Politics
Stories on the intersection of mental health and politics.
Your therapist is a chameleon. How does that make you feel?
Therapy's great promise was constancy. Not any more.
Healing history
A new history of mental health care exhumes a long-forgotten chapter of colonial rule.
Trauma is a planetary emergency, not a personal problem
A community battered by trauma is like a cracked cup. Whatever resources you pour into will leak out.
People of no nation
Who are you when no nation claims you? Millions of stateless people navigate life unrecognised by any country. They are the literal citizens of nowhere.
No, therapy apps won't kill Freud
Freudian psychoanalysis and cognitive behavioural therapy have been at war over the soul of therapy. Can the rise of technology deliver a winner?
"It's all in your head": Long Covid raises nightmarish questions about medical gaslighting of women
Long Covid has sparked a culture war between survivors and medical experts over what constitutes 'trustworthy' scientific evidence. This is the story of how it could be disproportionately affecting women, seen through the eyes of a two-time Covid survivor.
Let's talk: Has the mental health pendulum really swung too far?
Are we creating a culture where celebrating healing and recovery is ridiculed and demonised?
Does diagnosis help or harm? Or, why we name our demons
Mental health diagnoses are often attacked for being unscientific, oppressive, and prone to abuse. But for many, they remain the only route to dignity and sanity.
The miracle that stops people from killing themselves
New research from Brazil shows the life-saving power of direct cash transfers.
Meet the humans of the Kindness Economy
Nightmares. Exhaustion. Relentless stress. And yet, they won't trade their work for anything in the world.
"Psychiatrists can’t wave away debt or reform the education system or create more jobs"
Psychiatry and policing are accused of several common crimes, including racism and violent abuse of power. What can the movements challenging them teach each other?
Can abolishing psychiatry and the police save America (and the world)?
In the first of this two-part special edition, we examine how racism, ill-gotten attitudes towards mental illness, and heavy-handed law enforcement continue to devastate Black Americans.