What is At the Intersection?
At the Intersection is an educational hub for mini series (plus an introduction glossary post for the topic) for when society wide events become individual people’s responsibilities. Each series will focus on a different intersection, providing you with new learnings, applications, and patterns to recognize.
The posts will be published once a week for seven weeks. After the series ends, there will be a four week break before the launch of the next topic. This is both for sustainability for me and for you to have time to process what you have learned; both our brains need rest time!
Paid subscribers will have access to every post in the series (seven total) and free subscribers will have access to some posts in the series (up to three). I believe in transparency and I hope this level sets expectations. This structure balances two beliefs and values of mine: (1) that education should be accessible AND (2) educators should be paid for their work.
Who is the creator and writer of At the Intersection?
Hi, I’m Sydney!
The credentials: Sydney Conroy, PhD, LMHC is a therapist, writer, researcher, educator, and creator whose work spans fields and sectors on mental health literacy, sustainable productivity, play advocacy, and trauma-informed education. Dr. Conroy completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge with the Centre for Development on Play in Education, Development, and Learning (PEDAL) on the collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic, the mental health impacts of lockdowns on children as well as the profession of play therapy, and explores what recovery from the pandemic could look like. She wears many hats as the owner & therapist at The Orchard Psychotherapy, edupreneur supporting students mental health & success with academic tools such as The Soft Academia Planner, writer, speaker, and consultant.
Beyond the credentials: One of my favorite ways to play these days is in the kitchen - flavors, presentations, experimentation. I’ve dreamt almost as much about creating a kitchen I love as my writing desk space. I have a goal of reading 50 non-fiction books and 50 fiction books in 2025. I decided to change my favorite flower when I turned thirty because new decade, new flower? It was a sunflower and now it’s a peony. Clue is my favorite board game of all time, with Connect4 and Jenga tied for as my favorite table top games. My road to being a creative who gives creativity an intentional and consistent outlet was hard won. The Series of Unfortunate Events is my childhood series favorite and the Beartown series is my adult favorite.
To learn more, visit SydneyConroy.com.
As a writer, do you have a language learning model (LLM) or artificial intelligence (AI) promise for this publication?
Yes, I do not use LLMs for any stage of my work, including ideation, clarity, editing, writing, rewording, or anything else. Every post you read here is human written, I promise.
What is your hope for At the Intersection?
My hope is to provide foundational learning and education to people who feel lost, overwhelmed, confused, and/or worried about how to navigate society wide events as an individual.
My hope is to support people who ask themselves questions like: what is my responsibility to others? What is my responsibility to myself? What do I not yet understand about today’s world? How can I create a snowball effect of healing or knowledge building within my sphere of influence? How can I be responsible with whatever size platform I have? What is this situation similar to that has happened before and what were the consequences?
What is the benefit of being a paid subscriber At the Intersection?
The personal benefit to you of being a paid subscriber is to have access to all the posts in the series, ability to comment, participate in the chat, and be able to vote on future series topics.
Another benefit to being a paid subscriber is you directly invest in the ability for me to maintain this educational project. It allows me to sustain my ongoing research for future series, my health and wellbeing, and ability to create.
