beliefs and reduce the power they have over you, giving you more flexibility in how you respond. As you build new experiences and perspectives, an old belief can become one possible interpretation rather than the only truth. The skills you build can help if an old belief flares up.
Disclaimer: This content is for educational and informational purposes only and is not medical, psychiatric, or psychological advice. It does not replace professional care, diagnosis, or a client-provider relationship—always consult a qualified healthcare provider regarding any health condition or treatment.
