Finding paradise in a coma

On an autumn day in 1957 Alison was riding her Vespa south from her parent’s home in the Scottish highlands, the wind flapping her headscarf and, to her left, the mercurial waters of the Cromarty Firth blinking through the trees, when suddenly she found herself gazing across the shore into paradise

The dying agnostic

A dying man is depressed, so he gets prescribed anti-depressants. Is this absurd? A strong dose of belief might have the same effect

The princess and the witch

Was Julia’s manic depression cured in the fire that destroyed her house and nearly killed her?

The baby who was badly put together

Badly put together baby Sonia’s experience of adult life was one of not quite finding a place — caught in a social, employment, therapeutic and diagnostic limbo

Beautiful Madness

Girl Psychiatric drugs restored Nia’s sanity and destroyed her beauty, and she doesn’t mind

Tale of the three alcoholics

Mick, John and Leonard are all chronic alcoholics. Are Are they just “addictive personalities,” or can they make up their own minds?

Phantom paralysis

A Cambodian woman is paralysed just like her husband, but she has not had a stroke. She is in the grey region of “conversion disorders?”