Stories search

Conflicted and confused about lithium

Covid-19 left Laura Grace Simpkins out of work and living back with her parents. She now had time to restart her research into her medication, but was she mad to continue?

Investigating what lithium is and how it works

The more questions Laura Grace Simpkins asked about lithium, the more she realised how little is known about this powerful drug and how it affects our mental health.

Maladaptive daydreaming, gender myths and me

Can you daydream too much? Excessive daydreamer Laura Grace Simpkins reflects on studies into “maladaptive daydreaming” and asks why so few fellow dreamers seem to be men.

Six personal health zines that might change your life

Personal zines put health conditions back in the hands of the people who experience them. Here are six that Wellcome Collection staff love.

Out of the mouth trap

After 15 years of speech therapy, Jonty Claypole decided to make peace with his stammer. He explores our fear of disfluency, revealing how accepting it could actually increase our creativity and persuasiveness.

The sickness in the wellness industry

In recovery from anorexia, Gwen Smith began to realise how the wellness industry needs its followers to feel bad about themselves in order to make money out them.

The meanings of hurt

In the early modern period, gruesome incidents of self-castration and other types of self-injury garnished the literature of the time. Alanna Skuse explores the messages these wounds conveyed.

Writing back to authority

As she cuts up old doctors’ letters and uses them to compose absurd poems, Caroline Butterwick reflects on the catharsis of creation and proposes writing as a way to take back control.

Diagnosing the past

Historical texts rarely supply enough detail for a definitive diagnosis, so medical historians need to proceed with caution.

What the nose doesn’t know

Losing her sense of smell for over a year motivated Stephanie Howard-Smith to sniff out the history of treatments for this unsettling condition.

Aphasia and drawing elephants

When Thomas Parkinson investigated the history of “speech science”, he discovered an unexpected link between empire, elephants and aphasia.

The painter, the psychiatrist and a fashion for hysteria

A dramatic painting brings a famous event in medical history alive. But it also tells a tale about the health preoccupations of the time.

The man who remembers everything

Tilney1 can remember his life in minute detail, but can’t control the incessant intrusion of thoughts and images from the past. As cuts to mental health services isolate him more and more, a crisis approaches.

How writing helps me manage schizophrenia

When doctors get sick

Feeling guilty about developing a health problem, our anonymous GP contemplates how the system could better support doctors when they’re sick.

Can isolation lead to manipulation?

Military-funded researchers wanted to know if isolation techniques could facilitate brainwashing. One neuroscientist suggested that it might improve our own control over our minds.

Can our minds be taken hostage?

It’s not unusual for captives to end up feeling strong bonds with their captors. But is it a matter of submission or survival?

Desperate housewives and suburban neurosis

Discover how a pioneering health centre replaced housewives’ supposedly empty home lives with a social space that encouraged healthy child rearing.

The tower in fiction, film and life

The high-rise estates born of postwar idealism soon became symbols of crime and squalor. But after one terrible tragedy, public bodies are being forced to rethink our towers.

The history of brainwashing

Is it possible to control what other people think? In this abridged extract from his book ‘Brainwashed’, psychoanalyst and historian Daniel Pick offers us a new history of thought control.

Thousands of years of women’s pain

Even in the 21st century, women with severe monthly pain find their suffering minimised or dismissed by the medical profession. Such pain is seen as simply a natural part of being female.

Yoga gets physical

Modern yoga owes a debt to the physical culture movement that created a world obsessed with health and fitness.

Healing through ink

Taking an approach learned from his OCD treatment, Josh Weeks faced his fear of getting tattoos, and embraced inking as part of the healing process.

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.

Sex work and critical campaigners

When campaigners filmed secretly in the club where she worked, exotic dancer Ella Smith felt frightened and degraded. Here she speaks out about the attack on her livelihood.