The Chinese Psyche
The article examines how China’s education system and the pandemic have exposed a fragile mental‑health infrastructure, where schools treat psychology as a teaching tool rather than a professional service. A rapid, largely unregulated expansion of online therapy platforms has created a market flooded with under‑qualified practitioners who chase platform rankings over treatment quality. Foreign experts and niche schools of thought, such as Lacanian psychoanalysis, struggle to gain footholds amid a culture that prizes authority, efficiency, and quick certifications. The piece highlights the systemic challenges that leave families scrambling for effective care while the industry races ahead without adequate oversight.
Always Late
The Granta essay “Always Late” explores the author’s chronic tardiness as a coping mechanism that offers a deceptive sense of freedom. Through therapy, the writer confronts the underlying fear of self‑evaluation and discovers that lateness masks deeper anxieties about identity....
My Mother Told Me Monsters Do Not Exist
The Granta essay "My Mother Told Me Monsters Do Not Exist" blends a night‑time horror vignette with the author’s struggle to finish a massive manuscript. A grotesque, ambiguous creature appears in the writer’s apartment, prompting a visceral mix of fear,...
Podcast | Helle Helle
Granta’s latest podcast episode features acclaimed Danish author Helle Helle, whose novels and short‑story collections have been translated into twenty‑four languages. Her newest English‑language novel, they, was released this year, and six of her short stories will appear in the upcoming...
Running Behind
The essay "Running Behind" uses a personal narrative to examine chronic lateness as a psychological symptom rather than mere sloppiness. The author links habitual tardiness to cultural humor, passive resistance, and possible untreated ADHD, revealing deeper unconscious conflicts. Therapy sessions...
Crews Control
Frederick Crews’s 2017 magnum opus, *Freud: The Making of an Illusion*, delivers a sweeping 666‑page indictment of Sigmund Freud’s life and the myth he cultivated. Drawing on newly released correspondence and archival material, Crews portrays Freud as an ambitious, insecure...
Podcast | Christopher Bollas
Granta’s latest podcast features Christopher Bollas, a pre‑eminent psychoanalytic theorist, discussing his forthcoming books *Essential Aloneness* and *Streams of Consciousness*. In the conversation, Bollas examines how psychoanalysis intersects with literature, the role of daydreams in uncovering unconscious material, and whether...