What are them?
In essence, psychological attitudes are permanent verbal constructions – sayings and phrases that shape our perception of events, people, the world, etc.
✔️You can be aware of them and this is what often called beliefs or values. But also, we have a lot of unconscious attitudes. Usually they’re formed from what we were told in childhood; what was accepted or, on the contrary, sharply rejected by us; unspoken rules of behaviour in our culture; conclusions made at the emotionally charged situations, etc.
Some examples of unconscious attitudes
- (Fictional story) As a child, John Doe often heard his grandmother, who survived the war, say: “Bread is a holy thing”. It was also not acceptable in his family to leave something on the plate and leave. When he grew up, for reasons unknown to himself, he felt sorry to throw away food, and often he ate even when he did not want to.
👉Unconscious attitude here: “Food is the greatest value, food is life.”. - (Another fictional story) Jane Doe was born in a small town. On Sundays, her family usually went to church. After the family dinner that day mother always said: “Once you’ll grow up, you need to find a good husband, this is very important for a woman.” But Jane was more interested in books instead of boys. However, she was often tormented by a feeling of guilt that she was somehow not like others, not normal. In college, she met a girl and realised that she had fallen in love for the first time. But the feeling of guilt only grew, relationships with parents became increasingly colder. Jane feels abandoned, wrong. A sincere conversation with parents or a girlfriend, even in thoughts, causes only fear and numbness.
👉Unconscious attitude here: “I’m not a woman if I don’t have a husband (or boyfriend at least)”.
How do attitudes affect our life?
The way we perceive the world directly affects our emotional state, our actions, thoughts, and words. At the same time, it’s important to understand that each person is unique. Even in similar circumstances, two people will formulate a different set of attitudes. Because it is influenced not only by the outside world, but also by character and individual characteristics.
So what to do?
In order to understand for yourself how psychological attitudes work, you can right now think about one of the spheres of your life. Then write down all the phrases related to it which come to your mind. Pay attention to those that cause strong emotional response. Ask yourself: “Do they suit me? How do they affect my development?”. Now think: “Do you remember who told you them? What or whom are these phrases related to?”
✔️Identifying and becoming aware of the attitudes behind a particular problem is usually an important step in psychotherapy. It happens that this alone is enough for a person to get free from its influence.
In other cases, this is followed by a reformulation or search for a new productive attitude and its application. In this way, a person is freed from what was hindering them and can direct the energy towards achieving what they want.
