Security Blanket Over the past 25 years I have taught a graduate course entitled “Human Responses to Stress,” which more aptly should be called, as I tell my students, “Human Responses to Life” because it is life events and circumstances that cause us distress. Of all the many ways we respond to stress two themes emerge as having preeminence: predictability and control. We go to great lengths to control our lives and make them predictable. In fact, an unpredictable life is a life that is very stressful, and potentially harmful. When we drive, we like other driver’s behavior to be predictable—we want them to predictably stay on their ...