Mental Illness
The Parable of the Stupid Samaritan
I tried to help Andrea, a disorientated stranger at a hectic London station, to the irritation of the state’s representatives
My Memory is Failing — Will I Get Alzheimer’s?
In diagnosing dementias, the brain scan is less important than personality traits. But my patients never believe this
You’re So Thin — So How Can You Feel Fat?
Science has struggled to explain anorexia nervosa in its entirety. A new model is targeting the insula, a central hub of brain networks
Underrated: Alexandra Shulman
The editor of British Vogue has bravely — and rightly — shamed designers who insist their clothes be modelled by impossibly thin young girls
An End to the Myth of the Tortured Soul
What was Van Gogh really like? A new exhibition brings us closer to the truth
Creeping Insanity
Cockroach by Rawi Hage
Doctor in the House
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
Oliver James
The author of Affluenza and the darling of the TV psychiatrist’s couch is underchallenged
Sick Note
Dignitas’ new scheme is based on the misconception that mental illness is a terminal illness
A Strange Rush for the Exit
In a world where life appears to be getting better, why are we in the grip of a suicide epidemic?
Tolerating the intolerant
“For those who thought that a global pandemic would sound the death knell for identity politics, think again”
How to prevent the next pandemic
‘I have been reporting as a science journalist for years that the world is at increasing risk of pandemics like this; that this was predicted; that we know what we need to do to prepare and we simply haven’t done it; and that more and worse pandemics are coming so we need to do that, now’
D’où parles-tu? The post-truth world
Power, illusion and the open society: how postmodernism undermines our foundational concepts