Psyche is a digital magazine from Aeon which examines the human condition, with articles that explore mental health, emotions, and new ideas.

Psyche

How the latest micro-trend of quarantine can help with anxiety.

The attachment theorist John Bowlby described mourning as a form of separation anxiety, akin to that felt by a child lost in a crowd. In this uplifting piece for Psyche magazine, writer Melanie McGrath reflects on Bowlby's words and explores how jigsaws can be a wonderful tool when it comes to easing your anxious feelings.

Emma Powell

On the consolatory pleasure of jigsaws when the world is in bits

An economist's view on how we can collectively solve the world’s most pressing issues. 

"Here is a thought-experiment: if you were given full range to create from scratch an ideal version of the average citizen for these turbulent times, which powers will you endow her with? Obviously, I don’t mean superhuman powers, but which moral, intellectual and temperamental make-up do you think she’ll need to thrive in our current environment? In other words, what kind of average Jane do we need so that we don’t collapse under the weight of our most pressing societal problems?" In this piece for Psyche magazine, Francisco Mejia Uribe shares a few ideas on how to identify the necessary basic qualities that an average society needs to collectively solve the world’s most pressing issues.

Sean Crisden

To be a responsible citizen today, it is not enough to be reasonable

Knowing the neurobiological reasons for resilience could open a myriad of opportunities.

Laura Moreno-López, a Wolfe Health Neuroscience Fellow and Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, recently led research on people's responses to traumatic events. The results were able to "complement earlier brain-based research suggesting that resilient people have greater neural connectivity between parts of their prefrontal cortex and emotional brain regions; that they display lower hippocampal activation in response to emotional facial expressions; and that their amygdalae habituate more efficiently to stress." In this piece for Psyche magazine, she explains the very positive implications of their discovery.

Sharon Bott

What the distinctive brains of resilient people can teach us

Conflict and disappointment — analysing dating tales from 300 years ago.

Julie Hardwick, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin, contemplates in Psyche magazine what 300-year-old experiences of heterosexual sex in stable, affectionate, consensual relationships can tell us about our own times.

Marni Penning

Working, flirting and sex: courtship in 18th-century France

What does it mean to be thankful?

Michal Zechariah, a doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago, reflects in Psyche magazine on how positive psychology and the personal benefits of gratitude have transformed its significance.

Betsy Foldes Meiman

True gratitude is a communal emotion, not a wellness practice

How 'utilitarianism' could be the ideal public morality for our troubled age.

It is defined as "the idea that we should evaluate the moral worth of an action by its consequences, and that the best actions are those that bring about the most good for the most people." In Psyche magazine, professor of philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, Nicholas Agar, penned this thoughtful essay on the subject and elaborates on his critique of the philosophical style that prioritises aggravation over moral substance.

Michael Bott

On the moral obligation to stop shit-stirring

Freedom lies in the courage to remain conscious.

In this intriguing piece for Psyche magazine, philosophy lecturer Tereza Matějčková reflects on how an 'as-if’ philosophy of imagination, fiction and reality helped the Czech-German philosopher Emil Utitz survive the Holocaust.

How Emil Utitz salvaged his humanity in a non-human world

When in despair, we can still find and create meaning by embracing ‘tragic optimism’.

Anna Gotlib, an associate professor of philosophy at Brooklyn College in New York, reflects for Psyche magazine on how trauma can be a catalyst for different stories about who we are, what we value, and how we might live in the ‘after'.

Trauma unmakes the world of the self. Can stories repair it?

Winning the argument is missing the point.

If we make our arguments all about winning, and not about learning or finding the truth, then we might be just wasting a significant proportion of our time given on this life. In Psyche magazine, Malcolm Keating explores the 'vāda' type of debate embraced by the Nyāya philosophy — a Hindu tradition dating back to 9th to 10th century CE — which promotes truth-seeking as a way to "rid ourselves of ethical vices."

In Nyāya philosophy only some debates are worth having

Why aren’t we talking to ourselves all the time?

"Not only does speech retrieve pre-existing ideas, it also creates new information in the retrieval process, just as in the process of writing. Speaking out loud is inventive and creative — each uttered word and sentence doesn’t just bring forth an existing thought, but also triggers new mental and linguistic connections. In both cases — speech and writing – the materiality of language undergoes a transformation (to audible sounds or written signs) which in turn produces a mental shift." Nana Ariel explores in Psyche magazine.

Kathleen Gati

Talking out loud to yourself is a technology for thinking

Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

Through deceitful manipulation and callous use of others, these individuals are cutting off the very (social) branch they’re sitting on. Distinguished research professor Craig Neumann and humanistic psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman study the science behind this idea for Psyche magazine.

Michael Satow

Turn away from the dark side: nice guys don’t finish last  

Research on embryos is fast-evolving, as science pushes forward and questions of morality continue to arise.

David Cox, an experienced science journalist and commenter, chimes in the controversial debate surrounding the cultivation of embryos in research labs. The '14-day' rule — a legal and ethical guideline that prohibited scientists from sustaining human embryos in the lab beyond 14 days — has been in place since 1979, but it's starting to feel outdated. In Psyche magazine, Cox explores why.

When does a human embryo have the moral status of a person?

The personal qualities associated with creativity can support a terrorist as much as an entrepreneur.

For Professor David Cropley, "whatever we think of 9/11, it is impossible to deny its novelty. It took the US by surprise." In this essay for Psyche magazine, he uses this example to contemplate the ideas of 'negative' and 'malevolent' creativity, which if studied properly, can potentially give us better tools to prevent crime itself.

Jonathan Booth

Recognise the creativity behind crime, then you can thwart it

Digital sexual education from a young age could be a way to reduce abusive behaviours online.

If we teach teenagers about safe sex, shouldn’t we also teach them how to safely express their intimacy through phone messages? Senior researcher in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, Joris Van Ouytsel, explores in Psyche magazine.

Gary Furlong

Teenagers are going to sext, let’s teach them to do it safely

The inflammation is natural to the conditions we’ve been living within recent years — but there are solutions.

In this piece for Psyche magazine, Stacey Colino and Lise Van Susteren provide some calming advice for living in a world that often leaves us emotionally exhausted.

"The good news is, with conscious effort, emotional inflammation can be managed and alleviated, from the inside out and the outside in. As a starting point, it’s essential to prioritise taking care of your body’s needs — by getting enough good-quality sleep, steadying your body’s circadian rhythms (by dimming artificial lights and setting curfews on digital devices), taking care of your gut microbiome (with foods containing probiotics and prebiotics), exercising regularly, and taking time to regularly decompress from stress (with meditation or even deep breathing exercises)."

To heal emotional inflammation, make distress your change agent

In these calls, there is zero room for pretence — this can apply to normal conversations too.

Reflecting on her own experiences, Natalia Dashan describes in Psyche magazine what working for a suicide helpline is really like. While she certainly expected these calls to have an impact on her, she didn't imagine it would make it so clear that, sometimes, focusing on the moment is all it matters.

Working on a suicide helpline changed how I talk to everyone

It can be liberating, self-smashing work, and a unique opportunity to cultivate the present.

What is childcare but the subjugation of physical desires and the dismantling of the past and future? The director of the Center for the Science of Moral Understanding, Kurt Gray, reflects on his own parenting experiences in this piece for Psyche magazine.

In the chaos of raising a toddler there lies a path to nirvana

Can intellectual query be purely emotion-free, bereft of personal interest and psychological history?

"To ask is to reveal our anxiety about the form and content of the answer." In this piece, Samir Chopra, professor of philosophy at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, looks at how humans are philosophising animals precisely because they are anxious.

Anxiety animates philosophical enquiry and makes us human

How an ayahuasca-induced ego meltdown highlighted the artificiality of the everyday self.

Ayahuasca is a South American brew, popularly known for its psychoactive effects on the person who drinks it. In this piece, Jules Evans reflects for Psyche magazine on his own experiences while on an Ayahuasca retreat in the Amazon, and what it taught him about different levels of consciousness.

Simon Mattacks

A spiritual emergency can be wild. This is how to ride the wave

From innocence to incrimination — what are the moral duties of someone who witnesses a crime?

Dennis Klein, a professor of history and director of Jewish studies in the Department of History at Kean University in New Jersey, analyses this debate in Psyche magazine, studying the example of Nazi Germany, and how it turned public opinion against bystanders.

Karl Miller

The rise of the bystander as a complicit historical actor

Elections are just one of many situations in life that lead us to consider compromising our core ideals.

Associate professor of philosophy at University College London, Robert Simpson, advises in Psyche magazine on when it’s best to be ideologically uncompromising and when it could be better to go against your beliefs.

When is it ethical to vote for ‘the lesser of two evils’?

Amnesia survivors are most themselves in contexts that reinforce their embodied tendencies.

In Psyche magazine, Ben Platts-Mills explains that personhood is a phenomenon of the whole body and not just the brain. Drawing on his experience with amnesia survivors, he also explores what is left behind when conscious, narrative memory fades away.

Memory involves the whole body. It’s how the self defies amnesia

Disagreements aren’t mistaken — they’re inevitable, and that is an excellent thing.

"When we talk about the qualities of items such as paintings, food, video games, films, songs and dance routines — the lines, colours, shapes, scenes, smells, bodily movements and so on that we think matter when judging or evaluating artefacts — we are dealing with what philosophers call ‘aesthetic properties’ or the sorts of features that realise ‘aesthetic value’." Elizabeth Cantalamessa explores these concepts in Psyche magazine.

Debating whether Bon Jovi is cheesy develops conceptual freedom

Analysing why basic human morality is not designed to think 'logically'.

If you were in a burning building and forced to choose between saving a child or a painting by Picasso worth millions of dollars, which would you choose? The answer is not as straightforward as you might think. Alan Jern analyses the effective altruism movement, and the dilemmas it poses.

Effective altruism is logical, but too unnatural to catch on

It's cost-effective and produces successful results, so why don't we use telephone therapy more? 

"For adults with depression, CBT delivered over the phone is as effective at reducing symptoms as CBT delivered face to face." In Psyche Magazine, a team of mental health experts reflect on why we should be embracing over-the-phone psychotherapy.

Telephone therapy is convenient and it works. Let’s use it more

The economist and philosopher argued that this often leads us to identify with those that oppress us.

"In his Theory of Moral Sentiments (published in 1759), Adam Smith developed a theory of psychology based on ‘sympathy’ and outlined a way of living based on ‘reason and philosophy’. These ideas not only banish the (already disappearing) stereotype of Smith as a pioneer of free-market policies, but challenge some of our most cherished ideas about the sources of happiness." Blake Smith ponders in Psyche Magazine.

Chris Brinkley

Adam Smith warned us about sympathising with the elites

"Mental health treatment needs to re-engage with the language of persons."

People who experience extreme distress are often told that a chemical imbalance in their brain may have caused the problem. Professor of sociology Joseph Davis examines the effect this sort of diagnosis has on patients and argues in Psyche magazine that it is time to stop looking at mental health issues purely through a neurochemical lens.

Let’s avoid talk of ‘chemical imbalance’: it’s people in distress

Physical walls cannot confine us.

"Imagination enables us to leave the here and now, to explore the past, as well as alternative presents and the future, before coming back. Imagination is a loop by which we temporarily disengage from ongoing life." Tania Zittoun, from Psyche magazine, reflects on the vitality of imagination for the development of humanity.

Nurture your imagination and you will be forever free

Exploring the importance of accessing our novice state.

Instead of simply projecting our past selves back to our students, we should take on board the fact that our training has deeply changed us, argue researchers Alexander Jeuk and Valentina Petrolini. In this piece for Psyche magazine, they expand on the important reasons why.

You can’t unlearn, and that’s a perplexing obstacle to good teaching

What does it mean to be free in 2020?

Jean-Paul Sartre once said that never was France as free as it was under German occupation. A complex opinion in itself, for the philosopher Julian Baggini it might actually be a powerful reflection on the definition of freedom, providing lessons on how to contextualise it in times as complicated as the ones of today. He explains in Psyche magazine.

In the pandemic, we relearn what Sartre meant by being free

Depression and anxiety have low heritability and can onset at any age.

"A genetic mutation that increased an individual’s tendency to experience bliss, and not to worry about enemies, wouldn’t have lasted for long in the gene pool," explain Kristen Syme and Edward H. Hagen in Psyche magazine, who believe this "unceasing process has many ramifications for mental health research."

Most anguish isn’t an illness but an evolved response to adversity

How our modern aspirations for freedom require a multitude of choices.

In the wake of the 1789 revolution, French society became a living exercise in political science where questions of freedom preoccupied national debates. Professor Larry S. McGrath turns to the country's history and studies the lessons it can teach to today's society.

Freedom needs friction: lessons in choice from French history

The importance of establishing a core of inner safety that can be returned to again and again.

Tibetan culture, through its resilience, kindness, intelligence and joy, has inspired millions of people in the West to take up meditation. But are the practices that many of us turn to the same in substance as the rituals that other communities have relied upon for centuries? Paul Condon and John Makransky explore in Psyche magazine.

Ken Foster

Modern mindfulness meditation has lost its beating communal heart

How our understanding of love derives from the metaphor of the patriarchal marriage of the past.

If equality and fairness in marriage require individuality and deliberation rather than the all-in unity of love, for Patricia Marino it’s worth asking why metaphors such as unity are still prominent. Here, she contemplates for Psyche magazine.

The problem with love is deciding who’s doing the dishes

The case against moral reasoning has begun to unravel.

To ask whether people reason about moral issues, we need to answer two kinds of questions. Firstly, what kinds of moral principles and beliefs do people hold at the outset? And secondly, do people form moral judgments based on those prior principles and beliefs — that is, do humans form moral judgments that align with their moral principles and beliefs? Psychology professor, Audun Dahl, analyses in Psyche magazine.

Young children use reason, not gut feelings, to decide moral issues

"We might not agree about who we are and what we want to be, but we can agree on what we don't know."

The German psychiatrist developed a unique existential philosophy, one that connected "abstract questions to the most concrete experiences of human life." Despite somewhat falling into oblivion, and being remembered today more for his opinions on others than his own work, Carmen Lea Dege argues in Psyche magazine that Jaspers' writings "generate a humble, but highly resistant and communicative approach to the world."

To Karl Jaspers, uncertainty is not to be overcome but understood

Common topics for leadership coaches are the bread and butter of many a therapy session.

Life coaches — and their close cousins, executive coaches — promise to improve people’s lives and careers, but they’re keen to emphasise that ‘coaching is not therapy’. As a psychiatrist, Elias Aboujaoude wondered how they managed to draw such confident boundaries. In this piece for Psyche magazine, the University of Standford researcher contemplates.

Malk Williams

Life coaching is unregulated and growing rapidly. Should it be reined in?

A significant minority discover surprises that will upend their understandings of their families and themselves.

"Perhaps they have half-siblings they didn't previously know about. Perhaps they were adopted or donor-conceived and never told. Perhaps a significant portion of their genetic ancestry was concealed because of historical pressures of assimilation, racism and discrimination." In Psyche magazine, Libby Copeland explores the complexities of taking a DNA test.

Sarah Naughton

DNA testing is easy. It can also turn your family upside down

The claim dehumanisation lies at the heart of intergroup harm is now being challenged.

"Psychological research showing evidence of dehumanisation also faces conceptual challenges. Current models suggest that when people subtly dehumanise outgroups, they deny them uniquely human qualities such as civility, refinement and rationality. This might well be true, but what of more antisocial human qualities? Humans can be civilised, refined and rational but they can also be petty, spiteful and arrogant." Harriet Over, senior lecturer in Psychology at York University, contemplates in Psyche magazine.

Recognising our common humanity might not be enough to prevent hatred

What does it mean to live in the plague — every day, across generations and without an exit strategy?

Lyndsey Stonebridge, professor of humanities and human rights at the University of Birmingham, believes the essential ‘plague novel’ is not The Plague by Albert Camus but Ingeborg Bachmann’s Malina. In Psyche magazine, she explores why.

The plague novel you need to read is by Bachmann, not Camus

Improvisation is pervasive in our lives — it also helps us become fully human.

When music originates in the body, it supports a deeper investigation into the cognitive functions of it. Melissa Forbes, a senior lecturer in contemporary music at the University of Southern Queensland, takes a closer look into the "complex cognitive and psychological processes" behind jazz singers' ability to improvise.

Ashley Klanac

The jazz singer’s mind shows us how to improvise through life itself

Understanding the long history of emphasising irrationality in mental health research.

To comprehend whether delusions are rational, we first need to understand why people form beliefs in the first place. Anna Greenburgh, a PhD student at University College London, contemplates this dilemma for Psyche magazine.

Beliefs have a social purpose. Does this explain delusions?

"You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough."

The way in which the world idolizes efficiency has been proved faulty and dangerous by the coronavirus pandemic. Should our next steps be toward slowing down? Barry Schwartz reflects in Psyche magazine.

Why efficiency is dangerous and slowing down makes life better

Researchers on human nature have adopted the claim of an evolved predisposition for aggression.

"Through theories about human nature, readers made sense of race riots and assassinations, the Vietnam War and the threat of nuclear annihilation." Nadine Weidman, a lecturer on the history of science at Harvard University, explores in Psyche magazine what makes claims about human nature become truisms.

Why are we gripped by the idea of a human killer-instinct?

The elaborate pantomime of pro wrestling sheds light on the psychology of truth-seeking.

"We all know that pro wrestling is not a sport in the sense that boxing is. Pro wrestling presents as a genuine struggle between wrestlers for victory, but it does so with a complicit nod to the audience: we realise that what we're seeing is people playing characters and working together put on a show. As Barthes puts it, this show is often a spectacle about suffering, defeat and justice — or, more brightly, it tells stories of virtue and vice, heroism and villainy." Philosopher Douglas Edwards contemplates in Psyche magazine.

What pro wrestling can teach us about the quest for truth

"To understand Gentileschi's art as biographical expression is also to risk violating her again."

Artemisia Gentileschi is considered "one of the most famous artists of the Baroque period." And yet, as Eliza Apperly points out in Psyche magazine, her talent is often shadowed by the experiences she suffered in life. Here, she offers a case as to why this form of objectification needs to be re-considered to appreciate the artist's work fully.

Gentileschi. Let us not allow sexual violence to define the artist

This type of literary heroine acts as a blast of fresh air.

What happens when women are supposed to be civil, and a woman behaves uncivilly? Author and academic Ellana Savagels explores for Psyche magazine why a female lead character that defies all expectations offers a much-needed change of pace in a still surprisingly conservative literary spectrum.

Selfish, grumpy, unkind? That’s my sort of woman

Feeling good about ourselves can translate into acts of kindness towards others.

In Psyche magazine, University of Cambridge research associate Claudia R. Schneider, examines the fascinating effect a positive understanding of our shortcomings in life can have in motivating us to take action, and strive for change.

You want people to do the right thing? Save them the guilt trip

Shakespeare made uncertainty a leitmotiv of all his works and harnessed its creative power.

"Shakespeare’s vision from uncertainty brings together the imagination of a poet, the judgment of a philosopher, and the creativity of a scientist. Being capable to stare into the abyss without being swiped away emotionally is a great attitude for whoever wishes to further our understanding of the world and the way we live in it." King's College London professor, Lorenzo Zucca, analyses in Psyche magazine.

Much ado about uncertainty: how Shakespeare navigates doubt

One in three people is an introvert. When will society notice?

"While I have introverted friends, they seem to be vastly outnumbered by my extraverted friends and acquaintances. I have to remind myself that this apparent absence from my daily landscape is not surprising: we introverts are much harder to notice. Introverts probably won't be the ones sharing a joke with the entire office, waiting by the coffee machine for a chance to chat, or appearing on television screens as rising reality-show stars." Neuropsychologist Noa Herz contemplates on her life struggles as an introvert in a society full of extroverts.

Introverts are excluded unfairly in an extraverts’ world

Why narratives about the self often deny the implications of social structures.

"For instance, social psychology reveals that individualism can vary with ethnicity. Asian-Americans might be less comfortable with blatantly individual behaviour than Americans of European origin. Yet reluctance to engage as fully in individual behaviour might reveal more knowledge of the community and society at large." Philosopher Craig Schamel contemplates in Psyche magazine.

The self of self-help books is a figment of the imagination

By definition, they are not at odds with rationality but can be an important source of moral reflection.

"Mainstream approaches to risk typically involve only consequentialist methods, such as cost-benefit analysis. They tend to overlook many other ethical considerations, such as distributive and procedural justice, fairness and autonomy. Emotions can play a vital role in highlighting these additional ethical dimensions." Professor Sabine Roeser argues in Psyche magazine for a better understanding of emotions in the political landscape.

Emotions should be in the heart of complex political debates

Wonder epitomises what education is about: opening up the world.

"These characteristics of the experience of wonder help us understand why wonder is so important to education. It makes us vividly aware of what we don't know, don't understand, and perhaps can never understand. It sustains or revives our interest in the 'familiar' world." Philosophy professor, Anders Schinkel, contemplates in Psyche magazine.

Why good teachers allow a child’s mind to wander and wonder

The feeling of loss can then, in turn, create the opportunity to engage in a new project of investment.

Alexander Hirsch, associate professor of political science and director of the Climate Scholar Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, explores in Psyche magazine how we can channel our mourning for someone or something as both a positive and negative step towards personal liberation.

Mourning is a leap to freedom, inviting new dreams of living

Understanding what autistic people's herculean effort to 'compensate' means, and its perils.

Professor of cognitive neuroscience at King's College London, Francesca Happéis, studies for Psyche magazine the dangers behind the need for some autist people to 'compensate' for their behaviours.

Autistic people shouldn’t have to use ‘camouflage’ to fit in

Are we in the midst of a second Humean revolution?

Emotions have more often than not been discarded by science as too 'too subjective, too imprecisely defined'. But, has the time come for it to embrace them as resourceful methods of learning? Drawing on the Scottish philosopher David Hume's philosophy of emotions, author Richard C. Sha delves deeper into the subject for Psyche magazine.

Neuroscience has much to learn from Hume’s philosophy of emotions

What caused our species to break out of the pattern set by archaic humans?

"There were probably many factors. But from my perspective as someone who studies the human mind, one development stands out as of special importance. There is a mental ability we possess today that must have emerged at some point in our history, and whose emergence would have vastly enhanced our ancestors’ creative powers." Philosopher Keith Frankish contemplates for Psyche magazine.

Our greatest invention was the invention of invention itself

Juxtaposing the uncanny with the familiar helps us challenge our understanding of the world.

"Clues to the appeal of this kind of art come from recent work by psychologists, who are beginning to understand the strange effects it can have on the brain. According to research on the 'meaning maintenance model' of human reasoning, surreal and absurd art can be so unsettling that the brain reacts as if it is feeling physical pain, yet it ultimately leads us to reaffirm who we are, and sharpens the mind as we look for new ways to make sense of the world." Science writer David Robson contemplates in Psyche magazine.

Nick Camm

A touch of absurdity can help to wrap your mind around reality

"In sashiko, the goal is not to hide the repair but to celebrate it."

"Maybe midlife has made me cynical, or softened my expectations, but I suspect that Pinker is right, and I don’t think that this is any reason to despair. It might be enough to hope that what emerges from the pandemic is a sashiko world: patched but stronger, a world where the frays and tears are visible and, far from compromising the fabric, add beauty, integrity and strength."

Could the art of ‘sashiko’ help mend our post-pandemic world?

Empathy is not the only way we might respond to others' pain.

There is an important social value in relating to other people's suffering. But such a function doesn't always come in the shape of equal pain or emotional empathy — some might feel joy too, and as Lucy Foulkes explains in Psyche magazine, they're not as rare as you might think.

Ever taken pleasure in another’s pain? That’s ‘everyday sadism’

How you're feeling today could have far-reaching ramifications in your inner circle.

Mood can ripple through close groups, having essential implications on who we keep as friends with and how leaders organise teams. Jack Andrews, a PhD student in neuroscience and mental health at University College London, examines in Psyche magazine the phenomenon of emotional contagion.