And these have smaller still to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum. —Jonathan Swift, from "On Poetry: A Rhapsody" The satirist and author of Gulliver's Travels might have been talking about ...

As Sigmund Freud made very clear, human beings are compelled to repeat patterns—the repetition compulsion. Patterns laid down early in life are propelled forward to recreate the familiar that can be ...