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Psychology

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience
A close-up shot of one woman holding and comforting another grief-stricken woman
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essay

Ageing and death

Witness the pain

When loved ones are traumatically lost, bereaved families become accidental activists by turning grief into grievance

Chris Bobel

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video

Ageing and death

Demystifying death – a palliative care specialist’s practical guide to life’s end

4 minutes

Two dark haired twin girls in tartan dresses look through an unglazed window frame
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essay

Metaphysics

Both one and yet distinct

Being a twin (as our author knows) cracks open our ideas of the perfectly bounded self and might liberate us all

Helena de Bres

A crab is seen on a sandy beach. In the background and out of focus is a woman in a swimsuit
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essay

Philosophy of mind

What is it like to be a crab?

Consciousness science should move past a focus on complex mammalian brains to study the behaviour of ‘simpler’ animals

Kristin Andrews

A yellow orchid flower in a vase is lit by sunlight from a side window in a living room. The background is out of focus
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essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Psychosis and psychedelics

In the 1960s, psychedelic research was driven underground. Now it’s re-emerging – with lessons for the study of psychosis

Phoebe Friesen

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video

Stories and literature

A French Creole folktale nearly lost to time is given new, gorgeously animated life

6 minutes

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video

Computing and artificial intelligence

Struggling to learn how to do a backflip, Nikita takes on an unusual training regimen

12 minutes

A woman sits alone in a Parisian cafe with a glass of wine, while the neighbouring tables are full of socialising groups
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essay

Love and friendship

Loved, yet lonely

You might have the unconditional love of family and friends and yet feel deep loneliness. Can philosophy explain why?

Kaitlyn Creasy

A woman and two children dressed in traditional First Nations clothing stand in front of a teepee structure
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essay

Language and linguistics

Language is medicine

For First Nations people, health is not a matter of mechanical fitness of the body, but of language, identity and belonging

Erica X Eisen

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video

Personality

Why cleaning up crime scenes requires a rare mix of grit and empathy

9 minutes

A graffitti sign in an underpass reads ‘Life is too short to be wasted on the pursuit of happiness’; it is reflected in pooling water underneath
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essay

History of ideas

Whither philosophy?

The discipline today finds itself precariously balanced between incomprehensible specialisation and cheap self-help

Siobhan Lyons

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video

Mood and emotion

An Oceanic lullaby, ‘Gimme Shelter’ and more elucidate how music taps into our emotions

58 minutes

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essay

Film and visual culture

The truth of photographs

It’s often said that a successful picture ‘captures the essence’ of a subject. But a great photograph does so much more

Daniel Star

A shirtless man in jeans lies sleeping beside his 1970s era car on the sandy beach
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essay

Work

Disengage

Modern life subjects us to all-consuming demands. That’s why we should reflect on what it means to step away from it all

David J Siegel

Two sphinx-like statues foreground an intricate formal garden of geometric hedges and a square pond. In the background are cherry trees in bloom
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Nature and landscape

The mystic art of gardening

In an era of 20th-century suburban sprawl, the great designer Russell Page infused soulful philosophy into his gardens

Caleb Smith

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Cognition and intelligence

Are you an artistic genius?

Maybe not, but if that’s the threshold you use for creativity in your life, you are coming at the problem all wrong

James C Kaufman

A Panama hat rests on a bed bathed in afternoon light filtering through gauze curtains. There is a slight motion blur
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essay

Consciousness and altered states

Déjà vu

Have you been here before? The eerie sensation is the shadow of your mind searching inward for clues to its own survival

Anne Cleary

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video

Family life

Against her father’s warnings, Debra resolves to learn about his time in Auschwitz

4 minutes

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video

Mood and emotion

Moments of poetry pierce through the mundane at a small-town grocery

13 minutes

A woman helps another woman to her feet in a clearing among flowers.
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essay

Mental health

People not professionals

Training individuals to support one another through difficult times is a profound step forward in our mental health crisis

Arjun Kapoor & Jasmine Kalha

In the foreground a European mother cradles a newborn baby as an Indian woman looks on from the right
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essay

Bioethics

Reproductive technologies

Infertility treatments aim to improve women’s lives. But they risk tying womanhood to the toxic expectation of motherhood

Gulzaar Barn

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video

Personality

Why one man spent 15 years in ‘self-imposed’ island exile

7 minutes

A flock of birds fly over a wide expanse of marshland and a river at dusk.
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essay

Biography and memoir

Flat places

Whenever I stand in a flat landscape, I feel myself becoming weightless, taken out of my childhood full of painful nothing

Noreen Masud

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video

Nature and landscape

Take a serene hike through an ancient forest, inspired by a Miyazaki masterpiece

6 minutes