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Why “crazy cat ladies” are healthier than you may think
Writer Erica Crompton ponders the reasons behind the misogynist “crazy cat lady” trope, and reclaims cat ownership as a positive way to help restore mental equilibrium.
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How architecture builds a profession of stress
Architects might produce buildings that enhance our health, but at what cost? Kristin Hohenadel explores architecture’s pressurised and stressful culture.
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Building resilience in a racist world
With the resurgence of racism in today’s UK, Louisa Adjoa Parker reflects on the trauma of growing up in a racist society and explores how victims could begin to heal.
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Trust me, I’m a patient
Artist Rachel Rowan Olive is an expert in the way her mental health condition affects her. Here she explains how it helps if doctors understand that.
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Tripping for spiritualism and science
Getting high in the name of religion or creativity has been practised for centuries. Now it seems hallucinogenics could help treat mental illnesses too.
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Why the truth is better than a happy ending
Caroline Butterwick often uses lived experience to inform her journalism, but she’s discovered a tension between the truth and stories that will sell.
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Providing care across languages
When medics are taught in English but their patients speak other languages, effective communication becomes fraught. Niyoshi Shah explores the linguistic gaps between patient and doctor.
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The indelible harm caused by conversion therapy
With first-hand evidence from two powerful testimonies, neurologist Jules Montague explores the destructive history of conversion therapy, a punitive treatment designed to ‘cure’ people of homosexuality.
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My illness made me an activist, but now I’m exhausted
Emily Bashforth’s illness made her an advocate but now she’s battling burnout. She argues why we all need to be mental health activists, not just those with lived experience.
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Reclaiming my story
Sharing her story of mental illness and treatment with trainee social workers has helped Caroline Butterwick make sense of her past, and continues to be a positive part of her life today.
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The boundaries that shape my writing
While writing about her life can be enormously helpful, Caroline Butterwick needs to regularly reassess her boundaries. Here she explores the line between what’s public and what’s private, and how porous that can be.
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The housing that gives hope to refugees
A safe place of one’s own can be a source of healing and hope. George Kafka reports on two Athens-based projects helping displaced people by putting housing first.
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Reversing the psychiatric gaze
Nineteenth-century psychiatrists were keen to categorise their patients’ illnesses reductively – by their physical appearance. But we can see a far more complex picture of mental distress, revealed by those patients able to express their inner worlds in art.
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Surviving as a working-class woman without work
An enforced period of unemployment was extremely tough for Claire Hart, a working-class woman with a strong work ethic. Here she describes her feelings during this difficult time.
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Diagnosed bipolar, prescribed lithium
In the first part of a series looking into lithium, Laura Grace Simpkins recounts the beginning of her troubled relationship with this mysterious drug.
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Louis Wain’s cryptic cats
Once famous for his quirky cat illustrations, today Louis Wain is often portrayed as a ‘psychotic’ artist whose illness can be mapped out through his drawings. Here Bryony Benge-Abbott takes a more rounded view.
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The pill, autism and me
Realising that her contraceptive was having a negative effect on her mental health, Catriona Reid saw her concerns dismissed by doctors. As an autistic woman on the pill, she was not an anomaly, but has often been made to feel like one.
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To stop or stay on lithium
In the final part of her investigation into lithium, Laura Grace Simpkins faces a dilemma – should she put her own mental health or other people and the planet first?
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The side effects of lithium mining
Laura Grace Simpkins attempts to untangle some uncomfortable truths about the social and environmental costs of making her medication.
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The significance of safe spaces as refuges from racism
Beer writer David Jesudason discusses the impact racism has had on his mental health, and the consolation offered by pubs that feel truly safe.
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When depression is worse than physical illness
Chronic physical illnesses can be accompanied by troubling depressive symptoms. Elly Aylwin-Foster urges doctors to treat every aspect of her condition with the same care.
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Happy Joy Smile
Drawn from real-life experiences, this short story depicts a character negotiating the UK’s current mental health system. Discover what happens as they encounter waiting lists, sketchy healthcare and punitive government bureaucracy.
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When you can’t return home
Migrants and refugees cannot choose to return home, so homesickness becomes a profound and long-lasting feeling. This powerful force infuses migrant cultures, and is rarely given the serious attention it warrants.
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Stigma, schizophrenia and being transgender
When he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, Ashley McFord-Allister discovered that the medical world will not continue gender confirmation treatment while treating a mental health condition. Here he exposes the prejudice behind this attitude.
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Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages
The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.