The core painful beliefs of low self concept, paranoia and pessimism can feed each other in a vicious cycle as shown in the diagram below.

	Paranoia
The pessimistic thought that something bad will happen can become "They will do something bad to me" and so lead to paranoia.		The paranoid belief "They hate me" can lead to the belief that one deserves to be hated because one is no good.
Pessimism	Low self esteem can lead one to believe that one will fail at achieving what one wants and create a pessimistic outlook.	Low Self Esteem
Pessimism that we will fail leads to fear and anxiety.		Anxiety that we will fail leads us to motivate ourselves through self criticism
	Fear and Anxiety

Cycle List

    Evidence supporting this cycle was uncovered by scientists at Kings College in London.  A pre-assessment showed that those who were anxious, worried, pessimistic, or had low self-esteem, were most likely to feel paranoid.

    One approach for dealing with emotional pain is to diagnose which of these beliefs the pain corresponds to.  It may be that the core belief itself is being fed by another one as shown above.  In that case dealing with one core belief may help deal with the one it is feeding.  Approaches to dealing with core beliefs are given in the self help introduction.