To some, the idea of leaving a religion can seem as innocuous as cancelling a gym membership. However, for many who have left a faith tradition, the reality is much more complicated. As a psychologist ...

How did humans create the earliest words? Iconic vocal sounds, which match form and meaning, likely played a key role Language gives us the power to describe, virtually without limit, the countless ...

Sartre’s phenomenology reveals the shift from subject to object (and back) is not just grammar. It is a matter of power ...

As a schoolboy in Soviet Russia in the 1960s, my hands were almost never clean. Don’t get me wrong – I washed them as much as anyone else. But the school rules made us practise our penmanship in ink, ...

Throughout our long history, people have always experienced panic, probably even panic attacks. Today, we have sophisticated medications – especially benzodiazepines – that people can use to help them ...

Behind the philosopher’s cryptic phrase is an invocation to sculpt your ideal self out of the hard stone of your psyche In 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche published The Gay Science, a work he referred to as ...

There are many kinds of pseudosciences: astrology, homeopathy, flat-Earthism, anti-vaxx. These ‘fields’ traffic in bizarre claims with scientific pretensions. On a surface level, these claims seem to ...

In the film Mary Poppins (1964), Uncle Albert extols the benefits of laughter in his song ‘I Love to Laugh’: ‘The more I laugh/the more I fill with glee/And the more the glee/The more I’m a merrier me ...

Stretch out your arms to their fullest extent getting the tips of your fingertips on your right hand as far from the fingertips on your left hand as you can. Depending on where you are reading this, ...

Suppose that you’re talking with a couple of friends about whether one survives biological death. Your view is that humans are purely physical creatures, which means that there is no non-physical soul ...

A rational person, according to traditional economic models, is someone who considers all relevant information when reasoning, reaching a decision or making a judgment. In this sense, rationality ...

Through my own struggles and in teaching bibliotherapy to students, I know that books can help to heal minds and hearts A few years ago, I had a breakdown from what would now be termed ‘burnout’. It ...