Sometimes we feel so deeply that it causes physical discomfort, a visceral reaction that transports emotion to the body’s core. Immense joy takes the breath away; an awful sight induces nausea. An intense form of this relationship between mind and body is called “conversion disorder, ” in which stress or depression manifest as convulsing limbs, blindness, paralysis. The emotional condition converts into a physical one. Physicians used to call this strange psychologically driven illness “hysteria.” Stranger still is mass hysteria, This story is from Kinfolk Issue Thirty-Four Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 50 Close Knit Close Knit: Meet the weavers keeping traditional Egyptian tapestrymaking alive. Arts & Culture Issue 50 The Old Gays Inside a Californian TikTok “content house” of a very different stripe. Arts & Culture Issue 50 New Roots The Palestinian art and agriculture collective sowing seeds of community. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Angela Trimbur An all-out tour de force. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Peace & Quiet In the UK, a centuries-old Quaker meeting house encourages quiet reflection. Arts & Culture Issue 50 Free Wheelers On the road with London’s Velociposse Cycling Club.
Arts & Culture Issue 50 Close Knit Close Knit: Meet the weavers keeping traditional Egyptian tapestrymaking alive.
Arts & Culture Issue 50 The Old Gays Inside a Californian TikTok “content house” of a very different stripe.
Arts & Culture Issue 50 New Roots The Palestinian art and agriculture collective sowing seeds of community.
Arts & Culture Issue 50 Peace & Quiet In the UK, a centuries-old Quaker meeting house encourages quiet reflection.
