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Psychology

Essays and videos offering insights into the self, relationships, cognition and neuroscience
A Pacific National train engine in yellow and blue with “Make time to ask R U OK?” message on its side.

essay

Mental health

Constant confession

Mental health campaigns place huge trust in people’s ability to act as therapists. But when should professionals step in?

Aaron Neiman

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

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

Painting of a person in a striped dress, resting their head on their hand, sitting next to a table with bottles, and a green background.

essay

Pleasure and pain

Me versus myself

I work against myself through procrastination, distraction and addiction. Why do I consistently sabotage my own life?

Eliane Glaser

Illustration of a child sitting with their head down and knees up, next to a toy box with a teddy bear sticking out. An adult’s legs, dressed in a red skirt and brown shoes, are visible seated nearby on the right.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

The therapist who hated me

Going to a child psychoanalyst four times a week for three years was bad enough. Reading what she wrote about me was worse

Michael Bacon

A blurred view through a car window at night with distorted bright lights

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Trauma on a loop

I was the victim of a carjacking. The trauma from that experience was unendurable. Then I discovered eye movement therapy

Madison McLoughlin

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

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

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

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

Charcoal drawing of an older person’s face, showing wrinkles and a serious expression, on a light-coloured paper background.

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

A group of people sit in a circle on the floor of a room with a stone wall, engaging in discussion; shoes are placed near the entrance.

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

An illustration of people outside a building in winter, with snow-covered trees. Some are gathered around a vending machine, others sitting and looking at a diagram.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Tōjisha-kenkyū

This radical movement makes space for people with mental health and other challenges to study (and celebrate) themselves

Satsuki Ayaya & Junko Kitanaka

Silhouette of a child holding an object, surrounded by adults walking in a dimly lit environment.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

The space between us

In order to understand and heal mental distress, we must see our minds as existing in relationships, not inside our heads

James Barnes

Two people sitting in chairs having a conversation, with a speech bubble between them. One is holding a piece of paper.

video

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Pondering the peculiar one-sided intimacy of the client-therapist relationship

3 minutes

View through a round window on an orange door, showing two people walking down a brightly lit corridor with orange floors and white walls.

essay

Mental health

The helpful delusion

Evidence is growing that mental illness is more than dysfunction, with enormous implications for treatment

Justin Garson

Abstract painting of a man with a pipe and a woman seated. The background includes a pink wall, yellow couch, and a small table with a potted plant.

essay

Self-improvement

The art of listening

To listen well is not only a kindness to others but also, as the psychologist Carl Rogers made clear, a gift to ourselves

M M Owen

Person in a blue tracksuit wrestles a large blue dummy in a padded room with turquoise curtains and diamond-patterned walls.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Bad therapy

Some psychotherapeutic approaches are not only ineffective, they’re actively harmful. We’re now starting to identify them

Yevgeny Botanov, Alexander Williams & John Sakaluk

Silhouettes of people walking and standing by a railing against a blue evening sky, reflected in a wet surface below.

essay

Mood and emotion

When hope gets in the way

Hope is usually seen as a positive agent of change that spares us from pain. But it can also undermine healing and growth

Santiago Delboy

A large community of all ages, some in eccentric clothing, pose around a rustic building numbered 212 under a sign, ‘CHAS. McMILLAN’.

essay

Subcultures

The dropout: a history

The dropout was not just a hippy-trippy hedonist but a paranoid soul, who feared brainwashing and societal control

Charlie Williams

Close-up of a man’s face with a beard, closed eyes, and facial tattoos including teardrops and other designs.

essay

Mood and emotion

The meaning of anger

Is anger like energy, forever changing form but never dissipating, or part of our repertoire of desires, the cry of a need unmet?

Josh Cohen

A person with prosthetic legs and a striped shirt standing by a glass door with a small dog inside a wood-panelled room.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

The humane asylum

As a society we are failing people with severe, persistent mental illness. It’s time to reimagine institutional care

Madeleine Ritts & Daniel Rosenbaum

Three orange chairs with metal legs are aligned against a textured concrete wall on a wooden floor.

essay

Psychiatry and psychotherapy

Chairwork

It is a powerful, liberating therapy that lets you (literally) shift perspective on who you are, and who you could become

Scott Kellogg & Amanda Garcia Torres

Black-and-white photo of a man holding up a model ship against a textured wall, with a blurred landscape in the background.

essay

Human rights and justice

Asylum

Patients and psychiatrists at Saint-Alban in France fought against fascism side by side. What can we learn from them?

Ben Platts-Mills

Two acrobats perform; one supports the other, who is upside down, creating a dynamic and graceful shape against a dark background.

essay

Philosophy of mind

The mind does not exist

The terms ‘mind’ and ‘mental’ are messy, harmful and distracting. We should get rid of them

Joe Gough

Two people sitting on a couch, their legs crossed and bare feet touching tenderly. One has nail varnish on.

essay

Neurodiversity

After neurodiversity

We live in a world that must move beyond identity politics and embrace new models of the mind. Enter psydiversity

Bonnie Evans