Creating a manualized cognitive restructuring program that successfully helps people overcome flawed thinking and self-defeating conduct is an art form that very few have mastered.
The question is, is it possible to go into someone's subconscious mind and actually change thoughts? YES! The secret can be found in a book by Dr. David Hawken on truth vs. falsehoods. The truth has a power that has the ability to infiltrate the veil of self-imposed false beliefs and help people find the truth about themselves. That is, help them see that they are so much greater than they think they are.
Creating a cognitive restructuring curriculum requires a profound understanding of the truth, if this is lacking the written words will not penetrate the mind. In effect untrue words slide off of the page and right onto the floor. There they curl up and die and are forgotten along with millions of other untrue words.
True words raise people to higher whereas untrue words can discourage. True words contain a higher intelligence that excites energies that resonate at a frequency that people accept. It's this cognitive force that can alter flawed thinking.
After helping victims of domestic hostility it is enlightening to sit in the sessions and watch this self-actualization process. The majority of abused women believe that they have very little worth, when in all actuality they have great worth. By the time they get to the 3rd or 4th session of applying true words, the truth begins to take affect.
This reprogramming is manifested in their physical, mental and emotional elation. Transformations for most are significant and permanent. Yet let us remember that cognitive restructuring counseling only encourages change, it doesn't force it. Change is the responsibility of the client. The chief reason counseling programs are unsuccessful is because they are not structured appropriately and they include very little life-changing truth. This is because the individual(s) who wrote it lacked truth. People can go to psychotherapy sessions for years and years and not change because the therapist isn't aligned with the truth. The truth has the ability to have a life-changing impact on people in only a matter of hours, however, it must be present.
Larry Lloyd, is the founder of the American Community Corrections Institute (www.accilifeskills.com/contactinfo.php) which creates truth-filled cognitive restructuring curriculum to reduce crime(www.accilifeskills.com/cognitiverestructuring.php). See also their blog at www.cognitivelifeskills.com
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