Social

I walked into my boss’s office. For several years I’d been trying to manage a full-time job on part-time hours, complete my master's degree, support my husband in his career and run a busy home occupied by three children. The previous month, a friend had died tragically and unexpectedly, and in the previous week several major work and family crises had been bouncing...

At the age of 27, for the first time in my life, I worried that time was passing too fast. For the next few years, the speed with which most of my friends were getting married was the next source of concern.

"Man is born free but everywhere is in chains." (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)

Even after the World Health Organization replaced the term social distancing with physical distancing, people are still feeling the effects of social distancing.

The fight against the new coronavirus is accompanied by several parallel fights, including the fight against fear, which can turn into panic—one of the most dangerous social phenomena.

Meetings with people and books have shaped the space for a sometimes unequal, sometimes unsatisfactory growth between the human I am and the one I would like to be.

Just two and a half decades ago, depression and other mental health disorders were virtually unknown among children and were often ignored.

I’ll never be able to separate the memories of childhood from that of books. They intertwine like colours in fabrics, in a jumble of real and fantastical, bitter and sweet, joy and guilt.

Twenty-first century people are bombarded with fiction about romance.

When I was young, I wanted to be the first person to set foot on Mars.

Graeme Frauenfelder, 56, didn’t realise until he was an adult that he was the victim of a mental health problem that affects 1.8 per cent of Australian males and 1.7 per cent of females. He’d assumed that his feelings were typical of any kid. But Graeme’s problem has a name. It’s bipolar disorder, which used to be called manic depression. Bipolar disorder is...

The promise to live with our loved one “until death do us part" has gradually lost its meaning. Today, it is considered unrealistic to get married with the idea that the relationship will last forever.

Sexual abuse follows a predictable pattern, but unfortunately this pattern is not widely known. It is essential to recognise its early signs and profound effects for both protection and healing.

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful"—Samuel Johnson.

Historically, living together has been a response to economic and security needs rather than a virtue. However, history cannot fully explain the isolation experienced by the current generation.