If Psyche has helped you know yourself and live well, join the readers who are sustaining our work by donating to Psyche buff.ly/03cf3cg

We're halfway through our donation drive – the perfect time to join our supporters. Whether you're after a deep dive into a Guide or a quick thought-snack, we curate Psyche to fit into your life psyche.co/donate

This moving and powerful Portrait follows Ervin Staub, a Holocaust survivor turned psychologist who has spent his life examining a simple question with vast consequences: how to be good in bad times and encourage altruism in the face of evil buff.ly/V25ZUvX

Psyche offers you guidance, companionship and inspiration in these challenging times. Our editors seek out experts from a diverse range of fields to share their perspectives on living well. Join our donation drive and help us keep this blend of trusted voices free psyche.co/donate

Psyche’s mission is to freely share the guidance, insights and knowledge of experts from many disciplines and life experiences. To support this mission, we’re launching our donation drive this week – support us in continuing to offer Psyche’s diverse resources for free for everyone psyche.co/donate

Psyche audio helps you better understand yourself and others through expert guides, provocative ideas and personal life stories. Listen now on Apple Podcasts: buff.ly/7VZPFcX And Spotify: buff.ly/FtlgaV7

The personal essay can sometimes get a bad rap – too confessional, too self-involved. But Psyche’s Life Stories editor Alizeh Kohari is here to change your mind: personal essays capture something essential about our shared humanity, finding the universal in the personal psyche.co/life-stories

Psyche articles are now available to listen to on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Listen now! buff.ly/MqeYxAB

What can we learn by taking transcendent UFO stories seriously? A filmmaker takes a leap of faith when he decides to risk ridicule and make a serious film about UFO sightings. Watch the full documentary here buff.ly/t0sD89o

How do we uphold our commitment to publishing trustworthy essays? Aeon’s senior production editor explains the meticulous editorial processes that safeguard our standards, from rigorous fact-checking and testing narrative coherence to clarifying complex ideas without losing nuance buff.ly/dOdEheS

As Seneca said – ‘we are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality’. During Halloween, we play with fear, turning what is often considered a negative experience into a source of fun and amusement. Discover Psyche’s fear week at the link in our bio.

A fresh investigation of vast numbers of young people from around the world has thrown up some surprising results and raised an important question: Is narcissism really on the rise among younger generations? buff.ly/PtP8V2k

In this layered portrait of life on the streets of Los Angeles, strife is interlaced with moments of joy and solidarity. A film directed by Chung Nguyen. buff.ly/6E7qdPX

A gay man’s ethical angst over sexuality and faith transforms into a revelatory experience that lifts the burden and leaves behind lightness and hope. Read the story here: buff.ly/74LpEtL

As a crime reporter, the author wrote about people behind bars. But she learned much more when she befriended an incarcerated writer buff.ly/OL3rvSY

Orgasms are often thought of as ineffable – so what happens when someone attempts to put the experience into words? In Come, the filmmaker Bronwen Parker-Rhodes captures several womentrying to articulate the experience, blending anatomical, metaphorical, and poetic insights buff.ly/m0FcodT

Flirtatious texts are soon forgotten. This Guide from the Psyche archive breaks down how to express your feelings in a beautiful way that will make a lasting impression buff.ly/YckGEFp

An encounter with a psychic medium had a remarkable impact on the author and led her to reconnect with her late mother, sparking intense personal reflections about what is real, what is not and the nature of grief, healing, and connection buff.ly/O89b8H9

Two decades of anorexia obscured who the author was beneath her sickness. Then a stranger saw her. Read this Story of Change here: buff.ly/m1R5fJG

For Aboriginal peoples, knowledge is specific to cultures: what is true and relevant for one might not be so for another. On #InternationalDayoftheWorldsIndigenousPeoples, we honour the knowledge embedded in living landscapes that connects land, memory, and community buff.ly/pp0dSOZ

Feeling like life is speeding up? This week's theme on Psyche is 'go slow', featuring a mix of new content and archive gems. Take a breath and explore more on Psyche: buff.ly/egCoHHa buff.ly/yzkCxzK buff.ly/K6olHpI buff.ly/TtAcqFJ buff.ly/J333Kq8

A wolf encounter in the Canadian Arctic taught the author a profound lesson in authentic living and how confronting vulnerability in the wild can redefine your understanding of responsibility buff.ly/SmyhjnU

‘Our pursuits of the good – conceived as freedom from suffering – are doomed to tragic outcomes‘ Nietzsche's philosophy on human entanglement with nature challenges our long-held notions of exceptionalism buff.ly/3Q1jyI0

Research suggests that people who express their gratitude more effusively are judged as lower status and less influential. Read this Note to Self here buff.ly/VmfuwRE

Swapping office work for the herding life, Adham finds a sublime freedom in the rugged terrain of the Pyrenees. Watch this Psyche-exclusive short documentary directed by Jake Joynson here: buff.ly/BOQtGwB

Scientists offer a new way to compare and contrast social ties – like a ‘Big Five’ for relationships. What are those five dimensions? buff.ly/LSeYjQ5

Two puny words shoulder a substantial, if diffuse, philosophical outlook: ‘as if’. The phrase captures the latent but necessary hopes that get us over the obstacles to living well buff.ly/eRA76Nt

In this Animation, the psychologist Alison Gopnik makes a case that caring for the vulnerable puts us in touch with our deepest humanity @alisongopnik.bsky.social buff.ly/ikQ2g1E

‘My reservations about quitting were just a product of a brain seeking spikes of dopamine’ Read Michael’s reflections on hitting rock bottom, the long road to recovery, and the clarity, creativity and connection he found beyond alcohol here: buff.ly/S5kjTjh

This little-known story of the philosopher and the president is remarkable: it is perhaps the most important diplomatic intervention by a philosopher, and a reminder, as if we needed it, of the extraordinary consequences of unlikely meetings buff.ly/ckC9Ghc