Wellcome uses cookies.

Read our policy
Wellcome Collection homepage
All
Stories
Images
Catalogue
Events
57 results
  • Article
  • Article

Picturing mental health

| Lalita KaplishSolomon Szekir-Papasavva

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

  • 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

Maladaptive daydreaming, gender myths and me

| Laura Grace SimpkinsTanya Cooper

Can you daydream too much? Excessive daydreamer Laura Grace Simpkins reflects on studies into “maladaptive daydreaming” and asks why so few fellow dreamers seem to be men.

  • Article
  • Article

Pain and the power of touch

| Fiona MurphyCamilla Greenwell

As a new physiotherapist, Fiona Murphy quickly learned that her patients’ pain was unpredictable and very personal. But using the right words became the key to helping them.

  • Article
  • Article

What Black women do when the NHS fails them

| Sabrina-Maria AndersonMaïa WalcottBlack Ballad

Sabrina-Maria Anderson explores misogynoir – hatred of Black women – within the NHS, and how women like her are consequently turning to other sources of medical support.

  • Article
  • Article

Equality in genetics

| Sasha HenriquesTinuke Fagborun

Genetic counsellor Sasha Henriques harnessed her energy and resolve to tackle the racial biases she saw in her profession – with positive and promising results.

  • Article
  • Article

Finding the words to talk about emptiness

| Cassie DoneyJames Albon

Shored up by a diagnosis and medication, Cassie Doney tried to find out more about the profound feeling of emptiness they were experiencing. But research is thin on the ground.

  • Article
  • Article

When parenting brings a paradigm shift

| Carol NahraKathleen Arundell

There were no indications during her pregnancy that Carol Nahra’s son would have severe, life-threatening disabilities. Here she describes the stages on her journey from shock to love and beyond.

  • 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

Having children as a fat woman

| Ellie LevensonBenjamin Gilbert

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Mary Bishop and the surveillant gaze

| Rose RuaneMary Bishop

Writer and artist Rose Ruane explores the paintings of Mary Bishop, created during a 30-year stay in a psychiatric hospital, which speak of constant medical surveillance and censorious self-examination.

  • Article
  • Article

Providing care across languages

| Niyoshi ShahRanganath Krishnamani

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.

  • Article
  • Article

Drug sharing in desperate times

| NicoleThomas S G Farnetti

When Nicole was threatened with deportation, her mental health deteriorated. Now without a job, a passport or a doctor, she depends on others to send her their leftover anxiety drugs.

  • Article
  • Article

Finding solidarity in arachnophobia

| Izzie PriceSteven Pocock

Arachnophobia is very different from just disliking spiders. Izzie Price shares the reality of having the phobia, and explores its likely origins.

  • Article
  • Article

The healing power of breathing

| Effie Webb

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.

  • Article
  • Article

How Indigenous insight inspires sustainable science

| Nataly Allasi CanalesCat O’Neil

The forest of the Amazon Basin is inextricably bound up with the lives of the Indigenous peoples living there. Find out how they feel about the forest, use what it provides, and try to protect it from aggressive commercial exploitation.

  • Article
  • Article

Thalidomide babies

| Ruth BlueHollie Chastain

In a time without scans or antenatal tests, neither medical staff nor parents were prepared for the damage to the foetus caused by the thalidomide drug.

  • Article
  • Article

On being a father with OCD

| Ben Falk

As a parent to young children, Ben Falk worries whether he could somehow pass his OCD on to them. Here’s what the experts say.

  • Article
  • Article

Remote diagnosis from wee to the Web

| Christine RoSteven Pocock

Medical practice might have moved on from when patients posted flasks of their urine for doctors to taste, but telehealth today keeps up the tradition of remote diagnosis – to our possible detriment.

  • Article
  • Article

The rise and fall of a medical mesmerist

Uncover the fascinating story of the doctor who popularised hypnotism as a medical technique, and could name Dickens among his famous friends.

  • Article
  • Article

Rag mags and monthly issues: Five period zines to stop you seeing red

| Nicola CookLoesja Vigour

Using humour, personal experience and political activism to explore the bloody reality of menstruation.

  • Article
  • Article

Writing in remission

| Brian DillonNaki Narh

Reading the writings of the lifelong hypochondriac Jacques Derrida during lockdown, Brian Dillon realises his own health anxiety has become unusually subdued.

  • Article
  • Article

Getting the measure of pain

| Jaipreet VirdiAnne Howeson

In the 20th century doctors tried to find a way to measure pain. But even when ‘objective’ measures were rejected, an accurate understanding of another’s pain remained frustratingly elusive.

  • Article
  • Article

Acid and the sexual psychonauts

| Alex DymockBen MechenLeah Moyle

How LSD fuelled one woman’s journey of sexual self-discovery in the late 1950s.

  • Article
  • Article

Ginger’s role in cures and courtroom battles

| Alice White

Some people will use a dose of ginger to help with hangovers – but it hasn’t always been a friend to the thirsty.