Just one thing, Mark: Your writer's Ph.D. student might obsess over the serial killer because she doesn't want to think about finishing. That happens. One woman I know drove all her friends crazy looking for the right kind of support for her breasts to wear with the dress she had planned to wear for the party after the defense. She had people scouring every lingerie shop in Bergen, Oslo and Trondheim, as well as a few "adult" stores. When it was all over she didn't need it, and she would have learned that if she had tried her dress a few months back. Minds do odd things to us, and we can create silly obsessions in order to avoid thinking about the magnitude of the real problem.