Does CBT Look at Your Past? Why Your Experiences Matter

"I've always been anxious."

"I've never had much confidence."

"I don't know why I react the way I do."

One of my favourite moments in therapy is when someone suddenly stops and says, "That actually makes sense!"

Not because we've discovered what's "wrong" with them. Quite the opposite. Because we've started to understand whythey might think, feel or react the way they do.

People often come to therapy wanting something to change. But something I hear just as often is, "I just want to understand why I'm like this." And I get that. As humans, we like answers. We like things to make sense.

One of the biggest misconceptions about CBT is that it only focuses on the here and now. That it's all worksheets, thought diaries and learning to think positively. But that's not really what CBT is about.

Yes, we want to understand what's happening now and what's keeping those difficulties going. But we can also explore how they developed in the first place.

And that's often where things get really interesting.

So, where do our beliefs come from?

Think about it. From the moment we're born, we're learning about ourselves, other people and the world around us.

Am I safe? Am I loved? Do I matter? Can I trust people? What happens if I make a mistake?

As children, we don't sit down and logically work out the answers. We learn through what happens to us.

Perhaps we're frequently criticised and begin to believe we're not good enough. Maybe we experience rejection and start to expect that people will leave us. Or perhaps we grow up in an unpredictable environment and learn that the world isn't safe.

In CBT, we call these deeply held ideas core beliefs.

And here's the thing. These beliefs may have made complete sense at the time. A child who grows up in an unsafe environment may genuinely be unsafe. But those beliefs can stay with us long after our circumstances have changed.

And because we've believed them for so long, they can start to feel like facts. We might even have years of experiences that seem to back them up. And without realising it, we can become very good at spotting evidence that supports what we already believe.

But beliefs are just that — beliefs.

Just because we've believed something for years doesn't mean it's necessarily true today.

And beliefs can be challenged. They can change!

Then our brains create rules...

Once we've developed these beliefs, our brains get to work figuring out how to cope with them.

If I believe "I'm not good enough", I might develop a rule that says: "I must never make mistakes."

If I believe "People will reject me", my rule might be: "I need to keep everyone happy."

Or if I've learned that the world is unpredictable:

"I need to think through every possible outcome so I'm prepared."

In CBT, we call these rules for living.

And they're actually quite clever. They're our attempts to manage difficult beliefs, avoid things we fear and protect ourselves.

But here's something I often say to clients...

Would you take life advice from an eight-year-old?

I have an eight-year-old son who I absolutely adore. He's funny, kind and incredibly bright.

But would I take life advice from him?

Absolutely not!

Not because he isn't clever. But because he's eight! He hasn't got the knowledge or life experience to make sense of the world in the way an adult can.

And yet... isn't that exactly what many of us are doing?

We're living our adult lives by rules we developed as children. Rules based on what we knew, understood and experienced at the time.

And those rules might have been really important. They may even have helped keep us safe.

But we're not eight anymore!

We've grown up. We've learned things. We've had new experiences. Our circumstances may be completely different.

Yet we're still following that old instruction manual.

Maybe it's time to have another look at who wrote it.

Same belief. Completely different behaviours.

Here's something else I find fascinating.

For years, one of the beliefs quietly running in the background for me was:

"I'm not good enough."

But rather than constantly trying to prove I was good enough, my rule was:

"If I don't try, I can't fail."

And actually, that made sense. If failing might confirm what I already feared about myself, then not trying felt like a pretty good way to protect myself.

Of course, it also meant missing opportunities to discover that I was more capable than I thought.

But someone else with exactly the same belief might do the complete opposite. They might work incredibly hard, strive for perfection and never allow themselves to make mistakes.

Same belief. Different rules. Different behaviours.

And this is why understanding the why can be so important.

So, where does CBT come in?

We don't just look at where these beliefs and rules came from. We also explore how they're affecting us today. Because sometimes the things we do to protect ourselves are the very things keeping our difficulties going.

If I never try because I'm afraid of failing, how do I discover that I might actually succeed? Or that failing doesn't mean I'm not good enough?

In CBT, we work together to make sense of these patterns. We call this a formulation.

Of course, not every difficulty starts in childhood, and there isn't always one clear explanation. Our biology, physical health, neurodevelopmental differences and life experiences can all play a part.

And understanding why something happens doesn't automatically change it.

But it can give us a starting point.

From there, we can begin questioning old beliefs, testing out those rules and developing new experiences that help us learn something different.

Because therapy isn't about blaming the past or criticising the child who developed those rules.

It's about understanding why they made sense, recognising whether they're still helping us, and discovering that we don't necessarily have to keep living by them.

After all, our brains never stop learning. So why should the rules we live by stop changing?