SQUARING CIRCLES - EMOTIONALLY SPEAKING

By  Lorraine Harper:

Gerry Neale was intent on writing a story with a difference. He wanted to combine that story with a particular theme of Cognitive Behavioural Thinking, a subject he has mentored on- and off-line to groups and to individuals for many years. Essentially, he wanted to give the reader a clear insight into the nature of the emotional battle to be fought when we seek to make behavioural change.

He explained, “The hero of the book, Jonathan, found that tackling personal behavioural issues to bring about beneficial change is not impossible, but it is often not straightforward either. It takes more than commitment, though that is vital. Jonathan discovers it even takes more than obtaining a clear understanding of the origin and nature of the behaviour which we have identified as a constraint or inhibition on our life which and which we wish to change.”

Gerry Neale highlighted a third ingredient which leaves many readers unprepared and largely ill-equipped to achieve behavioural change. “It is their lack of awareness of the likely emotional implications of their intent to change. Non fiction books can counsel objectively on this. But it is difficult in non fiction to demonstrate the extent of the inner struggle which can be involved.”

He added, “For most readers, it is their lack of awareness that their troublesome behaviour is almost certainly emotionally based, that can turn a reader’s struggle into trauma. Many behaviours have not been learned as a physical pattern, like a tennis serve or a golf swing. They were established as the response to shock, or loss, or hurt, or death of a partner and similar traumas.”

In the novel, as soon as Jonathan then begins to tread his way into the emotional realms of himself to try to achieve change, all manner of instinctive constraints kicked in, each unique to him. His deepest feelings can even be so inexplicably aroused by the mere idea of trying to shake off a habitual reaction to certain triggers, Unguided, he would have had the option to surrender to those constraints early. He could justify to himself that his mission to achieve change in his own case is unattainable. Despite his cerebral understanding of the cognitive issues involved, he could conclude his emotional faculties fall far short of the full armoury needed to achieve beneficial behavioural change.

Through following this story of one week in Jonathan’s life, the reader is able to accompany at close quarters a hero of a fictitious story as he attempts and then actually begins to achieve change. The story of the hero, told in the first person is far more instructive. Every negative and positive thought is admitted and every feeling shared with the reader.  

The Author hopes that the reader will follow step by step how the hero learned by sensing and feeling what goes on within his heart and mind. The story reinforces how these reactions are not limited to Jonathan. Other characters in the book indicate that many more of us are able to embrace and achieve the change which initially we think is beyond us.

Without the correct direction, changing emotionally based behavioural patterns can seem as daunting as trying to square circles mathematically! For this reason, the author has given the reader access to both cerebral and emotional guidance, but in one book. So many who have read pre-publication copies claim to have found the novel intriguing for its story but, more importantly, helpful to them emotionally.

Lorraine Harper

Lyricamus Limited

Squaring Circles is published by Pearl Press Limited 

It can be obtained direct by going to  
Amazon on www.amazon.co.uk
www.pearlpress.co.uk 
or to UK bookshops online.

ISBN  978 0 9568688 2 4