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Empathy

Double standards – part of being human.

Empathy

Putting yourself in someone else's shoes might only make it harder for both of you to walk.

The solidarity of sickness

Visiting an injured friend in hospital prompts writer Sinéad Gleeson to reflect on the instant rapport forged between compatriots in the kingdom of the sick.

How stories bring us together

Elif Shafak considers how hard it is to be heard in our divided world, but how listening can nurture wisdom, connection and empathy.

Fighting shame by speaking out

Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s first instinct after being raped was to cover it up. Shame silenced her for ten years, but #MeToo gave her the courage to speak out.

Questioning the psychoanalyst

Maggie Robbins gives her personal take on the common misconceptions around her field of work.

When ‘get well soon’ doesn’t cut it

When loved ones are seriously ill, we can hide behind dishonest platitudes or struggle to find the words. Meet the woman working to fix how we speak to sick people.

Shame and how our bodies betray us

Embarrassment about our desires, bodies and bodily functions can silence us. Lucia Osborne-Crowley asks whether a low-level but constant sense of shame is stopping us getting the help we need.

Daria Martin on ‘Sensorium Tests’ and ‘At the Threshold’

Autistic togetherness during lockdown

While lockdown has presented autistic people with greater challenges than life pre-COVID, many have found strength and comfort in the situation. Autistic writer and performer Kate Fox explains how.

Crime drama and the realistic cadaver

Today we are accustomed to the increasingly realistic look of dead bodies in on-screen dramas. Special-effects expert Hildegunn M S Traa reveals how crime and morgue scenes reflect the social idea of death.

A virtual view of history

Step inside Anne Frank’s house or explore the galleries in a museum destroyed by fire. VR brings history and art satisfyingly close when we’re unable to get there in person.

“It wasn’t an accident that I came to you”

Douglas meets psychoanalyst Susie Orbach for a follow-up session, ahead of delivering a difficult verdict.

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.

Fleeing fear, defying prejudice

As teenage refugee Sedra Al-Yousef grappled with rebuilding her life and education in another country, at the same time she used compassion and humanity to demolish populist anti-refugee myths.

Celebrating our soft toys

After cuddling a teddy bear cured her insomnia, Elspeth Wilson was inspired to speak to four other autistic and disabled adults, who praise the roles soft toys play in their lives.

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.

A head apart from the body

We look to the future of science via science fiction to explore how a head may live apart from its body.

Native Americans and the dehumanising force of the photograph

In the second part of Native Americans through the 19th-century lens, we delve deeper into the ambivalent messages within the images.

Thalidomide survivors in the 21st century

As thalidomide survivors enter their 60s, they look back on their lives and the legacy of the thalidomide catastrophe.

Ways appear

While his sense of body shame meant the personal side of his life was unfulfilled, Chris’s career was rewarding. His own childhood experiences gave him profound empathy for the children he worked with.

Nurturing my autistic, gender-questioning child

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

How to be poor and happy

Money, security, self-sufficiency and charitable giving have long been linked to happiness. But what if you’re working class?

Birth, babies and boxes of memories

With memories of her baby in neonatal intensive care still fresh, Erin Beeston decides to unearth the poignant objects her family kept following births, going back as far as Victorian times.

Coleridge’s hypochondria

An intense focus on his own bodily sensations led poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to self-medicate with narcotics. But this fascination also put Coleridge ahead of the medical sensibilities of his day.