Why It Moves Us

Abstract George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) is among the most psychologically sophisticated novels of the twentieth century, depicting a totalitarian regime whose power rests not on brute force alone but on the systematic colonization of the human mind. This paper offers a comprehensive psychological analysis of the novel, examining seven interlocking dimensions: the mechanics of totalitarian control as illuminated by Foucauldian surveillance theory and Milgram's obe

The film Steve  (Mielants, 2025), available on Netflix and adapted from Max Porter's short novel Shy  (2023), offers a rare and clinically relevant portrayal of some of the most pressing challenges in contemporary mental health: burnout among care professionals, moral injury in underfunded institutional settings, atypical presentations of adolescent male depression, and the phenomena of mirroring and countertransference in caregiving relationships. Through an analysis of the

Article written in collaboration with @valentina.salerno.psi Identity as a relational construction Personal identity is often thought of as something internal, stable, and autonomous, but clinical psychology and psychoanalysis show how it is the result of a deeply relational process. From the earliest stages of life, the Self is not constituted in isolation, but rather within an intersubjective field in which the gaze of the other plays a foundational function. Winnicott (196

Introduction Daniel Keyes's book The Minds of Billy Milligan (The Minds of Billy Milligan) represents one of the most controversial and controversial texts in the history of clinical and forensic psychology. Published in 1981, the volume tells the true story of Billy Milligan, the first American defendant acquitted of insanity based on a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder (DID), then known as multiple personality disorder. Keyes's work lies in liminal territory betwe

Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko  remains one of cinema’s most haunting and multifaceted explorations of the boundary between psychosis, existential crisis, and metaphysical possibility. The film invites not only speculative fan-interpretation, but grounded psychological reflection: its protagonist (Donnie Darko) inhabits a world in which time, causality, self, and the world itself fracture — a fitting metaphor for major psychopathology, yet also a poetic allegory of meaning-maki

Psychological Time: Elasticity, Perception, and Subjective Experience In his iconic painting The Persistence of Memory  (1931), Salvador Dalí explores the fluid nature of time through his famous “soft watches.” This visual distortion corresponds closely to what cognitive psychology describes as psychological time , the time as it is perceived , not measured. Research on temporal perception shows that humans do not experience time as a stable, uniform line but as a highly vari

Co-written with @ LIBRIEXPRESS Positive psychology was born with a clear intent: to understand what allows humans to function best, going beyond simply reducing symptoms to explore the breeding ground for personal growth. As Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000) point out, the goal is not to ignore suffering, but to integrate the complexity of the human experience, including positive emotions, nurturing relationships, a sense of purpose, and vitality. From this perspective, ha

Introduction In the vast landscape of autism literature, few books capture both the raw reality of lived experience and the nuanced complexities of the condition as powerfully as Julian and I by Vanessa Stelling. This is not a clinical manual, nor a simplistic tale of triumph—it is an honest chronicle of a mother navigating uncharted territory: the sudden regression of her child into autism. For parents, educators, and mental health professionals alike, this book offers a le