Category: Analysis

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Steven Gillespie, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology, University of Liverpool

Psychopaths might account for only about 1% of the general population, but
they account for a disproportionate share of violent crime.

Distinct from other conditions like sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder, psychopaths tend to show traits such as an absence of remorse or guilt, a lack of empathy and a charming and manipulative interpersonal style.

You may find it hard to imagine how someone without much empathy can change. And early psychological treatments were not successful. But advances in research are showing that a deeper understanding of psychopathy may help to create more effective interventions.

People with psychopathy typically show problems in responding to other people’s suffering, including difficulty recognising facial expressions of fear and sadness. If you have ever seen someone badly hurt themselves, then you probably had an averse response.

Your brain will have reacted to their pain and your body will probably have shown signs of physiological arousal. Your heart rate might have gone up, or you might have sweated.

These are common signs of physiological arousal in response to someone else’s suffering. But they are often lacking in psychopaths.

When my colleagues and I asked people in prison with a history of violence to view pictures of others’ emotional facial expressions, those who reported more of the characteristic features of psychopathy also showed blunted physiological arousal. Our 2019 study found that the pupil (the small black hole in the centre of the eye that lets in light but also increases in size during physiological arousal) did not change much in size among people higher in psychopathic traits when they looked at pictures of people who were afraid.

These differences mean that some people with these traits might struggle to learn about how their actions cause other people to feel distressed or afraid.

Prisons and secure forensic hospitals are where people with psychopathic traits are often entered into treatment programmes designed to reduce their risk of reoffending. Modest reductions in general reoffending have been reported following cognitive behavioural programmes that are offered to people in prison with or without psychopathy or another personality disorder.

But not all criminal behaviour programs have been marked by success. For
example, in the UK in 2017 the failure of the Core Sexual Offender Treatment Programme designed by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) and approved for use in 1992, to lower reoffending was highly publicised.

HMPPS has since introduced a new programme, Building Choices. It adopts a strengths-based, skill focused approach to improve emotion management, healthy relationships and sense of purpose. Unlike the previous course, the programme is not designed to address particular offence types, and it has shown some signs of promise.

Historically, researchers have considered such programmes less effective at reducing reoffending when offered to people with psychopathy. Indeed, some studies even suggest that people with psychopathy worsened following treatment.

One of these programmes, offered from around 1965 to 1978 at the maximum-security Oak Ridge Division of the Mental Health Centre in Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada, made use of a so called “total encounter capsule.”

These results made for a high degree of pessimism among scientists and practitioners alike. But that pessimism might be misplaced.

It is perhaps unsurprising that the “total encounter capsule” did not prove effective. The capsule was “a tiny self-contained chamber where sustenance was supplied through tubes in the walls and from which no group members would leave during sessions that lasted up to two weeks”.

Participants were reported to be nude and did not participate voluntarily. There were few professional therapists, and the use of force and humiliation was permitted.

Historically, there has been a lot of pessimism around treatment for other personality disorders, too.

This is in part a reflection of stigma attached to these disorders. But it is also because personality difficulties can make it harder for people to build relationships, including with the people responsible for their treatment.

Yet a form of therapy known as dialectical behaviour therapy has shown success in reducing self-harm in people with borderline personality disorder. This type of therapy is designed to help people cope with intense emotions and to learn interpersonal skills.

In another recent study, mentalisation-based treatment, which targets the person’s ability to understand and regulate the negative effects of thoughts and feelings, led to reductions in aggressive behaviour in people with antisocial personality disorder. Findings like these suggest tailored interventions are more effective when it comes to personality disorders.

Capable of empathy?

One important consideration when treating psychopaths is that they are often assumed to be incapable of empathy. But this assumption has been challenged by some intriguing studies, which suggests that they might instead lack the motivation for empathy.

In a 2013 brain scanning study, a group of scientists at the university of Groningen, the Netherlands, showed that although criminal psychopaths did not automatically feel empathy for other people’s pain depicted in videos, their brains did generate an empathic response similar to that of non-psychopaths when instructed to feel what the people in the videos were feeling.

It could be an important step toward helping people with psychopathy if they could better understand how their actions can hurt other people.

Perhaps the most promising work that suggests people with psychopathy can
change has been conducted with young people. Although children and young people under the age of 18 cannot be diagnosed as psychopathic, features of psychopathy referred to as callous unemotional traits can be reliably assessed in children as young as two years of age.

A 2018 study adapted parenting interventions to be more effective for this high-risk group of children, aged three to six years old. Afterwards, the children showed significant reductions in behavioural problems, callous unemotional traits and aggression. The researchers coached parents to show more warmth, sensitivity and responsiveness. Parents were also asked to focus on reward-based rather than punishment-based strategies to encourage the child participants to be more responsive to distress in others.

A 2022 study also reported positive outcomes, showing improvements in behaviour and personal relationships in adolescents after an intervention with a focus on strength-based (helping children understand what they’re good at) rather than punishment-based parenting strategies.

So recent work is offering a glimpse of a more optimistic future for reducing aggressive and antisocial behaviour associated with psychopathy. Perhaps the question is not can psychopaths change now, but can we get better at helping them to change.

Steven Gillespie has consulted for Ministry of Justice. He receives funding from Economic and Social Research Council.

– ref. Can psychopaths change? – https://theconversation.com/can-psychopaths-change-270344

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Nicole Whitworth, Lecturer in Linguistics, School of Education, Language and Psychology, York St John University

Talking is one of the most complex actions the human body performs, yet the process of turning thoughts into speech is coordinated on millisecond timescales. For some children, the brain struggles to plan the movements needed for speech, turning everyday conversation into hard work. Even forming a single word can affect learning, friendships and confidence.

UK guidance suggests around one in ten children experience some form of speech, language or communication difficulty, including speech sound disorders. These conditions can influence educational progress, emotional wellbeing and social development. Communication underpins not only learning, but also how children express feelings and connect with others.

As a speech scientist specialising in clinical phonetics and speech acquisition, I am currently researching a less common speech motor disorder: childhood apraxia of speech (CAS). This is a speech motor disorder, meaning the difficulty lies in the brain’s ability to plan and coordinate the movements needed to produce speech.

CAS is estimated to affect roughly one in 1,000 children, though figures vary. Many children improve with specialist speech and language therapy and regular practice. Without this support, speech difficulties are more likely to persist and some children may remain difficult to understand, even to close family members. Families and teachers also play an important role in reinforcing therapy and supporting everyday communication.

Understanding how speech is produced helps explain why these conditions occur and how they can be treated. Speech and language therapists receive extensive training in phonetics, the science of how speech sounds are created, transmitted and heard. Caregivers and teachers can also benefit from a basic understanding of just how complex speech production really is.

Moving parts

Producing even a single sound involves a carefully timed sequence of movements known as a speech motor plan, which the brain must assemble before the sound is spoken. For English speech, the lungs first generate a steady stream of air, usually by exhaling more slowly than during normal breathing.

As this air passes through the voice box, also called the larynx, it moves across the vocal folds. These small folds of tissue can behave in several ways. They can close tightly and release to produce a glottal stop, the brief catch in the throat heard in the middle of “uh-oh”. They can remain open so air flows through freely, creating voiceless sounds such as “s”. Or they can vibrate to produce “voicing”, the low buzzing sound you can feel in your throat when saying sounds like “z” or “b”. Each option depends on fine control of vocal fold position and tension.

Read more:
Common myths about speech problems in children

After leaving the larynx, air travels either through the mouth alone or through both the mouth and nose. This pathway is controlled by the velum, the soft part at the back of the roof of the mouth. The velum lifts to block the nasal passage when air needs to stay in the mouth. When air reaches the mouth, the articulators, including the tongue, lips and teeth, shape it into recognisable speech sounds by creating narrow gaps or brief closures.

Take the first sound in the word “sat”, the /s/ sound. The tip of the tongue moves close to the roof of the mouth just behind the upper teeth, forming a narrow channel. Air rushing through this gap creates friction, producing the familiar hissing sound. At the same time, the velum lifts to stop air entering the nose and the vocal folds stay open so the sound remains voiceless.

Small changes in timing or position can create entirely different sounds. If the vocal folds vibrate, the /z/ sound in “zoo” is produced instead of /s/. If the tongue presses fully against the roof of the mouth, the sound becomes /t/, as in “two”.

Speech becomes even more complex in words and sentences, where sounds overlap and influence each other. The shape of the lips for one sound may be adjusted in advance for the next. When saying “seat”, the lips spread wide, but in “soup” they round in anticipation of the following vowel. Real-time imaging of the vocal tract during speech, including MRI and ultrasound studies, shows how intricate and rapid these adjustments are.

Therapy can help

Because speech relies on so many coordinated actions, the brain must assemble detailed movement plans and send them to the muscles with precise timing. In speech motor disorders such as CAS, this planning process is disrupted. The result is speech that may sound inconsistent, effortful and difficult to understand, with words sometimes produced differently each time, even for people who know the child well.

Therapy grounded in motor skill learning principles has been shown to help some children practise and stabilise these movement patterns. Support may also include augmentative and alternative communication, which refers to tools and strategies that help children communicate while their speech skills develop. These can range from picture boards to speech generating devices.

No single approach fits every child, but progress is possible. Specialist therapy, classroom support and tools such as augmentative and alternative communication can all help. The goal is not perfection, but participation. Being able to share ideas, ask for help and connect with others is what matters most for a child’s development.

Nicole Whitworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Childhood apraxia of speech: when the brain can’t plan the words – https://theconversation.com/childhood-apraxia-of-speech-when-the-brain-cant-plan-the-words-271266

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sam Illingworth, Professor of Creative Pedagogies, Edinburgh Napier University

Most AI training teaches you how to get outputs. Write a better prompt. Refine your query. Generate content faster. This approach treats AI as a productivity tool and measures success by speed. It misses the point entirely.

Critical AI literacy asks different questions. Not “how do I use this?” but “should I use this at all?” Not “how do I make this faster?” but “what am I losing when I do?”

AI systems carry biases that most users never see. Researchers analysing the British Newspaper Archive in 2025 found that digitised Victorian newspapers represent less than 20% of what was actually printed. The sample skews toward overtly political publications and away from independent voices.

Anyone drawing conclusions about Victorian society from this data risks reproducing distortions baked into the archive. The same principle applies to the datasets that power today’s AI tools. We cannot interrogate what we do not see.

Literary scholars have long understood that texts help to construct, rather than simply reflect, reality. A newspaper article from 1870 is not a window onto the past but a curated representation shaped by editors, advertisers and owners.

AI outputs work the same way. They synthesise patterns from training data that reflects particular worldviews and commercial interests. The humanities teach us to ask whose voice is present and whose is absent.

Research published in the Lancet Global Health journal in 2023 demonstrates this. Researchers attempted to invert stereotypical global health imagery using AI image generation, prompting the system to create visuals of black African doctors providing care to white children.

Despite generating over 300 images, the AI proved incapable of producing this inversion. Recipients of care were always rendered black. The system had absorbed existing imagery so thoroughly that it could not imagine alternatives.

AI slop is not just articles peppered with “delve” and em dashes. Those are merely stylistic tells. The real problem is outputs that perpetuate biases without interrogation.

Consider friendship. Philosophers Micah Lott and William Hasselberger argue that AI cannot be your friend because friendship requires caring about the good of another for their own sake. An AI tool lacks an internal good. It exists to serve the user.

When companies market AI as a companion, they offer simulated empathy without the friction of human relationships. The AI cannot reject you or pursue its own interests. The relationship remains one-sided; a commercial transaction disguised as connection.

AI and professional responsibility

Educators need to distinguish when AI supports learning and when it substitutes for the cognitive work that produces understanding. Journalists need criteria for evaluating AI-generated content. Healthcare professionals need protocols for integrating AI recommendations without abdicating clinical judgment.

This is the work I pursue through Slow AI, a community exploring how to engage with AI effectively and ethically. The current trajectory of AI development assumes we will all move faster, think less and accept synthetic outputs as a default state. Critical AI literacy resists that momentum.

None of this requires rejecting technology. The Luddites (textile workers who organised against factory owners across the English Midlands in the early 19th century) who smashed weaving frames were not opposed to progress. They were skilled craftsmen defending their livelihoods against the social costs of automation.

When Lord Byron rose in the House of Lords in 1812 to deliver his maiden speech against the frame-breaking bill (which made the destruction of frames punishable by death), he argued these were not ignorant wreckers but people driven by circumstances of unparalleled distress.

The Luddites saw clearly what the machines meant: the erasure of craft and the reduction of human skill to mechanical repetition. They were not rejecting technology. They were rejecting its uncritical adoption. Critical AI literacy asks us to recover that discernment. Moving beyond “how to use” toward an understanding of “how to think”.

The stakes are not hypothetical. Decisions made with AI assistance are already shaping hiring, healthcare, education and justice. If we lack frameworks to evaluate these systems critically, we outsource judgement to algorithms whose limitations remain invisible.

Ultimately, critical AI literacy is not about mastering prompts or optimising workflows. It is about knowing when to use AI and when to leave it the hell alone.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

Sam Illingworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Using AI responsibly means knowing when not to use it – https://theconversation.com/using-ai-responsibly-means-knowing-when-not-to-use-it-274671

Source: The Conversation – UK – By James Clark, Professor of Medieval History, University of Exeter

Henry VIII is not remembered as a loving husband. Any English schoolchild can recount the unpleasant fates of most of his six wives with the rhyme: “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived.” But though the end of his relationships are famous, less is known about Henry in love.

Now, a rare jewel discovered by an amateur detectorist and bought by the British Museum for the national collection may force us to reconsider the king’s brutal reputation.

The jewel is a heart-shaped locket, crafted in gold with red enamel decoration, and attached to a solid gold chain. On the face are the letters H and K linked together by the stems of a Tudor rose and a pomegranate, which was the symbol of Katharine’s Spanish royal family. It is a reasonable deduction that this remarkable jewel was connected directly to Henry and the first of his wives, Katherine of Aragon.

Katherine was the subject of Henry’s first and most shocking divorce, which precipitated England’s breach with the Roman papacy and the transformation of religion which we now know as the Reformation. In many ways Katherine also suffered the worst of the king’s personal cruelty. Although not executed, she was consigned to virtual house-arrest, much of the time separated from her only living child, Mary.

If this was indeed Henry and Katherine’s jewel it could be a vital clue to quite different moment in their relationship, and to a dimension of the king’s character that his otherwise notorious conduct has completely obscured.

In late medieval and Renaissance society, monograms – the linking of people’s initials – were often created to represent a personal connection, a marriage, a betrothal or even a secret love-match. Beneath the linked letters on the locket is the French word “Toujo(u)rs”, meaning “always” – a natural choice for a pledge between lovers. Here, the letters surely stand for Henry and Katherine.

The locket’s flower and fruit decoration seal the royal connection. The pomegranate symbol swept into English public life after the two families were joined through Henry’s marriage. Decorations for the coronation of the king and queen, just two weeks after the wedding, paired the Tudor rose with golden pomegranates. A woodblock print published to mark the occasion under the title A Joyful Meditation to All England, showed Henry and Katherine receiving their crowns under a twin canopy of the flower and the fruit.

Accounts of textiles commissioned for the royal household show dozens of different pieces – upholstery, wall-hangings, and livery to be worn by servants – all featuring the rose and the pomegranate prominently in their design.

Devoted designs

The decoration of the heart pendant is matched in a wide variety of treasures described in Henry’s household inventories. These contain descriptions of a bag of crimson satin, a silver comb case and standing cup all marked in the same way for the king and his queen. These lists also identify several collars or necklaces – described by the archaic term carkeynes – with heart-shaped pendants. One of these, coloured blue, is also inscribed, “H K”.

Henry spent prodigiously on beautiful, bespoke furnishings, but jewellery was his greatest passion. The inventories of his jewels and plate (gold, gilt and silver objets d’art) compiled shortly after his death in January 1547 record almost 4,000 individual pieces.

This Tudor heart pendant is a prime example of this level of investment. The locket itself is formed from 24-carat gold; the wide chain found with it is weighty and long – more than 40cm. Together they amount to 317 grams of precious metal. It is no wonder that the British Museum’s purchase price was £3.5 million.

It is clear from his wardrobe accounts – which record the purchase of decorative pieces for his household – that Henry took a personal interest in the material and design of many of these pieces. Surviving examples of designs for jewellery drawn by Hans Holbein, the German artist active at Henry’s court in the 1530s and early 1540s, may have come from a pattern book made to influence, or illustrate, the king’s developing tastes. He bought, or commissioned pieces, not only for his own household but also as gifts – often marking the new year – to family members and court favourites.

This may well be the origin of the heart pendant. Since it came to light, it has been spoken of as associated with Henry’s great pageant in the Pas-de-Calais in 1520, the so-called Field of the Cloth of Gold. Here he, Katherine and his court staged a ceremonial meeting with the French King, François I. A great many furnishings from the royal residences and chapels did cross the Channel to decorate the pop-up canvas palace and tents.

But I am convinced the message conveyed by this jewel is not political but profoundly personal. Toujours is an expression of deep, heartfelt attachment. An alternative theory, advanced by the British Museum itself, is that the pendant was made to mark the betrothal in October 1518 of Katherine’s only living child, Princess Mary, aged two, to the eight-month-old heir to the French throne.

But given the presence of pieces of very similar design in the royal household soon after the marriage and coronation, it must be possible that the pendant belongs to the early years of Henry and Katherine’s relationship. At first, she and the king were inseparable. Five months from the wedding she was pregnant. She conceived again each year from 1510 to 1513. One of these pregnancies resulted in a son, named Henry, born in January 1511. He lived for a little under two months.

In the late summer of that year, the king and queen embarked on a progress through the Thames Valley and on into the West Midlands, culminating at Warwick. It was in a Warwickshire field that the detectorist, Charlie Clarke, uncovered the heart pendant in 2019.

Could it be that a jewel gifted to Katherine at the time of the birth of Henry’s longed-for male heir was carried with the royal party – as so many of their personal jewels were – as they made their way into Warwickshire? It gives the locket an edge not just of romance, but of tragedy. Here, perhaps, Katherine was parted from a present that was, already, a memento mori of her lost son.

Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. Sign up here.

James Clark receives funding from UKRI-AHRC.

– ref. Heart-shaped locket discovery offers rare glimpse into Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon’s marriage – https://theconversation.com/heart-shaped-locket-discovery-offers-rare-glimpse-into-henry-viii-and-katharine-of-aragons-marriage-276123

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Meilan Yan, Senior Lecturer in Financial Economics, Loughborough University

Climate change is usually assessed in scientific terms – rising temperatures, sea levels and carbon emissions. But increasingly, it can also be measured in household bills – higher insurance premiums, steeper energy charges and growing costs to protect homes, travel and health. So when US President Donald Trump said recently that abandoning a key government ruling on greenhouse gases would make cars cheaper for Americans, he was focusing on a tiny piece of a huge picture.

That is because climate change is not a local problem that hits one place at a time. It is increasingly a widespread financial risk, pushing on several parts of household finances at once. When risks become systemic, people cannot simply “insure it away” or plan around it.

When Trump announced he was revoking the US’s 2009 “endangerment finding”, which set out how greenhouse gas buildup harms human health and wellbeing, he said the move would save Americans “trillions of dollars”.

But climate change shows up directly in household budgets as pressures converge. These pressures could include insurance becoming unaffordable or even unavailable, which can then have knock-on effects on property values. On top of that, utility costs can creep up, wages may become less reliable, and retirement savings are exposed to climate-driven shocks.

For many families, their home is their largest financial asset. But climate risk is increasingly being priced into property markets. Research suggests that in the United States, homes exposed to flood risk may be overvalued by between US$121 billion and US$237 billion (£89 billion and £174 billion). The First Street Foundation, an independent climate risk research organisation, estimates that climate risk could wipe out as much as US$1.47 trillion in US home values by 2055.

In the UK, evidence shows that house prices in English postcodes affected by inland flooding fell by an average of 25% compared with similar non-flooded areas. Coastal flooding in England has been associated with price reductions of roughly 21%. The Environment Agency estimates that one in four homes in England could be at risk of flooding by the middle of the century.

Insurance is expensive – or unavailable

Many governments have tried to prevent climate risk from pricing people out of insurance by creating schemes of last resort. These government-backed initiatives keep policies available when the market would otherwise withdraw. But this safety net is now under growing financial strain.

In the US, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has accumulated more than US$22 billion in debt to the US Treasury after repeated borrowing to cover claims.

Meanwhile, in the UK, Flood Re was designed to buy time for adaptation while keeping flood insurance affordable. Yet rising claims have driven up reinsurance costs by around £100 million for 2025/26. France also had to increase the mandatory surcharge on its national “Cat Nat” natural catastrophe scheme from 12% to 20% from January 2025 to maintain financial stability.

Climate change affects households even if they do not own property. As utilities invest in stronger, more resilient infrastructure, those costs are usually recovered through higher standing charges and tariffs. In other words, the price of adaptation is quietly passed on through monthly bills. In California, for example, wildfire-related grid upgrades added 7% to nearly 13% to household energy bills in 2023.

The same logic applies to cars. Rolling back US vehicle emissions rules is being sold to American consumers as cutting US$2,400 off the price of a new car. But that sum isn’t a cheque to ordinary Americans. Carmakers are not required to pass the saving on, petrol drivers can end up paying more at the pump, and EVs still come with a high upfront price tag.

In reality, the figure is best understood as an estimated reduction in manufacturers’ compliance costs, not a guaranteed discount at the dealership.

Climate change doesn’t only put pressure on household budgets. It also threatens the thing many families rely on most: a steady pay cheque. Large parts of the economy worldwide still depend on work that happens outdoors from agriculture and construction to tourism, deliveries and logistics. The 2022 California drought cost farming around US$1.7 billion in revenue and nearly 12,000 job losses.

There are also direct health costs. The International Labour Organization warns that climate hazards expose workers to a “cocktail” of risks, including heat stress, air pollution, ultraviolet radiation and physical injury.

It estimates that 2.4 billion workers around the world could be exposed to climate-related health hazards. Excessive heat already affects about 70% of the global workforce, contributing to 18,970 work-related deaths and roughly 23 million workplace injuries each year.

Climate change is increasingly seen by regulators and investors as a systemic risk that can undermine the pensions people rely on in retirement. Risk management technology firm Ortec Finance warns that failing to transition to a low-carbon global economy could reduce pension fund returns worldwide by around 33% by 2050.

Physical risks (floods, heatwaves and storms) can damage assets and disrupt productivity. Transition risks (policy shifts and sudden repricing of carbon-intensive assets) can hit valuations. Together, they weaken the performance of equities, property and infrastructure.

When climate risk is systemic, there’s no bargain to be made: short-term “savings” don’t reduce household costs, they are repaid soon through higher bills. Rather than driving up the cost of living, climate policy helps to stop climate shocks from raising prices even faster.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Trump claims his pollution rollback will save Americans money – but climate change is raising household costs – https://theconversation.com/trump-claims-his-pollution-rollback-will-save-americans-money-but-climate-change-is-raising-household-costs-276201

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Michiel van Elk, Associate Professor, Cognitive Psychology, Leiden University

Mystics once spent years meditating in caves in search of transcendence. Today, a growing number of people believe something similar can be reached in a single afternoon with the help of a psychedelic drug. Swallow a capsule of psilocybin or take a carefully supervised dose of LSD and you may encounter what many describe as one of the most meaningful experiences of their lives.

Modern clinical trials appear to support this. Several studies suggest that the intensity of a “mystical-type experience” during a psychedelic session predicts the degree of improvement in depression, anxiety or addiction. A recent review, for example, reports a consistent statistical link between mystical experiences and improved mental health.

It is an enticing idea: that healing comes through a profound encounter with unity, sacredness or ultimate reality. But do we really need mystical experiences to get better?

To understand why this question matters, it helps to step back. Long before psychedelics entered psychiatry, philosophers and theologians were fascinated by mystical states. In the early 20th century, the psychologist William James argued in his book The Varieties of Religious Experience that mystical states should be judged “by their fruits, not by their roots” – meaning by their effects on people’s lives rather than by debates about their metaphysical truth.

Others, including the British writer on Christian mysticism Evelyn Underhill and the philosopher of religion Walter Stace, developed what later became known as “perennial philosophy”: the idea that a common core experience lies at the heart of the world’s religions.

This way of thinking has quietly shaped modern psychedelic science. In 1962, the psychiatrist Walter Pahnke conducted the Good Friday Experiment, giving theology students psilocybin in a church. Many reported experiences that were strikingly similar to those described by classical mystics.

Around the same time, British-born psychiatrist Humphry Osmond – who coined the word “psychedelic” – developed treatment approaches designed to induce powerful “peak experiences” that could trigger lasting psychological change.

Today, large clinical trials at universities such as Johns Hopkins and Imperial College London have revived this approach. Researchers routinely measure whether participants have had a “mystical-type experience” using a standardised questionnaire known as the mystical experience questionnaire, or MEQ.

Participants are asked to rate statements such as “I had an experience of unity with ultimate reality” or “I had an experience which cannot be described adequately in words”. The higher the score, the more likely someone is classified as having had a full mystical experience.

But this raises a conundrum. If an experience is supposedly “ineffable” – beyond words – how accurately can it be captured by ticking boxes on a survey?

Some critics argue that the MEQ builds in assumptions drawn from perennial philosophy. By asking about “ultimate reality” or “sacredness”, it may reflect a particular interpretation of mystical experience rather than a neutral description. As one analysis notes, there is a risk that the scale partly reproduces the very theory it aims to test.

Expectations may further complicate matters

Many participants in psychedelic trials arrive already primed for transcendence. They have read glowing media coverage, listened to podcasts or watched documentaries promising life-changing breakthroughs. Research shows that such expectations can significantly shape subjective drug experiences.

My colleagues and I saw just how powerful suggestion can be in a study nicknamed “tripping with the god helmet”. Participants wore a sham brain-stimulation device that we described as capable of activating their “mystical lobes”. In reality, no stimulation was delivered. Yet nearly half reported mystical-type experiences, some describing them as deeply meaningful.

In another experiment, placebo psychedelics administered in a carefully staged environment – complete with evocative music and imagery – produced strikingly similar reports. These findings suggest that context and expectation are not minor side notes. They can play a central role in shaping what people experience.

None of this means psychedelic therapy is “just a placebo”. The drugs clearly alter brain activity and experience in powerful ways. But it does raise the possibility that mystical experiences are not the sole or even primary driver of therapeutic change.

After all, correlation does not equal causation. A large body of psychiatric research warns against assuming that because two things occur together, one must cause the other. Mystical experiences may simply be one visible marker of other processes, such as increased emotional openness, the development of new neural connections or changes in entrenched beliefs.

Super placebos

Some researchers have even described psychedelics as super placebos: substances that amplify expectancy effects rather than bypass them. That may sound dismissive, but it points to something important. Expectations, beliefs and meaning-making are not incidental to healing; they are often central to it.

When used carefully in structured settings, psychedelics may act less like magic bullets and more like catalysts. They intensify whatever psychological processes are already underway.

For some, that may include feelings of unity and transcendence. For others, it may involve confronting grief, fear or long-buried memories. Stanislav Grof, a pioneer of psychedelic therapy, once compared these substances to microscopes for the mind – tools that reveal otherwise hidden aspects of experience.

The key point is this: while mystical experiences often go hand in hand with improvement, they may not be essential. And on their own, they may not be enough to create lasting change.

Lasting therapeutic benefits appear to emerge from a web of interacting factors: brain changes, emotional breakthroughs, supportive settings, skilled therapists and the integration work that follows the session. Focusing too narrowly on whether someone scored above a mystical threshold risks oversimplifying a complex process.

The psychedelic renaissance has opened exciting possibilities for mental health treatment. But if the field is to mature, it may need to move beyond the assumption that transcendence is the secret ingredient.

The future of psychedelic therapy may depend less on chasing mystical peaks and more on understanding the conditions that help people translate intense experiences – mystical or otherwise – into durable, meaningful change.

Disclosuree Michiel van Elk receives funding from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO; grant id# VI.Vidi.191.107). He is affiliated as board member with Open Foundation (https://open-foundation.org).

– ref. Can a psychedelic-induced mystical experience really improve your mental health? – https://theconversation.com/can-a-psychedelic-induced-mystical-experience-really-improve-your-mental-health-274330

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Mal James, Personal Chair of Fashion Design, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh

First conceived as a mail-order-only company in 1963, known as Biba’s Postal Boutique, the brand captured the revolutionary 1960s and 1970s attitude and style, offering trend-seekers affordable, high-fashion aesthetics and glamour akin to Paris catwalks.

Influenced by art deco, Biba’s covetable mini dresses, luxurious fabrics, rich prints and colour palettes quickly achieved a cult following, embodying the “swinging London” look. Worn by celebrities like Twiggy and Mick Jagger, and film stars like Brigitte Bardot and Raquel Welch, Biba embraced a glamorous and rebellious style that had enormous global influence.

Now, The Biba Story: 1964–1975, a new exhibition at the Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, is showcasing the iconic fashion brand founded by designer Barbara Hulanicki and her partner Stephen Fitz-Simon.

Expanding from a small chemist shop on Church Street, Kensington, to a seven-storey department store on Kensington High Street, Biba sold a range of goods, from fashion to home products. The brand revolutionised retail with its lifestyle-focused department store and immersive interior opulence, setting a precedent for experiential luxury shopping that continues today.

Sadly, despite its significant impact on fashion and culture, Biba struggled financially and closed in 1975, leaving a lasting legacy as a symbol of the 1960s style revolution.

Historic moments

First seen at the Fashion and Textile Museum in London, The Biba Story communicates an engaging narrative covering the swift rise of Hulanicki’s design brand. It starts by setting the scene with a visual timeline, cleverly plotting the Biba story alongside pivotal historical movements and events, demonstrating the broader societal and cultural context that provided the backdrop to Biba’s fashion reign.

This includes reference to the not-guilty verdict for the legal action brought against Penguin Books, which in 1960 published the unexpurgated version of D.H. Lawrence’s 1932 book Lady Chatterley’s Lover. It caused a huge furore at the time and heralded the more liberal age of the swinging 60s that Biba embraced.

The exhibit also introduces Biba’s first major commercial success – a simple pink and white gingham shift dress paired with a Bardot-style headscarf. This dress, first featured in the Daily Mirror in May 1964, sold a record 17,000 dresses at 25 shillings (£1.25) each, marking the commercial success that swiftly elevated Biba to the iconic status it still retains today.

This evocative exhibition includes a wonderful sequence of drawings, illuminating how Hulanicki started out as a talented fashion illustrator, providing artwork for major magazines like Vogue and Women’s Wear Daily. Offset by the warm decor of plum walls, The Biba Story creates a sublime, high-end feel, further complemented by vintage retro-style lighting.

Here, you really get a nostalgic sense of the 1960s and 1970s, when art nouveau, art deco and modernism combined to create the style for the time.

The exhibition’s collective energy conveys the essence of the Biba aesthetic – it wasn’t just about the clothes, it was a whole lifestyle. Beautifully curated cases of Biba products, from cosmetics to tinned food to matches and branded wine, reveal how Biba was one of the first high street brands to offer more than clothes. Here was an accessible, glamorous and perhaps more indulgent lifestyle to the masses, especially uplifting in a drab post-war Britain.

A section dedicated to Biba textiles highlights the boldness of its patterns and prints offset by the contrasting simplicity of the garments’ designs. Biba was all about functionality over fussiness.

The outfits on display embody a somewhat stringent uniformity infused with a rebellious attitude, transitioning into a slick showcase of classic black dresses that remain timeless and enduring. Here, the exhibition also highlights the desirable body standards of the era, with the Biba look demanding wearers have “long thin arms, flat chests, low waists and straight hips”.

This segment subtly hints at the more problematic influence of fashion in defining body image (and perhaps it’s important to note that most of the clothes on display reflect a very small body shape), offering valuable reflections on the historical evolution of beauty standards and fashion’s continuing role in shaping them.

Bring Oot Your Biba

Especially illuminating, too, are the stories of Biba customers reminiscing about the brand, describing how “there was nothing like Biba in Edinburgh. The colours, the cut, the design, the materials, all fabulous.” Personal stories are melded with the exhibition narrative throughout, and there is a wonderfully touching conclusion titled Bring Oot Your Biba. This showcases the results of an invitation to the people of Scotland to share their Biba memories and purchases, all adding warming generational insights into the treasures of Biba fashions.

Notably, the exhibition ends with a small, beautiful tapestry of the Biba Logo, woven by talented Dovecot Studios apprentice Sophie McCaffrey – a perfect, and fitting wrap to a beautifully curated exhibition.

The Dovecot not only pays a sincere and authentic homage to Biba’s lasting legacy, it immerses the viewer in a real sense of the palpable excitement of the era: change, youth, liberation and opportunity. Many visitors will no doubt feel connected to the nostalgia of Biba’s style, while being reminded of the importance of fashion visionaries like Barbara Hulanicki to our design cultures, identities, and economies.
`

Mal James does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Biba Story: the fashion brand that lifted a drab postwar Britain into the swinging 60s – https://theconversation.com/the-biba-story-the-fashion-brand-that-lifted-a-drab-postwar-britain-into-the-swinging-60s-275900

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Damian Tobin, Lecturer in International Business, University College Cork

After the US captured Venezuela’s president at the start of 2026, Donald Trump promised to “unleash” the country’s oil supply. He wanted companies to invest US$100 billion (£74 billion) to get hold of it.

Big oil though, seems less than keen on that idea, appearing to consider Venezuela too expensive or risky. Exxon Mobil’s unenthusiastic response, describing Venezuela as “uninvestible”, even earned a personal rebuke from Trump.

So maybe Trump misunderstood how big oil works, and thought of oil firms as the quintessential risk takers – the ultimate exploiters of uncertainty. Perhaps he had in mind Daniel Day Lewis’s character in the film There Will be Blood, who was willing to risk everything to get his hands of more of the black stuff.

But while that may have been true for some oil firms in the early 1900s, in the 21st century, nothing could be further from the truth. Big oil in 2026 does not like uncertainty. It prefers to invest in what it knows, like plastics and petrochemicals. It does not want to get involved with things as uncertain as Venezuela and green energy.

This idea is backed by my own research on the international oil industry, which shows that large oil companies tend to base their business strategies on long term oil production.

And South American countries play only a minor role in this outlook. Instead, big oil is focused on two key areas: shale oil in the US, and expanding petrochemical production in Asia.

The low cost of shale oil extraction gives it significant cost advantages as a raw material for refineries, while Asia’s growing share of global manufacturing provides a growth market for petrochemicals.

This in turn is linked to oil companies seeking to exploit growing demand for plastics (and lower demand for transport fuels) as part of a clear and long term path to profit. That path is what matters most to oil companies, and Trump’s plan for Venezuela (nor the green transition for that matter) does not provide it.

The priority of profit is also the reason why governments who want greener or cheaper energy cannot rely on powerful oil companies to help them out.

Strength in oil

Underpinning the oil industry’s extreme strength in the global economy is its captive market, where consumer choice is limited to a small number of producers. In the case of the oil market, those consumers are nation states. And even those with large oil reserves of their own need the companies’ technology to refine it.

Venezuela’s oil reserves were once part of this international captive market. But research has shown that not oil is equal. And the range of products which can be manufactured from a barrel of it depends on a mix of geological characteristics and technical capabilities.

So while Venezuela produces more crude oil then it consumes, it needs to import fuels and petrochemicals to meet the needs of its economy. This is because it lacks the refineries to produce these products domestically.

International companies in the oil refining and services sectors control key technology and intellectual property in this area. Without their participation, Venezuela’s crude will remain unsuitable for international refineries.

This fundamental inequality around access to advanced refining technology means there is little relationship between a country’s oil reserves and whether or not it needs to import oil products.

Big oil may yet decide to stump up the investment required to open Venezuela’s oil industry if suitable guarantees are provided. But such state sponsored access places the risk with tax-payers, when those kind of guarantees could be better deployed in the development of clean energy.

And while society needs large firms to invest, politicians need to direct this investment towards productive opportunities. More cheap oil, petrochemicals and plastics are not the answer.

Governments need to recognise that the problem with oil companies is not that they take too many risks, but rather that they take insufficient risks in areas where investment is needed most. For as my research also shows, the retreat of the oil companies from green investment has been matched by a ramping up of their investment in high emission and heavily polluting plastics and petrochemicals.

Addressing this will not be easy. It will requires strong supranational coordination among states to influence the sector, by increasing the costs of oil production and limiting the construction of new infrastructure. But that’s a very different approach to trying to “unleash” the oil supply of a whole nation.

Damian Tobin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why big oil is not interested in Venezuela – https://theconversation.com/why-big-oil-is-not-interested-in-venezuela-275763