What Mental Illness Really Is… (and what it isn’t)

This wonderful book offers an amazingly readable and cutting-edge scientific account of mental illness – Matthew Broome, Professor of Psychiatry and Youth Mental Health
Beautifully written and compassionate… This book is needed urgently so that we can examine fears of a tsunami of mental health problems… Anyone touched by such problems will find much helpful practical advice – Uta Frith, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Development
A guide to the start of the art in the science of mental illness…lucidly written and builds its case with a winning combination of care and concision… This impressive book is a great starting point for well-informed conversations on the issue – Professor Thomas Dixon, History of Emotions blog
Everyone who either lives with or knows someone with mental illness should read it. In other words, everyone should read it – Essi Viding, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology
This beautifully written and compassionate account, backed by state-of-the-art scientific evidence, delivers an important message: there is far more variation in the state of our mental health and far more complexity in the diagnosis of mental illness than we tend to believe. This book is needed urgently so that we can examine fears of a tsunami of mental health problems, especially in the light of the current pandemic. Anyone touched by such problems will find much helpful practical advice – Uta Frith, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Development
This wonderful book offers an amazingly readable and cutting-edge scientific account of mental illness and its relation to the stresses many young adults experience as well as the language we use to talk about ourselves – Matthew Broome, Professor of Psychiatry and Youth Mental Health
Losing Our Minds communicates complex research findings on mental illness with unusual clarity and compassion, and without oversimplifying or shying away from the difficult questions. Everyone who either lives with or knows someone with mental illness should read it. In other words, everyone should read it – Essi Viding, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology
A broad and refreshingly non-political survey … [that] highlight[s] several difficult truths about the reality of mental illness … Foulkes carefully lays out what we know … Some of her findings are surprising … Foulkes is not interested in grand generational diagnoses. She argues that while everyone may suffer from the symptoms of mental distress, only a minority experience mental illness … Foulkes’s message is a cry for nuance and complexity. As she writes, ‘all forms of psychological distress are the price we pay for being alive.’ While those who are seriously unwell have a right to professional attention, for the rest of us, an awareness of this truth may be just the treatment we need – Nicholas Harris * Prospect *
A totally counter culture take … kind and clear-thinking – Helen Rumbelow
A guide to the state of the art in the science of mental illness … lucidly written and builds its case with a winning combination of care and concision … this impressive book is a great starting point for well-informed conversations on the issue. It speaks with calm, rational humanity about why we should hesitate before medicalising our emotions – Professor Thomas Dixon, History of Emotions blog

Dr. Lucy Foulkes is a psychologist who researches mental health and social development in adolescence. She is currently a senior research fellow at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, an honorary lecturer in psychology at UCL, and a research fellow at Oxford University. She is the author of What Mental Illness Really Is (and What It Isn’t) and has written for the Guardian, New Scientist, and numerous other publications, and has been interviewed in The Times, VICE, and on the BBC Radio 4’s All in the Mind and Start the Week.

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