The vicious circle has thirteen components, all of which are dark, frightening, no-go
areas for many people, and this includes therapists, not just you.
Let me take you around them.
For too long you have been scared to turn the light on to see that it is a branch that
has been hitting the window and not an intruder. This has been frightening you long
enough.
Perception
Perception is the way we obtain knowledge through the senses. This can be obtained
in a variety of ways, initially through our senses of sight, sound, feeling, smell, and
taste. Most of us have these in-built abilities and cannot discriminate when we use
them. They can be used to experience good events in our lives but are also always
open to bad ones too. This is also the way memory works.
Cognitive therapists are keen to quote a Roman philosopher called Epictetus, who
stated that “men are disturbed not by events but by their view of events.” This is
logical, but does not take into account that we are capable of being influenced by the
outside world in a way that we may not necessarily be aware of. If you are confined
to repeated negative stimuli then, that is what you learn. As behaviourists would say,
we come into the World “tabula rasa.” This means we are a clean slate and, since the
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© R W Thorburn
world is bigger and more powerful than we are, it therefore follows that we can be
“written upon.”
So initially we can witness a disagreement straight away with cognitive therapists
and behavioural therapists; remember these people are your “tour guides” yet already
speaking different languages. Freudian therapists would try to discover the allimportant life-changing event that altered your perception whilst paying little
attention to your current perception. Confused…I was.
Gestalt therapists would try to “remove blocks from awareness” in an attempt for you
to complete unfinished business to achieve homeostasis and live a life of awareness.
Buddhism would teach you to be mindful and achieve the nothingness through
meditation. Note all of these therapies are extremely efficient at one collective thing.
Imposing their perception onto yours and believing that it should work. So before
you have the chance to view the “ruins” they are telling you where to look. Why?
Because they “know.” If you are multi-lingual you can decide for yourself: they all
speak different languages…not yours though.
As a hypnotherapist, I view the unconscious mind as a bit like a literal eight-year-old
child that is very protective of you. It allows you to do a series of complex tasks,
such as walking across a busy road, riding a bike or driving a car, all of which you do
not have to think about in detail. But you have to learn them in the first place. They
have to be conscious at some stage. Vicious-Circles 
Excerpt From My Book “Breaking The Vicious Circle..”
