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15 results
  • Article
  • Article

Transforming the decorative into dissent

| Rachel May

Discover how embroidered messages by two ‘troublesome’ women in 19th-century asylums are mirrored in the therapeutic quilting work of writer Rachel May.

  • Article
  • Article

How electromagnetic therapy inspired me

| Sarah James

Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

A brief history of contraception

| Milly Newham

From douches to diaphragms, and condoms to caps, discover the wide range of contraception methods people have used over the centuries.

  • Article
  • Article

Busting myths about turkey-baster babies

| Christine RoSteven Pocock

The popular idea of sex-free, turkey-baster-led conception has been around since the 1970s. Christine Ro goes beyond the utensils drawer to find out if it’s ever really happened.

  • Article
  • Article

Nurturing my autistic, gender-questioning child

| Jude LaxJack Lax

As mother of an autistic child who questions her gender, Jude Lax describes cherishing her growing daughter as she explores her identity.

  • Article
  • Article

Drops of water

| Daisy LafargeMaïa Walcott

In the compulsory isolation of lockdown, Daisy Lafarge’s repeated visits – via a new microscope – to the miniature worlds contained by drops of pond water provided her with the company and escapism she craved.

  • Article
  • Article

Fees, funding and the NHS

| Cal Flyn

In the 1950s, dramatic political battles over NHS charges brought down a government. But public confidence in the service still grew.

  • Article
  • Article

Hunting lost plants in botanical collections

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

A bark specimen at Kew recalls the story of a South American man who harvested the most potent source of the only effective malaria treatment available in the late 1800s. Killed for his work and forgotten by history, Manuel Mamani was a victim of the colonial juggernaut.

  • Article
  • Article

How hip-hop can save your mental health

| Erica CromptonSteven Pocock

Hip-hop is an unusual tool in the mental health professional’s armoury. But fans and performers can testify to the sympathetic and restorative powers of the genre.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

“Above resistant pavements, I floated”

| Iain Sinclair

In this extract from ‘Living with Buildings and Walking with Ghosts’, walk with Iain Sinclair through the streets of London.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Alopecia in men

| Orlando Gili

Men break their silence about total hair loss in these intimate portraits and interviews by Orlando Gili.

  • Photo story
  • Photo story

Trans masculinity on the record

| E-J ScottThomas S G Farnetti

Curator of the Museum of Transology in Brighton E-J Scott tells the story behind a few of the 250 objects from the collection, and the powerful effect they had on him as he put trans lives on the record.

  • Article
  • Article

Believe yourself better

| A R Hopwood

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Audrey and her family

| Elena Carter

In working on Audrey Amiss’s archive, Elena is getting closer to understanding her. But the way her niece and nephew remember Audrey adds essential detail to the picture.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

Eating their own kind

In his grisly history of cannibalism, zoologist Bill Schutt asks what drives an animal to feast on its own flesh and blood.