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The 'Father of American Neurology' Prescribed Women Months of Motionless Milk-Drinking

Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Perkins Gilman were both patients of this infamous rest cure.
A field of gravestones.

Good Bones

What is a small, historically-minded community meant to do with something like Western State Hospital?

The Dark History of Hysteria

One diagnosis fits all! If you're a woman.
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Being a Victorian Librarian Was Oh-So-Dangerous

In the late 19th century, more women were becoming librarians. Experts predicted they would suffer ill health and breakdowns.

The Discovery of the Mental Institution

Mental health care has never been adequate in the U.S.
Identical twin girls wearing event entry bracelets and blue ribbon medals.

The Intriguing History of the Autism Diagnosis

How an autism diagnosis became both a clinical label and an identity; a stigma to be challenged and a status to be embraced.
Barry Goldwater with his finger to his lips sushing the audience.

Why the 'Goldwater Rule' Keeps Psychiatrists From Diagnosing at a Distance

Here's what to know about the man behind the longstanding rule.

How ADHD Was Sold

A new book outlines an epidemic of over-diagnosis and addiction.
Cartoon of crooked Oliver Hartzell with his arm around an apprehensive Sir Francis Drake.

The Mythical Fortune That Fuelled America’s Greatest Fraud

Oscar Hartzell convinced thousands of Americans that they could get a piece of the Sir Francis Drake estate—a multibillion-dollar inheritance that didn’t exist.
Two women smiling together.
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Lesbians and the Lavender Scare

Lesbian relationships among government workers were seen as a threat to national security in the 1950s. But what was a lesbian relationship?
A welder in protective gear works on a metal frame in an industrial setting.
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Trump's Punitive Approach to Drug Addiction is Nothing New

For a century, Americans have embraced a punitive approach to addiction—one that has undermined treatment efforts.
A collage of advertisements for lithium and lithium water.

The Truth About Lithium Might Never Come Out

Longevity enthusiasts are microdosing a 19th-century cure-all. Are they onto something?
John Mack speaking on the Oprah Winfrey Show, with a tagline that reads "John Mack, M.D., Harvard Psychiatrist Who Believes Patients Were Abducted By Aliens."

John E. Mack and the Unbelievable UFO Truth

The controversial career of John E. Mack, the Pulitzer Prize–winning Harvard psychiatrist who wrote best-selling books on UFO abduction.
A stone sign that reads "Gateways Hospital and Community Mental Health Center."

How Louis Ziskind Helped Deinstitutionalize Mental Healthcare

A community health center in Los Angeles that sought to get patients back into the community.
Mead reading a book, against a psychedelic background.

One of Our Most Respected 20th-Century Scientists Was LSD-Curious. What Happened?

A document in her papers in the Library of Congress sheds new light on postwar research on psychedelics.
Lou Reed in front of a photography setup.

The Canonization of Lou Reed

In a new biography, the Velvet Underground front man embodies a New York that exists only in memory.
Betty and Barney Hill holding "The Interrupted Journey" by John G. Fuller.

The UFO Story of Betty and Barney Hill: Why Their Fight To Be Believed Was An American Tragedy

Betty and Barney Hill lost three hours on a New Hampshire highway in 1961. They spent years trying to understand it.
Collage of a shirtless performer and a cutaway image of an egg.

My Generation

Anthem for a forgotten cohort.
A feminine paper doll surrounded by girl-coded outfits.

How “Gender” Went Rogue

Debating the meaning of gender is hardly new, but the clinical origin of the word may come as a surprise.
Woman at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital from behind.
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History Says NYC Mayor’s Mental Health Plan is Deeply Flawed

Involuntarily committing people with serious mental illness, however well intended, has long served to remove them from society instead of providing treatment.
Demonstrators protest involuntarily institutionalization of mentally ill homeless people.
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Locking Up the Mentally Ill Has a Long History

The prospect of removing people from communities to be put in institutions has been a project of social control.
Cover of "Bad Gays" book, with subtitle "A Homosexual History" superimposed over a Roman statue's mouth and beard.

What History’s “Bad Gays” Can Tell Us About the Queer Past and Present

A new book examines explores the ways that an uncritical celebration of “good” gays and “good” gayness can cause harm.
Collage of CIA director Richard Helms, Jimi Hendrix, and redacted Project MK-Ultra documents.

The Secret Black History of LSD

Research on psychedelics has been riddled with medical racism and exclusion but it hasn’t stopped Black people from finding creativity and solace through drugs.
Spectrum of color from red to blue.

A Little Spectrum-y

What the autism diagnosis says about you.
Richard Wright.

Outcasts and Desperados

Reflections on Richard Wright’s recently published novel, "The Man Who Lived Underground."
Abstract drawing of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, Crank Scientist

The great discoveries of the age captivated Poe’s imagination. He almost always misunderstood them.
Illustration of men in orange being watched by onlookers

Vice Age

Chronicling the policing of gay life in the mid-20th century.
Two prison employees standing outside a prison cell.

The Truth About Deinstitutionalization

A popular theory links the closing of state psychiatric hospitals to the increased incarceration of people with mental illness. The reality is more complicated.
A worker removes the Sackler name from a building at Tufts University in 2019.

The Problem of Pain

It’s easier to blame individuals for the opioid crisis than to attempt to diagnose and cure the ills of a society.

Married to the Momism

Philip Wylie’s "Generation of Vipers," revisited.

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