The pathogenic beliefs are irrational explanations about how one's behavior caused the trauma to occur. These beliefs are powerful. They compel one to behave in certain ways or prohibit certain kinds of behavior. These beliefs warn the child that if he attempts to exercise certain essential functions, or reach certain essential goals, he will put himself in some kind of danger and so risk feeling fear, shame, guilt, loss or remorse. As these beliefs are overgeneralized by the child, not only to the setting in which the trauma occurred but to the world at large, they significantly influence all future personality development.
Children are highly motivated to be like, to obey, and to be accepted by their parents.
Children will develop unconscious guilt about wanting to pursue any developmental goals that they perceive as weakening their ties to their parents - by for example harming them or provoking punishment from them. Children greatly exaggerate how their impulses, feelings, thoughts, and actions affect others or bring harm to themselves. Because they are egocentric, children have difficulty understanding that the people around them have feelings, attitudes and behavior patterns which have been caused for reasons independent of them. Pathogenic beliefs stem from a number of sources including identifications with a parent's pathogenic belief or in compliance with a parent's interpretation of reality . The kinds of beliefs a child develops depends on the nature of the his specific motivations at the time the beliefs were created.