Perspectives

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

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