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Psychology

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience
A manly divorce | Aeon
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essay

Gender and identity

A manly divorce

Straight men rarely write about the end of their marriages. Our enduring ideas about gender explain this silence

Joshua Coleman

Medieval babycare | Aeon
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essay

History

Medieval babycare

From mansplaining about breastfeeding to debates on developmental toys, medieval parenting was full of familiar dilemmas

Katherine Harvey

Still the one | Aeon
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video

Gender and identity

‘I didn’t fall in love with a couple of body pieces’ – on marriage and transition

3 minutes

My Duduś | Aeon
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video

Animals and humans

What happened when one woman raised an abandoned squirrel as her own

8 minutes

The doll | Aeon
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video

Life stages

At 14, Asal is excited about her engagement. Her relatives all have their own opinions

33 minutes

Born that way | Aeon
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essay

Personality

Born that way

Confident or shy, our temperament is mostly baked-in from birth. But how that influences our lives is up for grabs

Gina Mireault

Family passages | Aeon
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essay

Life stages

Family passages

Each new generation learns from its elders. But familial voices now compete for influence with a chorus of urgent others

Elizabeth Svoboda

Deerwoods deathtrap | Aeon
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video

Family life

Fifty years ago, a train collided with Jack and Betty’s car. Here’s how they remember it

9 minutes

Violator | Aeon
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video

Virtues and vices

From violent criminal to loving parent – a son’s story of his father’s transformation

23 minutes

Cluster feeding | Aeon
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video

Life stages

An unvarnished, poetic account of a new mother’s struggle to breastfeed

3 minutes

The love and death of Yosef and Zilli | Aeon
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video

Ageing and death

When his elderly parents make a suicide pact, Doron struggles to accept their choice

19 minutes

Obon | Aeon
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video

Biography and memoir

What Akiko saw at the centre of the Hiroshima blast, and the indelible mark it left

15 minutes

Brother | Aeon
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video

Addiction

From back pain to addiction – one man’s struggle with opioids, as told to his sister

14 minutes

Leave them alone | Aeon
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essay

Stories and literature

Leave them alone

Parenting advice from D H Lawrence: don’t smother your children with love. They are more sagacious than you think

Lara Feigel

The utopian machine | Aeon
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Subcultures

The utopian machine

For children like me, growing up in an utopian community, life was a bewildering chaos of freedom and indoctrination

Susanna Crossman

The right person | Aeon
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essay

Love and friendship

The right person

Contemporary wisdom says that happiness is the measure of a marriage. But is that a harmful way of judging relationships?

Joshua Coleman

Eadem cutis: the same skin | Aeon
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video

Gender and identity

‘When you’re done, you stay human!’ What gender transition means to John

6 minutes

The last tape | Aeon
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video

War and peace

Before he leaves to go to war, Artem, 18, says goodbye to the man who raised him

12 minutes

Sister | Aeon
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video

Family life

A son of China’s former one-child policy remembers the sibling he never had

8 minutes

Adem’s island | Aeon
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video

Mood and emotion

Alone on a small island in Belgrade, a father grieves his daughter in quiet solitude

12 minutes

The parentified child | Aeon
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Childhood and adolescence

The parentified child

When parents cast a child into the role of mediator, friend and carer, the wounds are profound. But recovery is possible

Nivida Chandra

Souvenir souvenir | Aeon
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video

War and peace

When his grandfather won’t talk about the war, Bastien is left to his imagination

15 minutes

A family that steals dogs | Aeon
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video

Family life

An artist grapples with the loss of his brother, and the problem of canine abduction

7 minutes

Is grandad on the moon? | Aeon
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essay

Death

Is grandad on the moon?

We no longer have a clear sense of how to introduce our children to death. But their questions can help us face up to it

Pragya Agarwal