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Psychology

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience
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video

Nature and landscape

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

6 minutes

An older man stands proudly in front of his house near Leipzig, east Germany after reunification in 1990. A German flag hangs from a ground floor window.
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essay

Economic history

Deservingness

In post-communist eastern and central Europe, history is intensely personal and economics is saturated with moral feeling

Till Hilmar

Rubens painting Venus and Cupid reimagined with Venus on the left gazing in a mirror at her mastectomized breast. A cherub like Cupid to the right holds the mirror
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essay

Illness and disease

More than pink

The culture around breast cancer is full of positivity and femininity. But it comes at the expense of the marginalised

Philippa Hetherington

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video

Spirituality

Trek alongside spiritual pilgrims on a treacherous journey across Pakistan

6 minutes

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essay

Philosophy of language

Quantum poetics

How Borges and Heisenberg converged on the notion that language both enables and interferes with our grasp of reality

William Egginton

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video

Meaning and the good life

The world turns vivid, strange and philosophical for one plane crash survivor

16 minutes

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video

Art

Inside the unique creative space where ‘outsider’ artists find their form

14 minutes

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essay

Mood and emotion

When grief doesn’t end

Suffering the sudden death of a loved person leaves some survivors stuck in grief. Can they win their lives back – and how?

Martin W Angler

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video

Gender

When aggression is viewed as brilliance, it hurts women in science, and science itself

5 minutes

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video

Religion

From God’s shoes to satellites in heaven – children weigh in on religion

8 minutes

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essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Analysis for the people

Group therapy promised to be both democratic and radical, but it failed to take hold. Has its time finally come?

Jess Cotton

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video

Technology and the self

Why we should worry less about ‘sentient’ AIs and more about what we’re teaching them

16 minutes

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video

Sleep and dreams

How might the dreamworlds of other animals differ from our own?

8 minutes

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video

Home

Whether above a pub or in a castle, our childhood homes leave an indelible mark

15 minutes

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essay

Art

Negative capability

When it comes to our complicated, undecipherable feelings, art prompts a self-understanding far beyond the wellness industry

Aparna Chivukula

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video

Biography and memoir

The busboy who comforted Robert F Kennedy as he lay dying shares his story

3 minutes

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essay

Stories and literature

Solace and saudade

In the face of an inscrutable, indifferent universe, Pessoa suggests we cultivate a certain longing for the elusive horizon

Jonardon Ganeri & Sarah Seymour

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essay

Information and communication

To converse well

A good conversation bridges the distances between people and imbues life with pleasure and a sense of discovery

Paula Marantz Cohen

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video

Biography and memoir

A young autistic man’s heartfelt letter to the beloved mother he lost

12 minutes

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essay

Human evolution

How to grow a human

Our childhood is preposterously long compared to other animals. Is it the secret to our evolutionary success?

Brenna Hassett

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video

Family life

The extraordinary story of a Black Holocaust survivor, as told by his daughter

21 minutes

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essay

Personality

The myth of mirrored twins

What do the lives of twins tell us about heritability, selfhood and the age-old debate between nature and nurture?

Gavin Evans

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essay

Family life

Amazonian childcare

In the eyes of the Runa people, Western kids grow up indulged, over-mothered and incapable of facing outward to the world

Francesca Mezzenzana

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video

Death

Toby ponders the inner lives of the sheep that roam atop his parents’ graves

6 minutes