Interview with Ben Cave, author of What We Fear Most: Reflections on a Life in Forensic Psychiatry
Ben Cave, author of What We Fear Most: Reflections on a Life in Forensic Psychiatry recommends some interesting books! Before jumping into the interview, please check out Ben's book:
Review from Book Depository:
Meet Dr Ben Cave. For over thirty years he has worked in prisons and secure hospitals diagnosing and treating some of the most troubled men and women in society. A lifetime of care takes us from delusional disorders to schizophrenia, steroid abuse to drug dependency, personality disorders to paedophilia, and depression so severe a mother can kill her own baby.
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What We Fear Most: Reflections on a Life in Forensic Psychiatry
These are the human stories behind the headlines. The reality of a life spent working with patients with the severest mental health disorders. The tragic and often frightening truth about what happens behind closed doors.
Dr Ben Cave takes us on a journey to the heart of this highly emotive environment, putting himself under the microscope as well as his patients. In the process, he allows us to share what they have taught each other, and how it has changed them. To share the psychological battle scars that come with a career on the frontline of our health service. To learn about the brilliant mental health nurses for whom physical injury and verbal abuse are a daily hazard. To learn about ourselves, and what we fear most.
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Q. Do you have a favourite smart thinking book (and why that book)?
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene. It makes you think about evolution and selection, altruism and social behaviour. Mostly though, it reminds me why I loved Kurt Vonnegut satirising the human condition all those years ago, as I was forming my views about religion and science.
Review From Book Depository
As influential today as when it was first published, The Selfish Gene has become a classic exposition of evolutionary thought. Professor Dawkins articulates a gene's eye view of evolution - a view giving centre stage to these persistent units of information, and in which organisms can be seen as vehicles for their replication. This imaginative, powerful, and stylistically brilliant work not only brought the insights of Neo-Darwinism to a wide audience, but galvanized the biology
community, generating much debate and stimulating whole new areas of research. Forty years later, its insights remain as relevant today as on the day it was published.
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The Selfish Gene
This 40th anniversary edition includes a new epilogue from the author discussing the continuing relevance of these ideas in evolutionary biology today, as well as the original prefaces and foreword, and extracts from early reviews.
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Q. What's the most recent smart thinking book you've read (and how would you rate it)?
Ten Types of Human by Dexter Dias. Sadly I didn’t get on with it. I wanted to, I liked the ideas, but I found myself thrown around like a ship at sea, bashed by waves from all directions and eventually, and rather gratefully, going down with the ship. I’m trying Sapiens next.
Review From Book Depository:
We all have ten types of human in our head.
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The Ten Types of Human: Who We Are and Who We Can Be
They're the people we become when we face life's most difficult decisions. We want to believe there are things we would always do - or things we never would. But how can we be sure? What are our limits? Do we have limits?
The Ten Types of Human is a pioneering examination of human nature. It looks at the best and worst that human beings are capable of, and asks why. It explores the frontiers of the human experience, uncovering the forces that shape our thoughts and actions in extreme situations.
From courtrooms to civil wars, from Columbus to child soldiers, Dexter Dias takes us on a globe-spanning journey in search of answers, touching on the lives of some truly exceptional people.
Combining cutting-edge neuroscience, social psychology and human rights research, The Ten Types of Human is a provocative map to our hidden selves. It provides a new understanding of who we are - and who we can be.
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Q. Do you have a favourite childhood book?
From my own childhood it was The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien - it was the first ‘proper’ book I read, bought with my pocket money from a little book store in Stockport. I think it was called Hewitts.
Review From Book Depository: The Hobbit is a tale of high adventure, undertaken by a company of dwarves in search of dragon-guarded gold. A reluctant partner in this perilous quest is Bilbo Baggins, a comfort-loving unambitious hobbit, who surprises even himself by his resourcefulness and skill as a burglar.
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The Hobbit
Encounters with trolls, goblins, dwarves, elves and giant spiders, conversations with the dragon, Smaug, and a rather unwilling presence at the Battle of Five Armies are just some of the adventures that befall Bilbo. Bilbo Baggins has taken his place among the ranks of the immortals of children's fiction. Written by Professor Tolkien for his own children, The Hobbit met with instant critical acclaim when published.
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Easons €8.79
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Q. Do you prefer reading on paper, Kindle or listening to an audiobook?
Always paper. A book has letters not pixels and each one has a feel to it. Audiobooks on long journeys in the car. The best was A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket read by Tim Curry. My children were enraptured by it from the Alps to Calais. Me too. And it was a compelling reason to have ‘What We Fear Most’ read by a wonderful actor (David Rintoul) rather than doing it myself.
Q. Do you have a favourite bookshop (and why that shop)?
Daunt Books in Marylebone. I had my launch party there and they could not have been more wonderful. And my wife likes the bags!
Many thanks to Ben for recommending some fascinating books! Please don't forget to check out Ben's book The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World.
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Orion Publishing Co (What We Fear Most), Oxford University Press (The Selfish Gene), Cornerstone (The Ten Types of Human), HarperCollins Publishers (The Hobbit).
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