The Town That Forgot Dry Ground Examines the Hidden Costs of Coping Through A Psychologist’s Lens

The Town That Forgot Dry Ground How We Get Used to Things Falling Apart by W Michael Rogers PsyD

W. Michael Rogers combines a flooded-town allegory, social research, and practical tools to explore the relationship between adaptation and agency.

NEW YORK CITY, NY, UNITED STATES, October 8, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Building walkways keeps a town functioning as floodwater inches higher, but its residents’ ingenuity also helps them avoid asking why the water keeps rising. That tension anchors The Town That Forgot Dry Ground: How We Get Used to Things Falling Apart by psychologist W. Michael Rogers, PsyD. The book examines a dilemma that reaches beyond its fictional town: coping with worsening conditions can make the need for change harder to recognize.

Rogers wrote the book in response to a question he frequently hears from clients about how they reached their present circumstances. Their worries include rising costs, war, and rapid technological change, compounded by uncertainty about the future and how much influence they have. Those conversations prompted him to investigate the process by which troubling circumstances come to feel ordinary.

Combining allegory with psychological and sociological principles, the book considers adaptation at the scale of a person, a family, an organization, or a society. Rogers examines how everyday decisions interact with explanations, group signals, and things left unsaid. Together, these can allow a temporary exception to become an enduring norm. The subject is not a forecast of disaster, but the less conspicuous process of getting accustomed to what once seemed unacceptable.

The CRUMBLE and GROUND frameworks provide language for identifying that process and recovering direction. An accompanying Field Guide turns the discussion toward readers’ circumstances, with questions about changes they have experienced and problems their coping strategies may have hidden. These practical elements extend the book beyond the town’s story into an examination of relationships, workplaces, and communities.

For readers unsettled by rapid change, Rogers places particular emphasis on agency. He distinguishes an inability to control larger events from the possibility of questioning or influencing specific conditions. His message does not dismiss adaptation: he regards it as both necessary and valuable. The book instead asks readers to examine when a useful adjustment begins to sustain a situation that deserves scrutiny.

“My hope is to help readers notice sooner, consider change more deliberately, and recognize the choices still available to them.”
— W. Michael Rogers, PsyD

W. Michael Rogers, PsyD, is a psychologist and the author of The Town That Forgot Dry Ground: How We Get Used to Things Falling Apart.

Available now. Get your copy here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKQWSXP6

For review copies, interview requests, or additional information, please contact:

W. Michael Rogers, PsyD
BrightKey PR
wmichaelrogers@comcast.net