You’ve likely got more going on than you realize (Excerpt from my book The Minds of Mass Killers: Understanding and Interrupting the Pathway to Violence. The holidays bring incredible stress for many people due to unhappy/unhealthy family dynamics, financial limitations, and unrealistic expectations.) We can be too quick to diagnose…

What You Need to Know About the Conspiracy Mindset (The following is a condensed excerpt from the chapter on conspiracism in my recent book The Minds of Mass Killers: Understanding and Interrupting the Pathway to Violence). Conspiracy stories surround us. The tales have gotten stranger and stranger over time: alien…

Consequences can be hard to overcome, but there is hope The following is excerpted from my book The Minds of Mass Killers: Understanding and Interrupting the Pathway to Violence (McFarland, 2021). Available through all booksellers. How the brain adapts to trauma The fight/flight response is the nervous system’s natural response…

The fog is soft with a glow smelling of kelp and eucalyptus the kind of wet that dampens your hair and requires a jacket. We walk two small dogs, leashed, and a lion-cat, unleashed, up and down the hills through neighborhoods that are mostly dark. There are no cars, but…

Or, Midnight on Facebook It struck me as funny a moment ago that I’m sitting here and conversing with so many of you who are conversing and if the end of the world started we’d all be making posts the exact same post at the exact same time saying “What’s that…

“Support your children in finding their own path — even if turns out to be different than what you had in mind,” says this therapist. — The eighteen-year-old young woman hunched forward on the sofa in my office. Tears spilled down her cheeks, leaving muddy streaks of mascara beneath both eyes. “I can’t disappoint my parents no matter how much I hate it here,” she said. “I’m stuck at this school. This is what they planned…

And how to stop them before they kill — Ihave been a psychotherapist for 30 years, and during that time I’ve worked as a specialist in forensics. Studying what motivates murderers has been a large part of my work. While no two killers are exactly the same, it’s important to know that human behavior tends to follow recognizable patterns…

I’m aware of the irony that the most beautiful time of year is when the leaves are dying, just before they fall. These are the colors I choose to wear. For a moment I’m surrounded by red, green, gold Is it a week? Less than that before the rains come, washing them…

“Interest is something you earn — never something you pay.” — The truck stop diner smelled like chicken fried steak and despair. I sat on a sticky vinyl seat in a booth across from my father, who was at home there. When I was a child my father reminded me of a red-haired JFK; wise, handsome, and strong. He always had…