Invisibilia

NPR
Unseeable forces control human behavior and shape our ideas, beliefs, and assumptions. Invisibilia—Latin for invisible things—fuses narrative storytelling with science that will make you see your own life differently.
Invisibilia Takes Control
Trailer1 min 40 sec

All Episodes

In their final episode, Invisibilia searches for the right way to say goodbye.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Apr 2023

50 min 10 sec

Sometimes the holidays are filled with the people you love. Other times, they're marked by an absence. In this special holiday episode, new Code Switch co-host and former Invisibilia producer B.A. Parker tells a story about family, loss and preserving memories before it's too late. Then Parker joins Kia and Yowei to reflect on the making of this story, and what it means to her now.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Dec 2022

32 min 45 sec

Bad bosses. Obnoxious coworkers. Unfair compensation. There are so many reasons people feel disempowered in the workplace. But how can our feelings about power enable or disrupt the larger dynamics we hate at work? This week, Yowei Shaw seeks answers from a power researcher and a union organizer.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

E

Oct 2022

34 min 57 sec

After months of working from home and retreating from the world, Kia Miakka Natisse is stuck - in her house, and in her head. In an attempt to break out of the funk, she's searching for wisdom at the bottom of the ocean with South Africa's first Black freediving instructor, Zandile Ndhlovu.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Sep 2022

32 min 47 sec

In San Jose, California, a community clinic was stumped as to why their clients were seeing ghosts. This week, a story about grappling with ghosts of our past and one clinic's attempt to heal intergenerational trauma.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Sep 2022

47 min 38 sec

This week on Invisibilia, could the rebrand of a familiar pill open up a new way to control fertility in a post-Roe America?Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Sep 2022

27 min 51 sec

Alex is a comic who feels perfectly comfortable commanding a packed, rowdy audience, but consistently submits to what other people want in everyday life. This week, a look at how uncomfortable feelings about power can backfire on ourselves and the people we love. We get the help of a power expert - a dominatrix - to untangle Alex's power dynamics, and find out what it takes to treat a power allergy.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

E

Sep 2022

41 min 44 sec

2022 feels like walking a tightrope. We're grappling with control of our bodies, our time, the direction of our country - while trying to not spin out and just doomscroll. So this season, Invisibilia takes on control. The narratives we have about what's in or out of our control. Invisible tools of control. The crutches we use to FEEL in control but that might not be helping.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Sep 2022

1 min 40 sec

Would you ever consider going to therapy with a friend?Two best friends who call themselves brothers were drifting apart, so they asked psychotherapist Esther Perel to help — and we listened in. This episode was recorded in collaboration with Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel and a companion episode can be heard on her podcast.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

E

Nov 2021

38 min 25 sec

Sh*t happens. So why is it so hard to talk about? This week, the ways that poop divides and binds us in our friendships.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

E

Oct 2021

43 min 28 sec

A lot of us think that it's a bad idea to get physical with friends. We worry it'll get messy, maybe even ruin the friendship. But if physical intimacy between friends weren't so taboo, what could our friendships look like? In this episode, we explore the gray zone of sex and friendship, following a man who deliberately kept his friendships with women hazy and now wants to apologize, and a pair of BFFs who became close through sex.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

E

Oct 2021

49 min 1 sec

You know the old saying--keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But what if you can't tell the difference? In this episode, the story of two friends who got caught up in a Top Secret operation that tested their assumptions about trust, betrayal, loyalty, and power.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

E

Sep 2021

34 min 50 sec