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Psychology

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

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Painting of a child in a red dress with arms raised standing beside an adult in a pink dress against a dark background.

video

Childhood and adolescence

Marmar is living through a devastating war – but she’d rather tell you about her new dress

8 minutes

Black and white photo of a teenage girl with dark hair smoking, eyes closed, with a blurred outdoor background.

video

Meaning and the good life

Wander through the English countryside with two teens trying to make sense of the world

10 minutes

Photo of a white temple with modern design features, a golden statue on top and a bright double rainbow in the cloudy sky.

essay

Human rights and justice

Utah is so gay!

The Mormon state is seen as deeply homophobic. Yet, from polygamy to pride, Mormons themselves are a distinctly queer lot

Kristi Rhead

Vintage advertising poster for ‘Cocaine Toothache Drops’ featuring two children playing happily, building a house from sticks, in front of a house with a wooden fence.

essay

Subcultures

An undulating thrill

Once lauded as a wonder of the age, cocaine soon became the object of profound anxieties. What happened?

Douglas Small

Close-up of a man smiling and interacting closely with a puppet of an old man wearing a black beret, both faces nearly touching.

video

Art

A puppeteer makes sense of an overwhelming world by shrinking it down to size

5 minutes

Photo of a person wearing large sunglasses with outdoor scenery reflected, resting their fingers on their chin in a thoughtful pose.

essay

Ethics

Main character syndrome

Why romanticising your own life is philosophically dubious, setting up toxic narratives and an inability to truly love

Anna Gotlib

A person at night placing an object in a large bin labelled ‘TRASH ONLY’ on an empty street lit by streetlights.

video

Personality

A ‘dumpster archeologist’ reconstructs strangers’ stories via what they’ve discarded

14 minutes

Photo of a doll with curly red hair, blue eyes, and a large maroon hat, wearing a double string of pearls and a red dress.

essay

Rituals and celebrations

Tender, yet creepy

Dolls help children create wonderfully vivid and imaginative worlds, while also serving as unsettling reminders of the abyss

Tishani Doshi

Illustration of four adult giraffes, and a young one lying down, with Mount Kilimanjaro and acacia trees in the background.

video

Ageing and death

We’re not the only animals that appear to grieve. What are the implications?

6 minutes

Painting of a rural street on a dark night featuring a two-storey white farmhouse, a red barn, powerlines, and a bright light in the centre.

essay

Sleep and dreams

Spinning the night self

After years of insomnia, I threw off the effort to sleep and embraced the peculiar openness I found in the darkest hours

Annabel Abbs

Photo of a man in a wheelchair on a grass field with another man’s hand resting on the wheelchair’s handle.

video

Love and friendship

For two brothers who rely on one another, love is a daily act of devotion

11 minutes

A busy beach scene with children on donkeys, people in the sea, a man reading on a sun lounger, and a dog urinating on a sun shade.

essay

Virtues and vices

Make it awkward!

Rather than being a cringey personal failing, awkwardness is a collective rupture – and a chance to rewrite the social script

Alexandra Plakias

Photo of two young Asian women wearing sunglasses sitting in the back of a pickup truck at an outdoor event with American flags and mountains.

video

Meaning and the good life

A Japanese religious community makes an unlikely home in the mountains of Colorado

9 minutes

A silhouetted figure walking with a dog through a dimly lit tunnel, contrasting with bright concrete walls in the foreground.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Targeted

For those who hear voices, the ‘broken brain’ explanation is harmful. Psychiatry must embrace new meaning-making frameworks

Justin Garson

Two older women wearing hats and sunglasses raise their arms in celebration at a street parade, with a purple background.

video

Sex and sexuality

From secret crushes to self-acceptance – a joyful chronicle of ‘old lesbian’ stories

29 minutes

Silhouette of a person walking through a spray of water at sunset with cars and buildings in the background.

essay

Neuroscience

The melting brain

It’s not just the planet and not just our health – the impact of a warming climate extends deep into our cortical fissures

Clayton Page Aldern

Children climbing on monkey bars, photographed from below, against a clear blue sky.

video

Education

Scenes from a school year paint a refreshingly nuanced portrait of rural America

25 minutes

Close-up of a hand gracefully resting on a naked woman’s torso, soft lighting accentuating the skin’s smooth texture against a dark background.

essay

Sex and sexuality

Sexual sensation

What makes touch on some parts of the body erotic but not others? Cutting-edge biologists are arriving at new answers

David J Linden

Close-up of a person with glasses playing the violin, illuminated by colourful lights in the background.

video

Pleasure and pain

The volunteer musicians who perform in the aftermath of violence and tragedy

12 minutes

Residential street with terraced houses and power plant cooling towers in the background, one of which has a mural depicting a sun and mountains.

video

Food and drink

Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border

14 minutes

Newborn baby being held by a person wearing blue gloves, with another masked individual looking at the baby in a medical setting.

essay

Human reproduction

Baby talk

When babies are born, they cry in the accent of their mother tongue: how does language begin in the womb?

Darshana Narayanan

A person with a prosthetic leg stands in a room filled with plastic-wrapped prosthetics and limbs, showcasing orthopaedic supplies.

video

Technology and the self

A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg

11 minutes

A black-and-white photo of soldiers in uniform checking documents of several men standing outdoors, with laundry hanging in the background.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Decolonising psychology

At times complicit in racism and oppression, psychology has also been a fertile ground for radical and liberatory thought

Rami Gabriel

Old photograph of a girl sleeping in a chair, a ghostly boy kneeling before her, and a ghostly girl standing by a wall with a religious tapestry.

video

Technology and the self

How the magic of photography brought Victorian England closer to the spirit realm

16 minutes