Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Psyche.
Bare Branches
As I was driving home from town earlier this month, I suddenly noticed that the trees had no leaves on them. It struck me in surprise, because the last time I had noticed them, the trees were just beginning to turn colors. Time had slipped right past me, and I had flowed right along for the ride, never once paying attention to where I was going - not even lifting my head one time from what I was doing to look at the beauty of my surroundings and my favorite season. Looking back, I realize that the social media/internet break I had planned had turned into a walking fugue state.
By Mother Combsabout a month ago in Psyche
The Power of Resilience: Developing Mental Toughness in the Time of Adversity
Adversity is something that we all encounter in life at some point or another. Whether it's loss personally, financial struggles, career disappointment, or even mental challenges, life has a way of challenging our resolve. While we can't always control the circumstances that cause us pain or distress, something we can control is our response to them. That's where resilience comes in. Resilience is the ability to rebound from adversity and transform positively amid adversity. Yet it's not about rebounding but being stronger, wiser, and better capable in the process.
By The Chaos Cabinetabout a month ago in Psyche
ADHD Isn't Just In The Mind, It's Physically Painful Too
I write this whilst in the middle of one of my exceptionally bad ADHD flare ups, something I haven't experienced in months. I am curled up on my foldout floor armchair I keep in my bedroom, but have brought through to my studio to be beside my personal Christmas tree and away from everyone else in the house, because this is the only place I feel safe right now. I have swapped the jumper I had been wearing all morning as I could no longer stand the sensation of it, desperately craving a really specific jumper like a life-line. Warm, loose, baggy and so incredibly soft. I feel violently nauseous, close to tears for no reason at all, my head spinning like I have a thousand million nonsensical thoughts being whisked around in a mixer to which I can't make out anything, and it all feels like it's happening right behind my eyes. I want to talk and talk and talk and let out so much energy, just unleash everything that's bubbling inside me like a potion pot of poison, but as soon as I talk or speak I'm overwhelmed and overstimulated by myself. My heart beating fast and my pulse racing even though I haven't even started the 100 meter dash, and my eyes lit by LED bulbs, it's power supplied by Duracell double ADHD batteries. My brain painfully struggling to comprehend the link between my physical pain and my spicy brain in this moment.
By Megan Kingsburyabout a month ago in Psyche
Why Identity Is Not Self-Constructed: Mental Health and the Social Feedback Loop
Whitman Drake Abstract Contemporary mental health discourse frequently treats identity as an internally authored construct—something individuals can revise through cognition, self-reflection, or therapeutic insight. This assumption underlies popular clinical and cultural narratives that emphasize self-esteem, positive self-talk, and personal meaning-making as primary mechanisms of psychological stability. While these approaches offer partial benefits, they obscure a deeper and empirically supported reality: identity is not self-constructed in isolation. Rather, it emerges through sustained social feedback, recognition, and institutional response. Drawing on symbolic interactionism, social psychology, and mental health research, this article argues that mental health outcomes are inseparable from relational processes that validate or destabilize identity over time. Understanding identity as socially constituted clarifies why individual-level interventions often fail, why distress clusters around structural conditions, and why durable mental health requires collective as well as personal change.
By Whitman Drakeabout a month ago in Psyche
Alcohol Gives Me Hangexity
“Never lie, steal, cheat, or drink. But if you must lie, lie in the arms of the one you love. If you must steal, steal away from bad company. If you must cheat, cheat death. And if you must drink, drink in the moments that take your breath away.” — Alex Hitch, Hitch
By Chantal Christie Weissabout a month ago in Psyche
When Winter Teaches Us How to Feel Again. AI-Generated.
December doesn’t arrive loudly. It seeps in. Earlier sunsets after a day of rain. Streets that look familiar but feel emptied of color. The air sharp enough to make you aware of your breath. Winter, more than any other season, doesn’t ask for productivity or performance. It asks for honesty.
By Ahmet Kıvanç Demirkıranabout a month ago in Psyche
The Psychology of Emotional Contagion. AI-Generated.
Walk into a room where tension hangs in the air, and you may feel uneasy before anyone says a word. Enter a space filled with laughter, and your mood often lifts almost instantly. This phenomenon is not coincidence or imagination; it is emotional contagion at work. Emotional contagion is a subcategory of social psychology that explores how emotions transfer from one person to another, often unconsciously. It shapes group dynamics, relationships, workplaces, and even entire societies, influencing how we feel and behave in ways we rarely notice.
By Kyle Butlerabout a month ago in Psyche
Unrecognized Minds, Unspoken Lives
I am tired of being unrecognized—not for what I do, but for who I am. Tired of watching friendships thin out, of rooms growing quieter, of learning that losing people doesn’t always make noise. Sometimes it happens slowly, politely, until one day you realize you are alone.
By LUNA EDITHabout a month ago in Psyche
