Welcome, Sneaky Scribes 
This is such a delicious example of the confusion which sometimes arises when there are two potential subjects for a given verb.
The trick/joke doesn’t become apparent until the very end because, in our mind, it’s obviously the letters that should be burnt, but it’s also perfectly feasible, linguistically, if you take the therapist’s advice literally, that the speaker was being advised to burn the people he hates.
All the more so, because the ‘people you hate’ are right next to the verb ‘burn’, which gives it a stronger link.
This would also be a very effective, if drastic, short-term solution for getting rid of these irritating people. Short-term, not because the people will come back, but because you will then be presented with a whole raft of new, improved problems, such as an indefinite jail term to start with, if the families of those you burned don’t get to you first…
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Happy Hotching (or Potching)
The Wily Word Weaver 
