How do our earliest emotional and sensory experiences shape not only the developing brain but also the deepest layers of our subjectivity, influencing our capacity to feel, think and create? Where connection begins: early interactions and the birth of the self Childhood forms the foundational platform on which the psyche develops. During these early years,…
Addiction is often described as a loss of control, a slow erosion of the individual’s capacity to choose. However, long before the mind recognizes what is happening, the body registers the shift. Before words label the disorder and before awareness grasps its depth, the body tightens, alters its rhythm and begins to falter. It becomes…
For nearly half a century, psychedelics were associated with cultural excesses, fringe experimentation or mystical accounts from eccentric writers. Contemporary science, however, tells a very different story. Over the past decade, leading research institutions such as Imperial College London, Johns Hopkins University and NYU Langone have returned to this field. Emerging results suggest that one…
The story of opium does not begin in the smoky dens of Canton but far earlier, in the fertile valleys of the ancient Fertile Crescent, where the Sumerians cultivated the opium poppy more than 5,000 years ago. Known as the “plant of joy,” it served medicinal purposes among Egyptians, Persians and Greeks. Over the centuries,…
Attachment begins long before speech emerges. It is woven through daily bodily exchanges, a shared gaze, a hand resting on the skin, a breathing rhythm that slowly synchronizes over the first years of life. Before language and before the child can shape any form of self narrative, there is skin to skin contact, the cadence…
Forgetting a painful memory on purpose has been a dream as old as memory itself. Since antiquity, humanity has sought in forgetfulness a way to ease its inner wounds. In Greek mythology, the souls descending into the Underworld would drink the waters of the river Lethe to erase their memories before being reborn into a…
Born from the need to live together, the human brain thinks, feels, and acts in constant relation with others. Shaped by social life, it deciphers intentions, shares emotions, and continuously adjusts its behavior to those around it. This vast network of interactions—what researchers call the social brain—forms the biological foundation of empathy, cooperation, and mutual…
For a long time marginalized or dismissed as mere cliché, over-efficiency—whether manifesting as high intellectual potential (HIP) or very high intellectual potential (VHIP)—is now receiving renewed scientific attention. Recent research in cognitive neuroscience, neuro-psychoanalysis and clinical psychology converge to show that it is above all an exceptional brain architecture, rather than a pathological state or…
Picture a seven-year-old seated at a school desk. Classmates have already filled two lines in cursive; he is still wrestling with the first letter of his name. The pen trembles, the page crumples, a bead of sweat forms on his forehead. What is effortless for others becomes a struggle for him. This child is not…
Richard Branson was already leading a global business empire when he discovered that he had lived his entire life with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The British entrepreneur and founder of the Virgin Group has often described himself as a restless student—unable to concentrate for more than a few minutes, yet overflowing with ideas and…