The Hidden Musts

Discover a simple method for identifying and resolving the deep rules that keep clients stuck.

Why do clients who genuinely want change sometimes still stay stuck? Even after you “boshed’em into a trance”?

In this workshop, Howard Cooper introduces **The Hidden Musts…** the rigid, often unconscious internal rules that quietly drive behaviours, emotions, and identity.

These are the “I must…”, “I have to…”, “I must not…”, “I should Not” structures operating beneath the presenting problem.

They are not simply surface beliefs; they are psychological imperatives.

When these rules remain intact, symptoms make sense. Anxiety, avoidance, procrastination, perfectionism and people pleasing are often logical responses to a deeper mandate the client feels compelled to obey.

Rather than fighting resistance, the Hidden Musts helps you uncover the protective logic driving it. When you identify and loosen the rule, the symptom frequently loses its necessity.

This session will include a live demonstration, showing how Hidden Musts can be surfaced and shifted in real time.

You will leave with:

• A practical lens for identifying rigid internal rules
• Questioning structures to reveal them quickly in session
• A clearer understanding of why relapse happens — and how to reduce it

When the rule changes, behaviour no longer needs to defend it.

Howard Cooper helps people create rapid shifts in their thinking, working with thousands of individuals over 24 years. As a semi regular Anxiety Expert on BBC Morning Live, past contributor to Virgin Atlantic's "Flying Without Fear" course, and host of the "Rapid Change Matters" podcast, he demonstrates how meaningful change can happen quickly. He now shares this expertise with others in the business.