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What Keeps Us Human?
Serial killers, childhood adversity, and the mystery of resilience I have a guilty pleasure. I watch serial-killer shows. A lot of them. I am especially drawn to the ones involving FBI profilers—the investigators who study crime scenes, victim patterns, language, behavior, and seemingly insignificant details until a picture of the unknown offender begins to emerge. Give me a Behavioral Analysis Unit gathered around a conference table, studying photographs and announcing that
Janet Nash, MSW, LISW-S
Jul 158 min read
When Your Mind Won't Stop: A Gentle Practice for Unhooking from Anxious Thoughts
Anxiety often comes with a very busy mind. It may sound like planning. Or problem-solving. Or preparing. Or reviewing every possible thing that could go wrong and then reviewing the review, just in case the first review missed something important. Anxious thoughts can be incredibly convincing. They tend to arrive with urgency, as if the mind has just discovered an emergency meeting and everyone is required to attend immediately. Preferably at 2:00 a.m. The trouble is that anx
Janet Nash, MSW, LISW-S
Jul 75 min read
When a Child Becomes the Glue: How Children Help Maintain Fragile Marriages
Sometimes a child becomes the problem that keeps parents from looking too closely at each other. This article explores triangulation, parentification, scapegoating, and the ways children can come to carry conflict that belongs to the adults around them.
Why Is That Woman Always Homeless in a Blizzard?
The Strange World of Mobile Game Ads I play games on my iPad. Sudoku. Nonograms. Word games. Wordle. Games involving logic, language, numbers, and the quiet satisfaction of placing the correct square in the correct location. I do not play the games in which I must match three decorative objects in order to restore a neglected mansion while gradually uncovering a family secret. Nevertheless, these games have apparently decided I am their ideal audience. Their advertisements ap
A Brief History of Things I Put Somewhere Safe
They remain extremely secure, even from me. This morning, Wix asked me to complete a CAPTCHA to prove that I was human. This seemed reasonable. I have been human for quite some time and felt reasonably qualified. Unfortunately, the CAPTCHA did not agree. I clicked on the squares containing traffic lights. Then bicycles. Then crosswalks. Occasionally, a small section of an object appeared in the corner of a square, requiring me to decide whether three inches of bicycle tire le
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