Is reading War and Peace more helpful than taking Prozac if you're depressed?

As therapeutic reading groups are on the increase and NHS Direct in Wales is sending book prescriptions to patients with mental health problems Karen Brown assesses the effectiveness of bibliotherapy.

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If a man in a white coat told you to give a painful electric shock to an innocent person, would you do it?

In 1961, scientists in the USA conducted experiments to measure obedience to authority in an attempt to understand the actions of the German people under Nazi rule.  

They predicted that almost everybody in the States would refuse to obey orders to inflict pain on an unseen victim and they were deeply shocked to discover that more than 62% of the American participants happily obliged, writes Geraldine Royds.

Another big bang from about 400 years ago.

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'I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered.  But I was not
pleased to read the description in the catalogue: "No good in a bed,
but fine against a wall."'

Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of Franklin Roosevelt, 32nd President of the US)

Few people who heard Greenland politician Aqqaluk Lynge’s impassioned plea for us to fly less to protect his homeland from environmental disaster, can fail to have been moved, writes Julia Stephenson

'You may say the expansion of London Stansted Airport will play only a small part in increasing climate change but everyone can say that about almost everything they do. It is an excuse for doing nothing. The result of that attitude would be catastrophic.'

 Julie Burchill argues that volunteering is a more effective cure for depression than therapy

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