Liz B. Johnston, PhD, LCSW, is associate professor of social work at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo. In her private practice, she specializes in addiction recovery and healing from PTSD/trauma. She has facilitated a frontal temporal dementia caregiver support group since 2016. Dr. Johnston received her MSW (1984) and PhD (2013) from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Since 1984, she has worked in a variety of counseling agencies, private practice, and medical social work. The cases in this book are based on her experiences in these settings. For her 2012 dissertation, Dr. Johnston studied older adults who had experienced critical illness; in 2017 and 2022, she completed five- and 10-year longitudinal studies of the surviving participants. She has published research on a range of topics, including techniques to reduce staff stress during hospital renovation, the impact of critical illness on older adults, complications of social support, a theoretical reconsideration of paranoia, and a psychological understanding of social media connections to the gang-stalking phenomena. Dr. Johnston has four young adult children who live across the United States and in Canada. She loves having them home for visits and looks forward to future grandchildren. In her free time, she likes to take walks with her two small, highly neurotic rescue dogs; garden; swim; and volunteer for her church and community.