It is impossible to go through life without preconceptions and beliefs, but plenty of people who have therapy sessions do so in some part because of their established subconscious views.
Preconceptions are necessary because they allow for subconscious, intuitive, system 1 thinking, and if people try to use the slower, more contemplative system 2 processes for everything, very little could get done in a day.
However, whilst these intuitions are important, they are not always right, and when they are not they can cause harm to our personal and professional lives. Nowhere is this more evident than in relationships.
A study published in The Family Journal found that there were three types of beliefs in particular that were connected to dysfunctional, problematic or failing relationships.
The first is the idea that it is bad to disagree in a relationship. Notwithstanding the fact that there is no opportunity to grow with a person, you agree with all the time, healthy discussions and the compromises that form from these are vital to a thriving relationship.
The problem with this belief is that it often leads to conflict-aversion, which allows dissatisfactions to fester and ultimately reach a point where they can hurt a relationship, as they can leave people feeling misunderstood and distant.
On a similar note, some people believe that people should intuitively understand each other without saying them outright, which naturally leads to hurt, anxiety and tension.
Couples who talk a lot are more open, more intimate and more empathetic to each other, as it is far easier to understand someone when you do not necessarily need to guess what they want.
Finally, there is the concept of destiny and that the only relationships that last were always going to last.
This is problematic for obvious reasons; relationships require work, both in the literal sense and in terms of understanding each other, but also believing that the red string of fate brought a couple together leaves whoever believes this to feel less accountable for what happens in it.
At its worst, as a study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships found, it has been linked to an increased chance of ghosting, where someone suddenly cuts communication as a way to end a relationship.
