All About Nothing With Ruth Cohn

As I return from the flurry of conferences of the last three months, I am dizzy with all the change in myself. It takes a while to locate myself, and see an up to date version in the mirror. After so many years of being invisible and on the outside of everything (or at least that was my self-image) and consciously or unconsciously scared all the time, I feel jarringly different, at least much of t...

May means many things to many people. In California, USA, it is Cheese Month! Here in the US and some other countries, it brings Mother's Day. For those with histories of trauma and neglect, Mother's Day may be a day of bittersweet or even only bitter memories. My husband an I are not parents and both of our mother's are long passed, so it is a regular Sunday. But admittedly I cannot think of May...

Giving and receiving are delicate matters for survivors of neglect trauma. Many, if not most, are much more comfortable on the giving side of the equation - up to a point. Equation is an apt word here, because often, there is some sort of conscious or unconscious calculus of what the gift is “worth,” what it merits or warrants in return, or what it means. It is especially tricky when it comes to g...

In this week’s video we make a short foray into one aspect of repair that is elusive and potentially harmful. When I say short, I mean that we could discuss it for many hours, and it spills into a subject that is very powerful and dear to my heart, the delicate task of forgiveness, which I have a whole book in me about! So this is a passing glance at best, from the standpoint of “confronting of pe...

This week I am delighted to welcome special guest Prentis Hemphill. I have seen Prentis, perhaps from afar for a number of years. They seemed to embody so many of the values I hold most dear: healing, social justice, somatics, non-binary gender and sexualities, and "walking the walk." Of course in my neglect survivor way, I was perhaps intimidated by someone this awesome. However I later discovere...

This week’s video is a triple celebration, we celebrate International Women’s Month and a universe of precious women; we celebrate Janina Fisher, an exemplary woman (and I can celebrate twenty years of knowing and then friendship with her); and another celebration for Janina’s book launch: Embracing our Fragmented Selves. Three cheers as we welcome our special guest!! Janina's new book can be purc...

A few years ago, I read a then new novel called Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro. I have found Ishiguro’s work interesting and provocative. Although I have never been fond of science fiction or fantasy, something about how he incorporates other worlds with existential themes, has been compelling to me. And does not gnaw against questions of credibility. This book, about human-like dolls and th...

At the core of neglect trauma is loss. Even loss of what was perhaps never there in the first place, but should have been. This week we will talk about two topics that rarely get spoken of: one's intimate sexual life, and aging. We will touch on both of these often secret or uncertain worlds, that way too often are navigated alone, or with a measure of shame. On the subject of aging and shame, whe...

Hope Will Not Be Cancelled Healing from trauma and neglect can feel endless, and in a way it really is. Not infrequently, and even after all these years, I am humbly reminded: “Oh there it is again.” The experience of time standing still, emptiness, is a signature of the neglect experience. In a universe of nothing, nothing changes, which is why waiting and boredom are so excruciating and unbearab...

The winter holiday season can be a time of joy and celebration for some, and for those with histories of trauma and neglect, it may very well be a time of particular pain and loneliness. Where I live there is a (to me) overblown culture of consumerism and consumption, with great emphasis put on buying and giving things , gifts. For those of us with histories of trauma and neglect, or the specific...

Amidst the buzz about sex that seems to always be around, for many of us, your clients may be wondering about their own lackluster sex lives, their partners having "lost interest," or accusing them of losing interest. They may be wondering "what is wrong with me?" Or what is wrong with my partner?" Or what is "normal." Those with a neglect history, who never had anyone to ask or talk to about even...

It is a challenging time of year for those with neglect and incident trauma histories. The winter holidays of any denomination may be fraught with family memories of all kinds...disappointment, feeling outcast or different, or more traumatic episodes. In the US it is a time of great commotion, consumerism, and congestion. Pressure to have happy families to have happy celebrations with, lots of buy...

Next week is the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, never a favorite of mine. For an anorexic kid, it was a true nightmare. I always thought of it as “the great American eating holiday.” There was no escaping all that food, that I did not even like. Now it is more an ideological distaste as it celebrates a fictitious harmony of colonial and Indigenous people breaking bread together, hardly the h...

In today’s video we feature special guest Stephanie Simms. I met Stephanie in Oxford in 2024, when she was on a panel where she described an experience of racial trauma. Her story moved me deeply and we made one of those instant connections. Stephanie is a veteran of 20 years in the US Air Force, where plenty of racial and gender related trauma occurs, and later had a stint in the US space program...

Like many children of trauma and neglect, I searched for heroes and idealized others, someone to look up to and identify with. I was and to some extent still am, a hero worshipper of sorts. Certainly not as I was. As a young activist who always loved music, musical icons with social justice messages were high on my list. It is always a terrible blow to find out a hero, may in fact have feet of cla...

This week's episode was recorded in Oxford, where I was attending and speaking at the Transform Trauma 2025 Conference. In this episode, I reflect on a movie I watched on the plane. I describe to you the powerful discovery of a group of men in a truly bleak environment, that enabled a burst of joy and connection among them. It is a worthy practice for survivors of trauma and neglect, who may not o...

This week we have a very special guest. We are honored and privileged to welcome Mike Niconchuk. I met Mike at the Boston Trauma Conference. I was so moved by his talks there that I invited him for an interview. Mike is a researcher, activist, author, hero and all around amazing human being. I say hero because Mike works on the front lines, where raw trauma is happening live around him. Mike is al...

Everyone is talking about it, and it seems to be everywhere. I figure it is time for me to say at least a few words about AI. I admit I feel very mixed about it, but then that is true about so many relationships, people and things in this complicated world. My giving it a chance to show its merits is admittedly quite new. And my apprehensions about mechanization and de-personalization are quite ol...

I was about five when they came out with color TV’s. We did not have one, and continued to huddle around the grainy old black and white for a long time. But I remember our dentist, who was a family friend, would sometimes have us over for dinner with his family on a Sunday evening. All I remember about those visits, is gathering around their spectacular color TV to watch Walt Disney’s Wonderful Wo...

In this episode we pay a brief visit to the big topic of regulation and its many meanings and manifestations, from "over-reacting" to getting somehow stuck in trauma states, and feeling baffled by seemingly senseless or erratic relationship patterns. So very much of it begins with early neglect. And although it may elicit shame and confusion, or great fatigue, it is not a "character flaw" or a "pa...

Today video is a bit of a patchwork, bits and pieces of ideas I am sure I will develop, disarray of coming home from vacation, and trying to get organized to get back in the saddle. Hawaii is glorious. It is good to be home! Although it is freezing here in San Francisco, USA. Apologies for the chaos of videos! Last week you got none, but this week you get two. Yes, trying to get organized. The pla...

Mind and Body Aloha everyone from glorious Kona, Hawaii, where I have the privilege to be this week. This video was made with a (real!) spectacular ocean view, not your Zoom perfect fake one! Being on vacation clears the head at least to some extent from the overcrowding of the “usual” thoughts and even coming back to a place I have been at least 50 times, I notice different things: a different fl...

In this episode of All About Nothing, we welcome special guest Mariah Rooney. When there is trauma, neglect, violence and differentness, often family is lost one way or another. With Mariah we discuss families lost and found, new models created, and a wide world outside the box of what sorts of attachments are possible. Thanks for joining us!

While we are all inundated with grief, horror, shock and injustice, I thought we might look for a ray of light. Here in San Francisco, I awoke to a rainbow spectrumed search light across the sky in honor of Pride weekend. It was a wonderful way to start my day. The child of neglect, will readily default to a stance of “nothing matters.” It is a natural way to feel in a lonely world of disconnectio...

It is summer here in the US and a time of many comings and goings. Vacations, summer camps, and young adults graduating and launching for the lucky (I won't talk about all the involuntary departures...) It is often a time of trauma activations for survivors of trauma and neglect. Loss is the core of neglect trauma, so real or imagined, or even what are in real time short interludes of absence, can...