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Lost in the mall and other false memories
How can you remember an event that never took place? Find out how manipulation, misinformation and coercion can plant false memories in your mind.
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Acid and the sexual psychonauts
How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.
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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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Can our sexual desires be transformed?
In the 1950s, many psychiatrists thought that homosexuality could be reformed. One found that it couldn’t – and his discoveries led to a change in the law.
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When self-deception becomes global hoax
Being deceived isn’t always a case of believing someone else’s lie. Experiments have shown that many of us can be manipulated into accepting our own fictions as true.
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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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Manipulating the evidence with deepfake technology
How can you be sure that the person speaking on the screen is genuine? Find out how sophisticated digital manipulation is blurring the boundaries between real and ‘deepfake’.
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Believe yourself better
There’s more to recovery than medication. In future, our unconscious minds could be recruited to put a positive spin on our health problems, helping us feel better faster.
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A history of mindfulness
Matt Drage questions how an ancient religious practice became a secular cure for stress.
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The epilepsy diagnosis
Epilepsy exists between the mind and body, something that Aparna Nair experienced for herself when she was diagnosed as a teenager.
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Building a dream in the garden suburbs
In the late 19th century a ‘garden suburb’ promised a retreat from London’s dirt and crowds. See how this new concept was developed to appeal to the health concerns of the literary classes.
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Rethinking the placebo effect
The placebo effect has long been harnessed for both legitimate and fraudulent use, but we’re only just discovering how and why our bodies respond positively to dummy drugs, as Anjuli Sharma reveals.
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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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Is fake news killing fictive art?
Parafictional artists create projects where the imaginary interacts with real life. But the growth of so-called ‘fake news’ is providing a new challenge.
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How electromagnetic therapy inspired me
Poet Sarah James explores how repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treated her depression and influenced her art.