And to elaborate a bit: As i mentioned, I see these beliefs in a complex though not necessarily consistent family of frames. So the belief that "if I'm strong, I will hurt women like my mother was hurt" can survive side by side with the contradictory belief that women are stronger than men or that my strength would make women feel more secure. These ideas could coexist with the idea that the world is not a zero sum game or whatever. Ideas can be contradictory because they are unconscious and not subject to rational, linear analysis. (I can watch the sun set, even though I also understand heliocentricism.) The illumination that occurs in therapy might throw one set of beliefs into relief or shadow-- or eclipse another set of beliefs.

Such a change can alter the (individual's) world, or to paraphrase my man Wittgenstein, "The world of the unhappy man is a different world than that of a happy man." (I hope I am not sliding too close to a post-modernist solipsism).