It doesn't begin with roses, lingerie, or slow-motion seduction. It begins with data.

An iMessage pops up on a forgotten iPad. An old laptop pings. A name you don’t recognize shows up in Venmo with a series of fire emojis.

What used to be the unseen is now archived, searchable, sync-enabled. In the end, it wasn’t lipstick on the collar. It was Google Drive.

This is how people now learn that their reality was not the only one being lived.

If you’re still standing—barely—and choosing not to leave right away, not to pack a bag and vanish into the wilderness, you’re left with a single question: What now?

This post doesn’t always promise a happy ending. But it can offer structure to those who decide to walk through the fire instead of fleeing it.

By now, most of us have encountered at least one human being who, when given a social moment that wasn't about them, simply withered like a houseplant in a closet.

If you haven't, you may want to gently peer into a mirror and ask yourself if your coworkers are truly laughing with you.

Enter narcissism—the spicy human flavor that’s somewhere between charming confidence and grandiose theater.

Narcissists, according to the DSM and your cousin Kevin, tend to believe they are God’s gift to dinner parties.

They yearn for admiration the way cats yearn for warm laptops. But recent research has added a physiological twist to this familiar plot: they don’t just like talking about themselves—they practically light up.

Can your ability to name animals quickly actually predict how long you’ll live?

According to a remarkable new study published in Psychological Science, the answer appears to be yes—at least for older adults.

Researchers diving into the rich archives of the Berlin Aging Study have uncovered a startling and oddly charming truth: out of all the cognitive skills they measured, verbal fluency stood out as the strongest predictor of longevity.

Not memory. Not vocabulary. Not even perceptual speed. Just your capacity to list animals or words beginning with a particular letter at a decent clip.

How strong is the effect? Strong enough to predict nearly a nine-year difference in median survival time.

New research suggests that science fiction fosters global empathy through awe.

But what happens when we see this through the lens of American culture?

Let’s be honest: few nations have done more to both fragment and re-imagine humanity than the United States.

On one hand, American culture promotes hyper-individualism, a relentless focus on personal success, and what sociologists call expressive individualism—the belief that your life’s purpose is to express your unique self.

On the other hand, the U.S. also happens to be the birthplace of much of the world’s most widely consumed science fiction. Think Star Trek, Star Wars, Black Panther, The Matrix, Interstellar, Avatar, Her—the list goes on.

So here’s the paradox: how is it that a society obsessed with the individual also creates art that is uniquely capable of dissolving the boundaries of self?

Is it ADHD, or is it trauma—or both?

That question is becoming more urgent across pediatric clinics, classrooms, and therapy offices.

For many children, symptoms like emotional outbursts, inattention, and executive dysfunction are not simply signs of a brain-based disorder—they may also reflect the lasting impact of developmental trauma and early attachment rupture.

As a couples and family therapist, I’ve worked with kids who can’t sit still and others who’ve stopped trying.

Some are labeled with ADHD before their sixth birthday.

Others are quietly enduring toxic stress, dissociating their way through childhood without a diagnosis. Many of these children are doing the best they can with nervous systems built for survival, not for school performance.

To truly support them, we need to go deeper.

For anyone who’s ever tried to take the edge off with a little weed, only to end up googling “Can you die from a too-fast heartbeat?” at 2:00 a.m.—you’re not alone.

The relationship between cannabis and anxiety is, well… complicated.

While some people swear by medical marijuana as a natural anxiety remedy, others find that it does the exact opposite: increases heart rate, magnifies worry, and launches them into existential dread about whether the barista actually did judge them for their oat milk order.

So which is it?

Can cannabis help with anxiety—or does it just help some people feel better while making others more anxious?

And what does the science say about medical marijuana for anxiety disorders?

Let’s take a deep breath (no toking required yet), and explore.

It’s come to my attention that some of my readers do what I do.

So I figured I’d offer a quick and dirty guide to working with clients suffering with what appears to be either ADHD, an anxiety disorder, or perhaps some combination of both.

ADHD and anxiety are two of the most challenging experiences for therapists to unpack.

Let’s talk shop.

If ADHD and anxiety were characters in a sitcom, ADHD would be the lovable chaos agent with a million ideas and zero follow-through, while anxiety would be the neurotic roommate constantly cleaning up after them and muttering about deadlines.

Together? They’re exhausting—but also oddly relatable.

For adults—especially in romantic relationships—the co-occurrence of ADHD and anxiety isn’t just common; it’s a clinical headache.

They amplify each other in unpredictable ways.

ADHD forgets to pay the bill. Anxiety lies awake all night obsessing about identity theft. ADHD gets distracted mid-sentence. Anxiety spirals into self-doubt and rumination.

Yikes! Let’s jump in!

Attachment theory may have started in the nursery, but it’s in the kitchen at 9:00 PM during a standoff over who should apologize first where it truly comes to life.

As attachment-based couples therapy gains cultural traction, it’s time we take a long, critical look at what it offers, what it misses, and where it must evolve to stay relevant in an increasingly diverse, neurodiverse, and trauma-aware world.

Attachment theory is no longer confined to therapy offices and psych textbooks—it’s on TikTok, in dating app bios, and behind every viral meme about ghosting and emotional labor.

But as it surges in popularity, it's worth asking: is Attachment Theory keeping up with our culture?

Disorganized attachment has long been the ghost in the machine of couples therapy.

Defined by contradiction, confusion, and chaos, it’s the style that defies clean categorization—a nervous system primed for both approach and avoidance, intimacy and terror. T

raditionally seen as the most severe and intractable of the attachment styles, it has also been among the least understood.

But like many concepts born in the 1970s and codified in the 1990s, our understanding of disorganized attachment is now undergoing a dramatic rethinking.

This post is about that rethinking—a contrast between the old clinical map and the emerging terrain, where trauma science, neurobiology, and complexity theory are reshaping how we support disorganized individuals in relationship.

Let us begin by stating something sacrilegious in traditional attachment circles: the conventional Secure-Avoidant framework, while helpful in its day, may be running on legacy software.

Attachment theory has evolved since Bowlby and Ainsworth first introduced their elegant model, and what was once a tidy categorization has become a limiting vocabulary for increasingly complex relational realities.

In this re-examination of the Secure-Avoidant dynamic, we’ll integrate fresh research, critique conventional narratives, and explore emerging models that treat attachment not as a fixed set of traits but as a dynamic, plastic, intersubjective process shaped by culture, neurodivergence, trauma, and adult developmental trajectories.

As a couples therapist, I often tell clients that gossip is the social glue we love to hate. It feels icky when it’s about us, but strangely bonding when we’re doing it about others.

So when new research out of Self & Identity revealed that some folks actually enjoy being gossiped about—especially when the gossip is negative—I had to dig deeper.

It turns out, narcissistic men may not just tolerate gossip—they prefer it over being ignored.

That’s right.

According to five studies conducted by Andrew H. Hales, Meltem Yucel, and Selma C. Rudert, most people still dislike being the subject of gossip.