Out of Her Mind

For centuries so called 'difficult women' have been labelled as 'hysterical' and 'out of their minds'. Today they wait longer for health diagnoses, often being told it's 'all in their heads'. Although healthcare systems are overburdened, why are women the first to feel the effects of this? Why is it so hard for women to find the kind of help they need? Why is no one listening to them? And why have so many lost faith in mental healthcare? Drawing on the lived experiences of women, alongside expert commentators, recent history, current events, and her own personal and professional experience, Dr Linda Gask explores women's mental healthcare today. In doing so she confronts her role as a psychiatrist, recalling experiences treating women and as a woman who has received mental healthcare, illustrating the dire need for more change, faster. Women can't all be out of their minds.

Linda Gask is Emerita Professor of Primary Care Psychiatry at the University of Manchester. Now retired, she has been the Royal College of Psychiatrists Presidential Lead for Primary Care and has written about her own experience of mental illness in two memoirs, The Other Side of Silence and Finding True North. A lifelong feminist, she has an international reputation in the fields of primary care mental health and doctor-patient communication and has been an advisor to the World Health Organisation.

Introduction: Are We Out of Our Minds?; 1. Growing up a Girl; 2. Family Life; 3. The Art of Starvation; 4. The Costs of Fertility; 5. Women's Work; 6. Unheard, Ignored, Entrapped?; 7. Where Gender, Sex and Mental Health Collide; 8. Survivors of Male Violence; 9. Locked Away; 10. Borderline; 11. Failed by Mental Health Care; 12. Written Off Too Soon; Conclusion; Acknowledgements; Notes; Index.