Valerie Running Deer is a brash, brilliant neuroscience graduate student. Elizabeth Baldwin is her uptight, control-freak advisor. Elizabeth and Valerie's relationship has always been a battle of wills, but when Elizabeth hands over one of Valerie's original research ideas to another student, Valerie fires the shot that turns their cold war into a hot one: she makes a pass at Elizabeth's daughter Lisa, a coy, impetuous teen who has been harboring a crush on her. Valerie's spiteful impulse is diffused when she starts to fall for Lisa behind Elizabeth's back, but a confrontation is inevitable. Valerie's tumultuous journey towards it will entangle her in the circuitous dance of the relationships around her as friends, colleagues, and family struggle to balance need and trust, impulse and restraint. Control freaks. Hot heads. Timid artists. Impulsive kids. Dis/inhibition explores the complications of self-control both outside and inside the scientific laboratory.