It seems you might not have full understanding of how CBT works and its scientifically proven benefits? Or maybe it did not work for you or someone close to you? Personally, it has helped me overcome many negative thought and behavioural patterns, it has helped me reflect over my thoughts and actions as well as giving me a great set of tools to tackle worry and anxiety.

I highly recommend it, but we do need to bear in mind CBT is not a fit for all and every challenge of the mind. That said, it has been scientifically proven to be more effective on more than most treatments, for a number of conditions.

Hey im a recently graduated psychologist and i have found difficulty finding employment, on a personal level do you have any advise that could improve my chances?

Didn't you work for Games back in the day? I loved that mag. How do you feel about its combination with World of Puzzles?

Would you rather fight one horse sized Will Shortz or 100 Will Shortz sized horses?

Just wrote an absolute essay and then saw this 😂

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Hi Lucy, I’m an RMN working in a community adult access team, I have experience in female and male forensics, community affective disorders and CAMHS inpatients. I have a bit of a passion for trauma informed care probably to the point that I think almost all mental health diagnoses stem from a form of PTSD. For me the barriers to compassionate care at the moment come mainly from staffing and burnout related issues. It’s hard to give patients your best when the staff team are spread so thinly. In CAMHS I found patients attitude towards each other made things difficult as well as the attitude of their parents, I think the complaint culture we have gotten into plays a big part in this as well, as we are scared to do our jobs in some ways due to fear of litigation if something goes wrong. I think being able to recognise when staff are burned out and rotating them for a while would be great but rarely happens, especially if you work somewhere like a PICU where it’s hard to recruit to. Do you think that the staffing problems we have now, such as a heavy reliance on agency staff, mean that patients are not getting good, compassionate care and continuity in their care?

Has “PENIS” ever been an answer in one of your crosswords?

Not the Dr but every good therapist hopes to be told if the patient feels like the treatment is not going well. I can't overstate it that they want to get feedback on what does and does not work

Is that crosswordese? I've definitely used that in casual conversation, and is a thing that is occasionally genuinely relevant to my life unlike, say, ETUI or mel OTT.

are there people who dont do that?

As a social worker in direct service

The answer is, as always, broad economic and social reform, but since they profit from the system as it is, nothing will be done. Psychology is a joke field. Always has been. Therapy is a crap shoot and almost never works, it just teaches you how to hide your symptoms. Then they foist highly addictive meds on you. It’s an embarrassment.

How do you judge what is too "niche" in terms of pop culture references, or possibly too niche in general? The answers I get frustrated with are the ones I have absolutely no relationship to- like actor names, or tv shows that I hear about but would never watch. I guess this is basically a question of how you determine "difficulty" in general, but I wonder if you have some limit in your mind that you don't cross.

Hi Mike. Big fan.

As a constructor I've had many instances where I've had a puzzle I've made accepted for publication by an outlet, and then in the interim between that acceptance and the puzzle getting published, one or more of the clues became outdated or otherwise problematic (sometimes I look through the AVCX archives and think, wow, we referenced Kanye a lot back then!) ... have you ever had to significantly alter or un-accept a puzzle that was kosher at the time you accepted it?

On compassion fatigue as a dynamic in a longer term situation, what are ways to address resentment issues? Thanks for your time.

How many meta puzzles have you published that you were not able to solve? Any specific examples?

What is a 14-letter word that means utterly hopeless ?

My assistant Joanne and I look at every submission separately and then compare notes. It usually doesn't take long to look over a puzzle--usually less that 15 mimutes--but we get so many, we have a big backlog (months) of puzzles we haven't gotten to.

Once a puzzle is accepted, I add it to the files. Every week, I pick a set to use, pick the days they'll run, edit them and lay them out. Then they go to the test-solvers to check. Once the revisions are made, they get uploaded to the WSJ.

Thanks for doing this AMA. 2 questions:

1. What goes into your process of reviewing a submission, and how long does it take to review one puzzle?
2. From acceptance of a puzzle, what then has to be done to get it published in the WSJ?

Any or all of the above. First I'll look at the grid fill to see if any areas can be improved. After I'm happy that the grid is as good as it can be, I'll edit the clues which can mean tweaking a few or rewriting whole swaths. Which day of the week the puzzle is scheduled for can mean making the clues easier or trickier. And when the puzzle is laid out, I might need to edit more clues to fit on the page.

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What do you normally change when editing puzzles? i.e. do you change grid letters, entire clues, wording of clues, grammar/spelling, all of the above? What might prompt you to change grid letters or clues?

It's weird, I kinda think it's silly but I still do it every day.

I'm not really a maniacal cackler. (Maniacal, maybe.)