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Religion and mental health
At a time of extreme distress, Jamila Pereira found that the faith she had relied on was failing her. Here she describes how she found other ways to begin healing and finding happiness.
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Designing better mental health wards
Bringing colour and natural light to tired, grubby mental health wards has a measurably positive effect on patients. A few groundbreaking projects are showing the way.
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How hip-hop can save your mental health
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.
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How the mental health system fails Black people
Accessing mental healthcare as a Black woman can be a challenging experience. Rianna Walcott shares her story, alongside those of three other women, to reveal the barriers she faced.
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Chemical highs and psychedelic research
Could recreational drugs make you happy? Kate Wilkinson explores why keen clubber Simon believes taking psychedelics has helped him develop as a person.
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Hysteria
Mental health and emotional symptoms are common during menopause, but a long history of dismissing sufferers as 'hysterical women', at the mercy of their emotions has made it much harder to discuss these issues and to get support.
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Self-obsessing in the age of selfies
The tiny, joyful spark of a social media ‘like’ can lead to a damaging obsession. Find out how far people will go when their phone addiction gets the upper hand.
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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.
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Sex work, stigma and whorephobia
Like everyone, sex workers sometimes need medical or mental health support. But shame and stigma seriously affect attitudes and access.
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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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When everyday environments become anxious spaces
Social anxiety disorder isolates those who experience it. Part of the solution is to design public spaces with mental health in mind.
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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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We are from here, but not from here
Novelist JJ Bola on being a refugee with a British passport and what that placenessless means for a search for identity.
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Do you see what I see?
Is reality actually what you see, or just an elaborate illusion?
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Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages
The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.
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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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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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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 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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Chronic illness and the pressure to get well
When she was ill, Naomi Morris assumed she was on a straightforward journey from sickness to health. But what if our experiences of mental distress and ill health aren’t that neat?
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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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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 evil eye and social anxiety
The ‘look’ of the evil eye is believed to bring bad luck, illness or even death. This ancient curse might be deliberate, inflicted with an envious glare, or it could be accidental, the result of undue attention or excessive praise.
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Good animals, bad humans?
Could an animal be more evolved than a human? Victorian psychologists thought that in some cases the answer could be ‘yes’.
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The enduring myth of the mad genius
There’s a fine line to tread between creativity and psychosis.