Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Horatio Clare

An Improbable Psychiatrist by Rebecca Lawrence review – doctor turned patient

A woman attends a therapy session.
A woman attends a therapy session. Photograph: Science Photo Library/Alamy

This brave memoir by a psychiatrist who has severe mental illness shows how lost and confused psychiatry and its patients have become. Future readers will be amazed, we must hope, by how poorly we understood and how ineffectively we treated the troubled mind.

Rebecca Lawrence has experienced recurrent and horrendous depressions throughout her life, mixed with periods of elevated mood. Despite multiple breakdowns and admissions to hospital, her determination and resilience, alongside the support of her remarkable husband, Richard, enable her to survive and prosper, becoming a consultant psychiatrist and mother of three.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.