We know what we learn and we do what we know. The most complex of behaviours like loving, problem solving, caring and gendering role stereotypes are learned in childhood. Compared to these, maths, physics and chemistry are ridiculously simple. These behaviours will remain with us later on in life in the form of patterns with which we live.

When we are small we have no option but to observe and learn. We often have no choice on what we learn as we are surrounded with people we did not choose and the experiences imposed on us by them. We learn the basics of life from them. Loving, hating, fighting, relating to women, men and to peers - in short we learn the art of living.

Along the years these lessons become vital for us to survive and thrive in the world we live in. Basically, we learn the tricks of life which will accompany us along all our future years and which will need hard work to be changed. This learning is grouped together to form life scripts or schemas, which fundamentally include our views about ourselves, about others, and about life in general.

Schemas are basically made of behaviour-feeling-thinking circular patterns involving ourselves in relation to others and the world. They contain the conscious and unconscious beliefs and constructions which we assimilated while growing up. These schemas are very helpful during childhood as they are adaptations to survive. For example to shut up when a parent is shouting is helpful because it saves you a lot of hassle, and perhaps a smack or a punishment. To get what he/she wants, the child develops elaborate skills too. For example a girl can entice her father into giving her what she wants by saying nice things in a nice way at the right time. This learned behaviour is obviously guided by particular beliefs which people develop along the years.

As life goes on and we make friends and lovers, we select people who snugly fit our schemas without causing much anxiety. This is obviously because we have patterns of relationship which we learned and anything beyond that is too much of a hassle and a challenge. So if as a child I learned that I am not important, my emotional needs are challenged if I then meet someone who tries to make me believe that I am important. I may initially enjoy the feeling but will eventually become uncomfortable with it.

Friend after friend, partner after partner, one keeps on looking for the right fit, the one that hopefully fulfills one's psychological needs. Along the way, these scripts and beliefs and constructions are challenged. Because scripts are often very prescriptive and powerful, each challenge requires a lot of effort. One may resist challenges or concede to them and act to change the undesired behaviour, thinking or feeling. This depends on many things.

For example one may or may not be conscious of the beliefs about one's schemas around sex and sexuality - a very important theme in a relationship. The couple comes to the point of exploring sex. The partners, because of their different upbringing, parents, gender, etc. have different constructions about sex and sexuality. One partner has been reared with the idea that sex is bad and the other that sex is good. Both partners will therefore present a challenge to each other in different ways.

One will feel bad and frustrated for being kept away, and the other feels bad and frustrated for being invaded. This is a potentially damaging experience for the individual and yet can simultaneously be a very constructive one for the relationship. The outcome depends how flexible the partners are.

Most of the scripts and schemas about others and the world that we have, are ones we often learn from our parents. For example, the way my parents behaved towards each other provided me with a template of love relationships. The way I perceived them treating each other becomes my schema of how love relationships should be. For example one's father becomes the template of how a father and a man should be, and one's mother a template of how a mother and how a woman should be.

To a certain extent scripts and schemas therefore determine people's way of being and relating. They also determine the quality of the relationships people have, their achievement, and so on. While growing up however, people may find that their schema, although appropriate during childhood, doesn't really hold as true in one's current life. Therefore one can decide to change a schema. But when changing human behaviour, change in an intended direction is never that easy.

A man who used to treat his wife possessively told me that he wants to change. He tried very hard to understand that the jealousy and anger he feels in her presence is not necessarily at her. He was confused about the meaning of love because his idea of love didn't fit with his wife's anymore. He spoke of his childhood from where he learnt what love is. That's where he learnt how to be a man. His father treated his mother in the same way and served as a role model.

His efforts to change into a different man, a type of man that suits his current life, proved difficult. It's not easy to change as it requires abandoning the old learning and adopting a new one. And it's not easy to let go of something which has been ingrained for years on end as it is not simply behaviour that needs to change but a whole sense of existence. Change requires a consistent commitment to a new way of being, thinking and feeling. And although the picture of change appears romantic and very easy, in real life it feels threatening, obscure, and difficult.

This is why so much effort has been invested in the psychology of change and psychotherapy. It's not enough to say "I want to change". Changing a schema is normally a process of gradual shift in one's thinking, feeling and behaviour. And don't be surprised if in the middle of a gross effort to change, you find yourself lapsing back into the old habits. Life is like that anyway and we have to be patient with ourselves. Next week I will give some information about change and its process.

• Mr Azzopardi is a systemic family psychotherapist.

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