- Article
- Article
Why I don’t like prescribing sleeping pills
Sleeping pills often seem a simple option for aiding sleep or when dealing with anxiety, but there are many risks, and our anonymous GP is not afraid to say no to patients.
- Article
- Article
Caring for our Disabled daughter in lockdown
Jane Holmes talks about the challenges of caring for her Disabled daughter while working and trying to stay safe during the pandemic.
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- Article
How to thrive in lockdown
Gareth Berliner shares how being a Disabled person has given him the resilience and motivation to find a new creative challenge during lockdown.
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- Article
Coronavirus, Crohn’s and me
Clinically vulnerable to COVID-19, Lucia Osborne-Crowley has been shut in her flat for months. With her chronic condition transformed into a life-threatening one, she explores what the pandemic is revealing about living with long-term illness.
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- Article
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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- Article
Why gene editing can never eliminate disability
In a world where DNA testing and gene editing offer ways to eliminate certain disabilities, Jaipreet Virdi explores a more accepting and inclusive approach.
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- Article
Soil health and dairy farming in the UK
Although healthy soil means more nutritious dairy products, modern intensive farming methods pollute and degrade the environment. However, a regenerative agriculture movement is kicking back against mainstream industrial farming.
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- Article
Shame and how our bodies betray us
Embarrassment about our desires, bodies and bodily functions can silence us. Lucia Osborne-Crowley asks whether a low-level but constant sense of shame is stopping us getting the help we need.
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Our Covid complicity
Athena Stevens thought she had a cold that she tried to ignore, but it turned out to be Covid-19. Here she reflects on how we have all put ourselves and others at risk with the choices we’ve made during this pandemic.
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- Article
The law of periodicity for menstruation
Dr Edward Clarke's Law of Periodicity claimed that females who were educated alongside their male peers were developing their minds at the expense of their reproductive organs.
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- Article
Being trans in the world of sex work
Unstable. Predatory. Risk takers. Dr Adrienne Macartney sheds stark light on the hostile and negative assumptions faced by trans sex workers.
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- Article
Taking the piss
Council cuts have created public-toilet deserts across the UK, limiting journeys and days out for people whose medical conditions mean toilet access is essential. Campaigner Kevin Crowe highlights the issues.
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- Article
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.
- Book extract
- Book extract
The give and take of caring
Kate Mosse argues that how we define ‘care’ matters, and explores the reciprocity of caring and being cared for.
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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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- Article
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.
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The healing power of breathing
The healing powers of different breathing methods are said to help with a range of health challenges, from asthma to PTSD. Effie Webb traces their spiritual origins and explores the modern proliferation of breathwork therapies.
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- Article
Abandoning daydreams of a life without diabetes
After years of longing for a cure for her type 1 diabetes, Daisy Watson Shaw, partly due to medical advances in managing the condition, has reached a state of acceptance. Her wishes now are for greater understanding.
- Book extract
- Book extract
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.
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A walk through other people’s expectations
The steep path isn’t the only thing Caroline Butterwick has to navigate on her Lakeland hike. Always aware of other people’s expectations, she continually monitors how her disability might seem to strangers.
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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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The current that kills
In the 19th century, electricity held life in the balance, with the power to execute – or reanimate.
- Book extract
- Book extract
Renaissance women and their killer cosmetics
In this extract from ‘How to be a Renaissance Woman’, Jill Burke delves into a complex world of beauty products, poison and patriarchy – and reveals the impossible contradictions of femininity faced by 16th-century women.
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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.
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Finding out where my lithium comes from
The origins of the lithium Laura Grace Simpkins swallows daily are unclear. If we don’t know the provenance of our pills, how can we make informed decisions about them?