These are beliefs that are present in the 'background' that influence Feelings and Behaviour. An example would be "I am unlovable" or might relate to beliefs about Self-efficacy; ("I could never do that alone").

These beliefs are often referred to as Negative Attributional Thoughts or NATs.

One feature of these thoughts is that they often share aspects of the absolute certainty that we see in the Pre-mentalistic stances - especially Psychic equivalence.

Understanding this can help the worker to position herself in relation to these "NATs" to maximise the possibility of engaging and being able to influence the thinking of the young person. For instance, try using techniques from Mentalization-based work, such as the use of Marked mirroring to convey the idea that

"...this predicament, your state of mind, is understandable...

This accurately Mentalized understanding of such Implicit Core Beliefs avoids the kind of Non-contingent experience (of my therapist "disagreeing" with me, etc) and instead evokes Epistemic Trust - which opens the mind for potential learning to take place.