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Booze and bad behaviour
Our love of alcohol is like a party that’s lasted nine centuries. But there are signs that the demon drink is losing its appeal.
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The blood notebooks
Novelist Rupert Thomson explores his unusual behaviour during a time of self-imposed isolation.
- In pictures
- In pictures
You’ve been warned
Iconic graphic design devised to admonish, amuse, inform and empower.
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Dating on dopamine
Drug treatment for Parkinson’s can come with an unwanted side serving of compulsive behaviour, as Pete Langman discovered. Read about his dating journey in a dopamine cloud.
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Why do victims become violent?
Witnessing both overt violence and coercive control can cause invisible harm to children. But preventing them from repeating that behaviour in the future remains a challenge.
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Breaking the rules of online dating
Artists are taking on the trolls of Tinder and the gremlins of Grindr to question the limits of online dating.
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The freedom to provoke
Jamie Hale talks to performer and director Emma Selwyn about the joy of creating work that celebrates, rather than suppresses, autistic behaviours.
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Where does violence come from?
The popular understanding of certain ideas in psychology have become so embedded that it’s easy to blame the parents when a young person commits a crime. Laura Bui looks to the past for evidence.
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The trouble with too many things
Hoarding is a slippery subject – difficult to define or diagnose. As she tries to explain the intensity of her grandma’s collecting, Georgie Evans finds the words and tools at her disposal aren’t all that helpful.
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Shame and the online free-for-all
Lucia Osborne-Crowley looks at how shame manifests online, where public humiliation is common and second chances all too rare.
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Believe yourself better
There’s more to recovery than medication. In future, our unconscious minds could be recruited to put a positive spin on our health problems, helping us feel better faster.
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The empty bungalow
Grandma’s unsteady piles of stuff have been dismantled and dispersed. From an empty bungalow, Georgie Evans makes a plea for hoarding behaviour to be better understood.
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Menstruation, magic and moon myths
Why do stories cloaking periods in magic and mystery persist? Pragya Agarwal argues against myth-making and for inclusive menstrual education, grounded in fact.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Gay men in London, from persecution to Pride
Ben Gazur’s whistle-stop tour of the history of gay men in London takes us from 14th-century persecution to modern Pride events.
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It’s getting mighty crowded
Mid-20th-century population-density research on mice produced a whiskered apocalypse, predicted to become the fate of humans too. But perhaps a more compassionate approach could fend this off.
- In pictures
- In pictures
Imagining the foetus
From the miniature adult in the womb imagined by 15th-century artists to the increasing detail of today’s ultrasound scans, Tania Staras traces our changing view of the human foetus.
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A woman in her wilderness of things
Even though her home was overwhelmed with stuff, Georgie Evans’s grandma couldn’t stop buying things. In this series, Georgie delves into hoarding, and attempts to make sense of her grandma’s behaviour.
- In pictures
- In pictures
In pursuit of purity
Many cultures associate physical cleanliness with spiritual purity, while disease and dirt are signs of moral pollution.
- In pictures
- In pictures
AIDS awareness posters from the 1980s onwards
The AIDS public health poster campaign chose print even in the internet age and dealt with issues of identity and behaviour like never before.
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Seeking the hoarder in literature
As she strives to deepen her understanding of hoarding, Georgie Evans turns to books. But depictions of hoards and hoarders are few and often sparse, except in one surprising place.
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Walk, interrupted
By listing all the things that get in her way, Caroline Butterwick wants to create an embodied experience of disability and convince you that inclusion is everyone’s responsibility.
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How to talk to kids about race
When her daughter decided blonde was best, a red flag went up for Pragya Agarwal. In this essay, the behavioural scientist discusses childhood development, race and representation.
- In pictures
- In pictures
An emotional journey through drink
David Jesudason’s relationship with alcohol is complicated. Here he explores how booze can shape our behaviour, describing how he’s matured from underage drinker to cask-ale connoisseur.
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Nymphomania and hypersexuality in women and men
The history of nymphomania is closely bound with society's views on women and their sexuality.
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On being a father with OCD
As a parent to young children, Ben Falk worries whether he could somehow pass his OCD on to them. Here’s what the experts say.