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How writing helps me manage schizophrenia

Disturbed minds and disruptive bodies

Prison officers tried to regulate women’s minds and bodies and maintain a new disciplinary routine in the second half of the 1800s.

The smile catchers

From facial recognition to emojis in apps, find out how the monitoring of emotions is used to get more out of workers.

Social isolation and the search for sanctuary

Threatened with deportation, Furaha Asani turned to her church for support. Met with silence and disinterest, she walked away, but argues that churches should do much more for migrants.

Dealing with the dead after a nuclear attack

Cold War-era predictions of death on a vast scale became routine. But the British authorities were less prepared to dispose of the bodies.

Why do victims become violent?

Witnessing both overt violence and coercive control can cause invisible harm to children. But preventing them from repeating that behaviour in the future remains a challenge.

Medics and the bomb

Would a nuclear attack on the UK overwhelm the NHS? At the height of the Cold War, despite government optimism, medics predicted doom.

Disability, education and prejudice

In the 1960s and 1970s, thalidomide survivors had to fight for a proper education. If they weren’t brought up in institutions, they were often viewed as objects of curiosity, encountering verbal and sometimes physical abuse, both at school and in the world beyond.

A nose through Blythe House

Recently sold and emptied out, Blythe House was once one of the UK’s biggest museum storage facilities. Here, museum worker Laura Humphreys reflects on her relationship with the store’s architecture, objects and aromas.

Questioning the psychoanalyst

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

When wounds replace words

For the many thousands of refugees waiting in Greece, the process to establish the truth of their tragic personal histories is often extremely upsetting. But a group of medics and legal workers is working together to make the system more humane.

The island of unclaimed bodies

In New York, those who live and die on the extreme edges of society are buried on an isolated island, often forgotten and unmourned. But recent legal changes aim to reduce stigma and restore their dignity.

Thunderbolts and lightning

Fire in the sky has always exerted a hold on our imagination, even as early scientists unlocked the secrets of atmospheric electricity.

Living with invisible illness

What happens when the signs of your illness are invisible to the rest of the world? Hannah Turner describes the daily struggles of living with invisible illness.

Naked, not nude

Classicist Caroline Vout argues that it’s time to take the dust covers off the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and to encounter their bodies not nude, but naked.

What is violence?

Criminologist Laura Bui explores her early understanding of violence and outlines its definition and wider consequences.

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?

Adapting to life as a thalidomide survivor

Growing up as a thalidomide survivor meant coping with all the usual challenges of childhood and adolescence, while having to fit into a world designed for the able-bodied.

How slums make people sick

A newly gentrified corner of Bermondsey leaves little clue to its less salubrious history. But a few intrepid writers recorded the details of existence in one of London’s most squalid slums.

Picturing mental health

Ron Hampshire created artworks while resident at Netherne psychiatric hospital. What can we learn from them?

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.

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.

Having children as a fat woman

When she sought fertility advice, and at antenatal appointments, Ellie Levenson found that medics were openly anti-fat. Only years later can she evaluate the true repercussions of their words and actions.

The extraordinary body of Evatima Tardo

Darling of 19th-century American freak shows, Evatima Tardo remained serene as she withstood crucifixion and the bites of poisonous snakes. But she took the secret behind her abilities to her grave.

How my wheelchair changed my life

A young woman diagnosed with a disabling condition found her world shrank without the mobility aids she needed to get outside. Finally facing the stigma around using a wheelchair transformed her everyday life.