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...looks back

Inside the asylum
We gather links from the archives of The Psychologist and Research Digest, and elsewhere.
Shining a light on ‘what asylums were’
Jonathon Rutherford on the atrocity of mental health care in the early 19th century.
Celebrating the Mind Changers
We collect links to Claudia Hammond's radio series, and our related coverage.
Needle girls and motiveless malingerers
Sarah Chaney on gender, self-harm and attention-seeking behaviour.
A history of stigma
Kellye McBride on how Foucault’s ideas around confinement and civilisation can help to change views of mental illness.
Queer approaches to depathologisation
In this 'long read' chapter from her new book 'Queer Ink: A Blotted History Towards Liberation', Katherine Hubbard considers the contributions of Evelyn Hooker and June Hopkins.
‘When I was born, my father was already no longer there’
We extract from 'A Father: Puzzle', a memoir by Sibylle Lacan, the second daughter of noted French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.
‘We cannot afford to lose even one child’
Rabbi David Ariel Sher on the life of Professor Reuven Feuerstein.
From the bomb to Apollo 13: Bowlby and the Cold War
How did child psychologists contribute to the Cold War discourse of ‘National Security’? Carolyn Laubender discusses the relationship between attachment theory and political anxieties about the protections offered by the nation state.
The will of war
David Lewis-Hodgson on how both sides in World War I sought to explain and ‘treat’ its trauma.
An obsession, a hobby or an expiation?
Roberta Reb Allen with a family tale involving the infamous neurologist Walter Freeman.
Mass observation – ‘the science of ourselves’
Graham M. Davies and Alan Costall on a forgotten precursor of today’s applied psychology.

Ian Katz, then editor of the BBC’s Newsnight, was chastened by his failure to predict either the outcome of the 2017 British General Election or the emergence of Donald Trump as the...

‘A lady of unusual ability and force of character’
Elizabeth Valentine on Lucy G. Fildes.
Walking through snow to get to work
Joe MacDonagh on the Hawthorne Studies – the origins of modern organisational research.

According to Roethlisberger & Dickson (1939), ‘Management should commit itself to the continuous process of studying human situations – both individual and group – and should run its human...

In praise of dead behaviourists
Chris Timms considers American Psychologist Clark Hull, and his ‘fractional antedating goal response’.
The godfather of the sexual revolution?
David Bramwell on the strange world of Wilhelm Reich.
Supple bodies, healthy minds
Yoga meets psychedelics in the 1960s, with Lucas Richert and Matthew Decloedt.
In search of the brain of Descartes
What, if anything, has psychology learned from the study of famous brains? G. Neil Martin investigates…

Psychology has its own famous brains – Leborgne, Kim Peek, Henry Molaison, Phineas Gage, EVR, NA, Shereshevsky, HJA. Extensively studied before and after death, they have sometimes provided a...

The lasting legacy of Dr Anonymous
Cade Anderson-Smith looks back on the DSM, Homosexuality and the 1972 American Psychiatric Association Convention.
A colourful life, an inspiration, and living legend
Andrew Wickens (University of Central Lancashire) marks a centenary for Brenda Milner.

On 15 July Brenda Milner reaches a remarkable milestone in anyone’s life: her hundredth birthday. Even more extraordinary for a woman who is still teaching and undertaking research. She is the...

Freud and penis envy – a failure of courage?
Riya Yadav with a critical take on one of the psychoanalyst’s most controversial theories.
Bringing home World War Two’s ‘awkward lot’
Clare Makepeace on the use of Civil Resettlement Units and their possible lessons for today.
A brief history of dyslexia
Philip Kirby on the significance of evolving views of the condition, and efforts to preserve records of them.
Stark raving normal?
Chris Timms considers historical diagnosis and the case of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery.

Does a look back at the personal qualities and behaviour of one of Britain’s foremost military leaders tell us anything other than that he was human?

East meets West at the edge of the ocean
Lucas Richert on the Esalen Institute, pioneer of the human potential movement.

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