'A must-read... Fascinating' JO BRAND

We need to rethink the conversation around mental health - psychologist Lucy Foulkes explores how and why.

How do mental health problems arise?
How do we distinguish between the 'normal' challenges of modern life and actual illness?
Is society really experiencing a new mental health crisis?

In this urgently needed book, psychologist Lucy Foulkes investigates what we know about mental illness - and shines a light on what we don't. It offers a profound new approach to how we think, talk and help when it comes to mental health.

(Previously published in 2021 in hardback under the title Losing Our Minds.)

'Captivating...engaging and lucid' Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

'Clear-headed, compassionate and, ultimately, optimistic' Mark Haddon

'Thorough, wise...much needed' Mark Rice-Oxley

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 an academic psychologist. She is currently a Prudence Trust Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, where she leads research into adolescent mental health and social development. She is the author of What Mental Illness Really Is (and What It Isn't) and has written for the Guardian, New Scientist and Wall Street Journal. Her work has been discussed on BBC 2’s Newsnight and reported in The Times, Economist, New York Times and Atlantic, and she has appeared on BBC Radio 4's All in the Mind and Start the Week.