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342 results
  • Comic
  • Comic

Thought

| Rob Bidder

Ever find your thoughts leading you down the same old paths?

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The shape of thought

| Richard WingateSteven Pocock

Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s description of the moment in 1887 when he saw a brain cell for the first time never fails to move neuroscientist Richard Wingate to tears. Here he captures that enduring sense of wonder.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

The history of brainwashing

| Daniel PickSteven Pocock

Is it possible to control what other people think? In this abridged extract from his book ‘Brainwashed’, psychoanalyst and historian Daniel Pick offers us a new history of thought control.

  • Article
  • Article

Hamlet, the melancholic Prince of Denmark

| Nelly Ekström

Hamlet clearly demonstrates an excess of black bile and is arguably the most famous literary melancholic.

  • Article
  • Article

The leukaemia diagnosis I didn’t see coming

| Hannah Partos

Treatment for leukaemia kept journalist Hannah Partos in isolation, like the female prisoner whose image inspired her to write this piece.

  • Article
  • Article

Tragic artists and their all-consuming passions

| Anna Faherty

Does having a debilitating disease help or hinder creative genius?

  • Article
  • Article

Can our sexual desires be transformed?

| Charlie WilliamsSarah MarksDaniel Pick

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Life on the line

| Katy GeorgiouSteven Pocock

Former Samaritans helpline volunteer Katy Georgiou recalls the desperate voices she heard during her night shifts, and those whose isolation she helped to alleviate.

  • Article
  • Article

Finding my body through the wilderness

| Jennifer NealFaye Heller

Writer Jennifer Neal used vigorous exercise classes to try and heal herself in the years following an assault. But it was only while hiking outdoors that she found true strength.

  • Article
  • Article

Why all of us are evil

| Julia Shaw

Science proves that we’re all capable of evil: your secret fantasy about killing someone you hate is surprisingly normal. But the way to better moral choices is to fight emotional instinct.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Badger culling and farmers’ mental health

| Diana Boyer

Artist Diana Boyer portrays a farmer's thoughts as she goes about her work in a high-risk area for bovine TB.

  • Interview
  • Interview

Meet the climate emergency

| Gwendolyn SmithThomas S G Farnetti

Find out what led Yinka Shonibare to create the compelling artwork ‘Refugee Astronaut’.

  • Article
  • Article

The enduring myth of the mad genius

| Anna Faherty

There’s a fine line to tread between creativity and psychosis.

  • Article
  • Article

Diagnosing OCD in the past

| Joanne EdgeThomas S G Farnetti

Mining the writings of and about famous historical figures, retrospective psychologists try to diagnose their mental health problems. But, inevitably, partial evidence is open to misinterpretation.

  • Article
  • Article

The secret hystery of a womb

| Anna Blundy

A Renaissance image of a caesarean section inspired Anna Blundy to recount the story of a hidden, perhaps mysterious part of her body.

  • Article
  • Article

Our Covid complicity

| Athena StevensCarrie Ravenscroft

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.

  • In pictures
  • In pictures

Forensic sculpture and the uncannily human clay heads

| Lalita Kaplish

"There is a point when there are suddenly twice as many people in the class."

  • Article
  • Article

Birth, babies and boxes of memories

| Erin BeestonNaomi Williams

With memories of her baby in neonatal intensive care still fresh, Erin Beeston decides to unearth the poignant objects her family kept following births, going back as far as Victorian times.

  • Article
  • Article

How my wheelchair changed my life

| Natasha LipmanCamilla Greenwell

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Nymphomania and hypersexuality in women and men

| Taryn Cain

The history of nymphomania is closely bound with society's views on women and their sexuality.

  • Article
  • Article

Illness and the influence of the stars

| Taras YoungSteven Pocock

Could alien germs from space have caused major pandemics across the world? Taras Young investigates the ideas of a few unconventional scientists who believe this to be the case.

  • Article
  • Article

Performance art, frozen in time

| Elissavet NtouliaKathleen Arundell

For over a year, live performance art with an audience present has been largely impossible. But still images continue to allow artists in this sphere to inspire audiences at home.

  • Article
  • Article

Confession as therapy in the Middle Ages

| Katherine Harvey

The line between confession and counselling has been blurred for centuries.

  • Article
  • Article

When kids are offered free cosmetic surgery

| Jasmine OwensSteven Pocock

When they were a child, Jasmine Owens’ dentist offered to break their jaw – for free. It would make them look better, he said. Read on to find out whether or not they agreed.

  • Book extract
  • Book extract

My important, ridiculous nose

| A L Kennedy

The nose is a much-maligned appendage, but it’s a powerful organ capable of invoking powerful emotions from past memories and sexual attraction.