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“Automatic Spirals” usually refers to patterns where thoughts, emotions, or behaviors rapidly feed into each other without conscious control. In mental health, this maybe connected to anxiety, depression, trauma responses, panic, or rumination.

A spiral often starts with a trigger:

• A thought
• A memory
• A bodily sensation
• A social interaction
• An imagined future event

Then the mind automatically escalates it.

Example of an anxiety spiral:

1. “What if I embarrassed myself?”
2. Increased anxiety
3. Body sensations (heart racing, tension)
4. “Something is wrong with me.”
5. More fear and self-monitoring
6. Catastrophic predictions
7. Stronger anxiety

The process becomes self-reinforcing.

Common types of automatic spirals may include:

• Negative thought spirals: repetitive pessimistic thinking
• Emotional spirals: emotions intensify themselves
• Behavioral spirals: avoidance, isolation, compulsions, etc.
• Trauma spirals: triggers activating memories, hypervigilance, or dissociation
• Shame spirals: self-criticism leading to deeper shame
• Anger spirals: escalating interpretation of threat or disrespect

These spirals could be driven by:

• Habitual neural pathways
• Cognitive biases
• Conditioning
• Fear-based prediction systems
• The mind’s threat-detection mechanisms

A key insight in therapies like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is that automatic spirals are not necessarily objective reality, they are patterns of mental processing.

Possible helpful interventions may include:

• Noticing the spiral early
• Labeling thoughts rather than believing them automatically
• Slowing physiological arousal (breathing, grounding)
• Cognitive reframing
• Mindfulness and psychological distancing
• Interrupting avoidance behaviors
• Self-compassion instead of self-attack

A simple interruption technique:

“I notice I’m entering a spiral”
instead of
“Everything is actually falling apart.”

That small shift may create psychological distance between awareness and the automatic process.

Shervan K Shahhian

Trauma counseling is a type of therapy that helps people process and recover from deeply distressing or overwhelming experiences, things like abuse, accidents, violence, loss, or natural disasters. It may not just be about “talking it out”; it’s about helping your system and mind regain a sense of safety and control.

What it focuses on

• Understanding how trauma affects your thoughts, emotions, and body
• Reducing symptoms like anxiety, flashbacks, numbness, or hypervigilance
• Rebuilding a sense of safety, trust, and stability
• Processing memories at a pace that doesn’t overwhelm you

Common approaches used

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): helps reframe negative thought patterns tied to trauma
• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): uses guided eye movements to process traumatic memories
• Somatic Experiencing: focuses on how trauma is stored in the body
• Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: often used for children and adolescents

What a session might feel like

Early sessions are usually about building trust and making sure you feel safe. A good trauma counselor won’t push you to relive painful experiences before you’re ready, they’ll help you develop coping tools first. Over time, you may gradually work through memories in a structured, supportive way.

When to consider it

You might benefit if you’re experiencing:

• Intrusive memories or nightmares
• Avoidance of reminders of an event
• Feeling constantly “on edge”
• Emotional numbness or disconnection
• Difficulty trusting others or feeling safe

Shervan K Shahhian

Cognitive Bias are predictable mental shortcuts or distortions in thinking that affect how people perceive information, make decisions, and judge situations. They help the mind process information quickly, but they may also lead to errors in reasoning.

Common Cognitive Biases

1. Confirmation Bias
   Favoring information that supports existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory evidence.
2. Anchoring Bias
   Relying too heavily on the first piece of information encountered (“the anchor”).
3. Availability Heuristic
   Judging likelihood based on how easily examples come to mind.
4. Hindsight Bias
   Believing after an event that it was predictable all along (“I knew it”).
5. Overconfidence Bias
   Overestimating one’s knowledge, abilities, or predictions.
6. Halo Effect
   Letting one positive trait influence overall judgment of a person or thing.
7. Loss Aversion
   Feeling losses more strongly than equivalent gains.
8. Survivorship Bias
   Focusing only on successful examples while ignoring failures.
9. Bandwagon Effect
   Adopting beliefs or behaviors because many others do.
10. Framing Effect
    Reaching different conclusions depending on how information is presented.

Why Cognitive Biases Matter

They may influence:

• Decision making
• Financial choices
• Politics
• Relationships
• Medical judgments: CONSULT WITH A MEDICAL DOCTOR
• Hiring and management
• Scientific research

How to Reduce Cognitive Bias

• Seek opposing viewpoints
• Slow down decision making
• Use data instead of intuition alone
• Ask critical questions
• Be aware of emotional influences
• Use structured decision frameworks

Shervan K Shahhian

Thoughts are not facts because the mind constantly generates interpretations, predictions, memories, assumptions, and mental commentary, many of which maybe incomplete, biased, emotionally driven, or simply inaccurate.

A thought is an internal mental event.
A fact is something objectively verifiable.

For example:

• Thought: “Everyone thinks I’m incompetent.”
• Fact: You cannot directly know what everyone thinks unless there is clear evidence.

Another example:

• Thought: “Something terrible is going to happen.”
• Fact: The future has not happened yet.

Our mind may evolve to rapidly interpret situations for survival, not necessarily to be perfectly accurate. Because of this, thoughts are influenced by:

• Emotions (fear, anger, sadness)
• Past experiences
• Cognitive biases
• Trauma or stress
• Imagination and prediction
• Cultural beliefs and assumptions

In psychology, especially in approaches like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, people learn to observe thoughts rather than automatically treating them as truth.

A useful distinction maybe:

Emotions are real experiences, but the thoughts attached to them are not always accurate descriptions of reality.

This idea is important because people may often suffer not only from events themselves, but from unquestioned beliefs about those events. Learning to examine thoughts may reduce anxiety, depression, catastrophizing, and emotional reactivity.

One common mindfulness technique maybe:

1. Notice the thought.
2. Label it as “a thought,” not “the truth.”
3. Ask:
   • What evidence supports this?
   • What evidence does not?
   • Is this interpretation or fact?
   • Could there be another explanation?

This process may sometimes called cognitive distancing or defusion creating space between yourself and your thoughts instead of becoming fused with them.

Shervan K Shahhian

Consult with a Medical Doctor/Psychiatrist

Auditory Hallucination are hearing sounds, voices, music, or noises that are not actually present in the environment. They may range from simple sounds (buzzing, clicking, ringing) to complex experiences like hearing voices speaking.

They may occur in several situations, including:

• Mental health conditions such as Schizophrenia, severe depression, or bipolar disorder
• Sleep deprivation or extreme stress
• Substance use/abuse or withdrawal (alcohol, drugs: Thc, stimulants, etc. and/or hallucinogens)
• Neurological conditions such as epilepsy, dementia, or Parkinson’s disease: Consult With a Neurologist
• Hearing impairment
• High fever or medical illness: Consult with a Medical Doctor

Common types include:

• Voices talking to or about the person
• Music or singing
• Environmental sounds like footsteps, knocking, or phones ringing

Important warning signs include: Consult with a Medical Doctor/Psychiatrist

• Voices commanding harmful actions
• Increasing fear, confusion, or paranoia: Consult with a Medical Doctor
• Difficulty distinguishing hallucinations from reality
• Sudden onset with medical symptoms (fever, seizures, severe headache): Consult with a Medical Doctor

If someone is experiencing persistent or distressing auditory hallucinations, evaluation by a mental healthcare professional is important because treatment depends on the cause. Treatments may include therapy, medication, sleep restoration, hearing evaluation, or addressing substance use or medical conditions.

If this is something you or someone else is currently experiencing and it feels overwhelming, unsafe, or includes commands to self-harm or harm others, seek urgent medical help or contact emergency services/crisis support in your area, ASAP.

Shervan K Shahhian