Interview with Lucy Foulkes, author of What Mental Illness Really Is… (and what it isn’t)
Lucy Foulkes, author of What Mental Illness Really Is… (and what it isn’t) recommends some excellent books! Before jumping into the interview, please check out Lucy's book:
Review from Book Depository:
We need to rethink the conversation around mental health - psychologist Lucy Foulkes explores how and why.
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What Mental Illness Really Is… (and what it isn’t)
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.
Buy On:
Easons €13.99
Book Depository €9.77
Waterstones £9.99
Wordery $11.11
Q. Do you have a favourite smart thinking book (and why that book)?
Deep Work by Cal Newport really changed how I think about work and how I structure and make decisions about my working day. His premise is that work can be dividing into shallow work (eg emails) and deep work (the stuff that requires effort, like writing and programming), and that your professional and financial worth is all about how much room you can make for deep work. It’s changed my relationship with email (don’t have it open, only do emails at the end of the day) and made me structure my days around maximising time for deep work.
Review from Book Depository: 'Deep work' is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. Coined by author and professor Cal Newport on his popular blog Study Hacks, deep work will make you better at what you do, let you achieve more in less time and provide the sense of true fulfilment that comes from the mastery of a skill. In short, deep work is like a superpower in our increasingly competitive economy.
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Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, DEEP WORK takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories -- from Carl Jung building a stone tower in the woods to focus his mind, to a social media pioneer buying a round-trip business class ticket to Tokyo to write a book free from distraction in the air -- and surprising suggestions, such as the claim that most serious professionals should quit social media and that you should practice being bored.
Buy On:
Easons €17.31
Book Depository €13.40
Waterstones £14.99
Wordery $15.75
Q. What's the most recent smart thinking book you've read (and how would you rate it)?
The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris is excellent as an alternative approach to understanding mental health problems. It’s based on acceptance and commitment therapy, which focuses on changing your relationship with anxiety/low mood etc, rather than trying to fight them/solve them. It’s a great antidote to the current message that all negative feelings need to be confronted and destroyed as soon as they appear.
Review From Book Depository:
Do you ever feel worried, miserable or unfulfilled - yet put on a happy face and pretend everything's fine? You are not alone. Stress, anxiety, depression and low self-esteem are all around. Research suggests that many of us get caught in a psychological trap, a vicious circle in which the more we strive for happiness, the more it eludes us.
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The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living: A Guide to ACT
Fortunately, there is a way to escape from the 'Happiness Trap', a ground-breaking new approach based on mindfulness skills. Using the six principles of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Russ Harris can help you to:
* Reduce stress and worry
* Rise above fear, doubt and insecurity
* Handle painful thoughts and feelings more effectively
* Break self-defeating habits
* Improve performance and find fulfilment in your work
* Build more satisfying relationships
* Create a richer and more meaningful life
Buy On:
Easons €10.49
Book Depository €9.41
Waterstones £12.99
Wordery $10.04
Q. Do you have a favourite childhood book?
I didn’t read much as a child or teenager, but when I was 17 I read Norwegian Wood by Murakami, and I’m yet to find a book with quite the same emotional impact. It’s a love story, but it’s also about friendship and depression and growing up, and is just so beautifully written.
Review From Book Depository:
When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marches into his life and he has to choose between the future and the past.
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Norwegian Wood
Buy On:
Easons €9.49
Book Depository €10.99
Waterstones £9.99
Wordery $11.05
Q. Do you prefer reading on paper, Kindle or listening to an audiobook?
Real books, always. I like to see stuff on a page, I visualise and remember it that way.
Q. Do you have a favourite bookshop (and why that shop)?
There’s a bookshop called Liberia near Spitalfields market which is cool. Yellow bookshelves, lots of seats and interesting books. Oh and you can take your dog, and they fell in love with my mini dachshund when I took him there — which may be biasing my answer here…
Many thanks to Lucy for recommending some excellent books! Please don't forget to check out Lucy's book What Mental Illness Really Is… (and what it isn’t).
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Vintage Publishing (What Mental Illness Really Is, Norwegian Wood), Little, Brown Book Group (Deep Work, The Happiness Trap)
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