Shows / Psyche Magazine
Psyche Magazine
Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself and others through expert guides, provocative ideas and personal life stories. We address psychological questions and puzzles from a range of perspectives including philosophy, history, anthropology and more. You will discover practical knowledge and insights to help you navigate everyday challenges, overcome difficulties and find meaning, wonder and spirituality. Psyche is a nonprofit digital magazine. With a dedication to pluralism and…
Episodes
Psyche MagazineFor some exercisers, a healthy habit spins out of control
When is a typically celebrated practice – working out – more like an addiction? Researchers have found some patterns. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineLetting friendships die
I knew I was committing a small social crime. But we hadn’t truly been friends for a long time. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself and others…
Psyche MagazineHow to come back to your senses
Screen-based life is deadening. Try some simple adventures and exercises to reconnect with the world’s sensory richness. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineThe unravelling
I’d lived through two eras: pre and post OCD diagnosis. Nothing prepared me for what the third era held. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself…
Psyche MagazineHow to be the archivist of your own family
By curating your family’s stories, rituals and relics, you’ll feel anchored – and create a bridge between the generations. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineTalk to strangers
A new book examines the benefits of chatting with people we don’t know – from mood boosts to a greater sense of belonging. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineMusic speaks louder than words through what it leaves unsaid
The ineffable in music resides in the gap between saying and not saying. Music neither states nor conceals. It hints. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineHow to navigate your menopause
From coping with hot flushes to understanding brain fog, there’s plenty you can do to help yourself through menopause. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineTrue resilience is not about bouncing back
I hate talk of resilience: it places an expectation on people to return to how they were. That’s not how real recovery works. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineThe ghost in the image was me
For years I watched people through cameras and screens, filling in the blanks and calling it truth. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself and…
Psyche MagazineReality shifting opens portals to the weirdness of our world
It’s easy to denounce ‘reality shifting’ as a shared delusion. But there is value in making the world feel unfamiliar. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineA psalm for lost spaces
You have to sit down somewhere, unhurried and unbothered, to really hear yourself. But where?. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself and others…
Psyche MagazineGood apologies don’t close the book: they open a new chapter
Beyond setting the record straight, a successful political apology must be part of a larger, ongoing commitment. Psyche audio helps you to better understand…
Psyche MagazineNot fight, flight or freeze, but fawn
There’s a way of responding to threats that involves appeasement. Recognising this has helped me stop people-pleasing. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineAfter the cod
I was a child when Newfoundland’s fishing collapsed. Will I see the same happen to human connection?. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself and…
Psyche MagazineHow to bring up pet peeves in your relationship
Inevitably, your partner will get on your nerves. A couples therapist explains how to talk about it well – and be heard. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineThe uncanny feeling that a dead person is still close by
The sense that a dead person is still with us is both eerie and common: can we find a naturalistic explanation for it?. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineHow to stop your life playing on repeat
Those frustrating patterns you keep experiencing might be because of your schemas – and there’s a therapy that can help. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineThe kids forgotten by calls to ban phones
Campaigns calling for smartphone-free childhoods might be well meaning, but the choice is not so simple for all families. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineHave online worlds become the last free places for children?
Children have lost the freedom to explore and play independently. They now seek out autonomy in digital landscapes. Psyche audio helps you to better understand…
Psyche MagazineHow to practise a musical instrument
Everything that involves skill requires practice. Use the AIR method – awareness, isolation, repetition – to improve. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineA prescription for randomness
Rediscovering an André Breton essay about the value of embracing randomness, I realised this has been my life philosophy. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineRomila Thapar: doyenne and dissenter
The great historian came of age at the end of British rule in India. Now 94, she continues to defy a regime determined to forget the pluralism and dissent of…
Psyche MagazineWhy it’s so hard to agree on what counts as true
New research has mapped people’s contrasting conceptions of the truth. No wonder so many arguments feel irresolvable. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineThe empathy lie
In medicine, empathy came easy. In friendship, it fell apart. An autism diagnosis helped me understand why. Psyche audio helps you to better understand…
Psyche MagazineWhat rituals from the past teach us about panic and anxiety
In the sensory and communal modes of healing that people have used throughout history, there is guidance for today. Psyche audio helps you to better understand…
Psyche MagazineWhen we experience FOMO, what are we really afraid of?
The fear of missing out can fill us with unease over a perceived lack, but it might also serve a valuable social purpose. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineReclaiming the skull
When my daughter went on her first hunt, I saw how passing down tradition can transform its meaning. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself and…
Psyche MagazineHow to thrive as an adoptee
Being adopted often comes with a complex mix of feelings. Therapists who are adoptees themselves have advice to share. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineTurn off your sleep tracker
Sleep trackers have become part of the sleepmaxxing craze, but as a researcher I’ve seen they can do more harm than good. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineWe’ll soon find out what is truly special about human writing
AI can take over many writing tasks. But there is something irreplaceable about a text with an author standing behind it. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineFight like a mother
Doctors said my son would die. I wouldn’t believe them, raised millions of dollars and travelled the world for a cure. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineVintage clothes: a balm for my perfectionism
Loose threads, tugged seams and torn hems. How wearing vintage clothes helps me accept the discomfort of imperfection. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineWhat the therapy buzzword ‘cycle-breaking’ really involves
As a therapist, I’ve seen many patients finally break the cycle of abuse. It took more than not being abusive themselves. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineMostarska Škola
We fled war-torn Bosnia when I was three. Twenty-four years on, could I make my home there again?. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself and…
Psyche MagazineTry seeing your personality as dimensional
I recently learned the distinction between seeing personality in terms of types vs traits – the latter is liberating. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineThe cure for body dissatisfaction that doesn’t involve the body
Trying to fix your self-image can trap you in the problem. The awe of nature truly heals by taking you outside of yourself. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineHow to nurture confidence in a child with dyslexia
To prevent dyslexia taking a toll on a child’s self-belief, follow these tips from a psychologist who’s been there herself. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineThe Ozempic era should change how we think about self-control
Struggling to manage weight can seem like a failure of raw willpower. GLP-1 drugs highlight how misguided that view is. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineHow to deal with doubts about your therapist
It’s not wrong to wonder whether your therapist is helping – it could be a useful signal. Here’s what to do next. Psyche audio helps you to better understand…
Psyche MagazineCircular 108
During the hijab ban, I took pride in my resilience. But the trauma I didn’t name still came for me. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself and…
Psyche MagazineNot all procrastination is created equal
A new way of seeing procrastination helped reduce my self-criticism. But it keeps me honest when I need to be productive. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineIf we avoid sadness in life, why do we seek it in art?
Philosophers and psychologists have puzzled over the allure of tragic art. New findings show how sadness can be a comfort. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineHow to get to know your neighbourhood
Whether you are a newcomer or you’ve lived there for years, learn to look closer and deepen your connection. Psyche audio helps you to better understand…
Psyche MagazineIntimacy is risky, but it’s the only way to true acceptance
Beyond the initial shame, there are rich rewards in sharing important, hidden parts of ourselves with others. Psyche audio helps you to better understand…
Psyche MagazineMy cousin Anna
As a Korean adoptee, I’d never expected to meet a blood relative. Then a 23andMe email landed in my inbox. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself…
Psyche MagazineStronger
When grief and distraction spun my mind out of control, only the strain of my muscles could keep it intact. Psyche audio helps you to better understand…
Psyche MagazineWe should invent new names for feelings
There are only so many actual words to describe our specific emotional states. Why not come up with some of your own?. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineI tested whether cannabis really can boost the runner’s high
Runners, yogis and others claim weed improves their routines. Curious, I looked at the research and gave it a go myself. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineHow to give a compliment
Delivering sincere compliments is a skill you can learn – and, done well, it’s an easy way to spread more joy in the world. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineWhy chatbot therapists can’t offer what we need
Today’s world is fuelling a craving to be truly seen by another – and that’s exactly what AI therapists can’t ever deliver. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineShe found the Mother Tree
Her science revealed that trees look after one another in the forest. Now, Suzanne Simard says, the only way to save the Earth is to put Indigenous ecological…
Psyche MagazineDefensible space
My husband was in crisis and our home faced wildfire. When it came, I saw the cost of holding the line. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself…
Psyche MagazineHow to use AI chatbots to make you smarter, not dumber
Use AI thoughtlessly and it dulls your mind. But with a strategic approach and the right prompts, it can be a powerful tool. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineThe capacity to be alone depends on the sense of being held
The overwhelm of grief and parenthood showed me what psychoanalysis assumes – we need to be held to feel safe in solitude. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineHow to recognise a phobia (and get help)
Is it normal fear you’re feeling, or is it a real problem? Learn the signs of phobias and how to break free from one. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineWhat could have been?
Counterfactual history explores what could’ve been: the paths not taken. What do we gain by applying this to our own lives?. Psyche audio helps you to better…
Psyche MagazineYou can’t revoke my autism
A psychologist tried to downgrade my diagnosis. My life – and the science – prove how wrong he was. Psyche audio helps you to better understand yourself and…
Psyche MagazineAre morally good people any happier or sadder than others?
Living a moral life often comes with costs. Recent studies clarify whether joy and satisfaction are among them. Psyche audio helps you to better understand…
Psyche MagazineA lesson from the Son of Man’s manhood
Renaissance artists paid uncommon attention to Jesus’ nether regions. What does this breach in modesty reveal about art?. Psyche audio helps you to better…