Cover Image: Losing Our Minds

Losing Our Minds

Pub Date:   |   Archive Date:

Member Reviews

I enjoyed the narrator while reading this book. However, the information provided wasn’t helpful enough for me to indulge in

Was this review helpful?

This book is like therapy. I remember listening to this book in the dark in my room crying. Especially during the parts about anxiety and ocd. This might sound cliche, but a lot of times I feel like no-one understands me, especially my family and even my doctors at times. But this book felt so healing. Not going to lie I had to break up this book into chunks because it legitimately broke me and then put me back together. I hate self help or anything remotely related so myself but this book is just different.

Was this review helpful?

Not sure how I feel about this book exactly… I think this book has an audience, just not sure it was me. Just overall a little condescending and felt inauthentic at times.

Was this review helpful?

Losing Our Minds is a wonderful overview of the many facets that contribute to mental health and mental illness. I believe it’s written for a younger generation which is so important. Dr. Foulkes does a thorough job of teasing out the various pieces of modern life that add to the rise of mental illness. As a counseling student who struggles a bit with the need for diagnosis I really appreciated the intentionality in each chapter that emphasizes that each person’s experience of mental illness is so personal and is often a reaction to the world we live in.

Was this review helpful?

Losing Our Minds brought a nuanced and complex look at the conversation surrounding mental health. Dr. Lucy Foulkes, is a psychologist and educator who uses her lens to take a better look at awareness of mental heath issues vs. an actual DSM-5 diagnosis.

Her evidence based research was thoughtfully shared and this book gave me so much to think about. While it was a little dry at times, the idea that we are very easily able to discuss mental health in today's society, yet understanding the complexities of over diagnosis, self diagnosis and and implement long term treatment besides just medication (helpful but only one part of the puzzle) is still quite misunderstood.

This perspective was thoughtfully presented and I will be thinking about this one for a long time. Foulkes narration was well done and I enjoyed listening to this non-fiction read.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and MacMillan Audio for my free review copies.

Was this review helpful?

Why did I listen to Losing Our Minds?
Losing Our Minds was available on Netgalley as an audiobook. With my background in psychology, I was intrigued by the topic at hand. As I have also been taking care of my own mental health, I was curious for that reason as well. I was curious to see this challenges which the author believes is involved with defining mental illness.

What's the story here?
Lucy Foulkes is a psychologist and educator from England. In Losing Our Minds, she questions the public awareness of mental illness. She is concerned that the understanding of mental illness is not as far along as the awareness within society. Using scientific and clinical research, the author argues that the real question that needs answering is: what should be perceived as "normal" with in society and what is actual mental illness? The author argues that the widespread misunderstanding of mental illness and limited resources impact the prevalence of mental illness within present day society.

How did I like Losing Our Minds?
I found Losing Our Minds presented an interesting argument regarding increased prevalence and awareness of mental illness. There is concern that the current climate may actually be doing more harm that good. By promoting the characteristics of mental illness, there is a chance that those who actually have mental illness are not being treated properly and their mental illness diagnosis is not seen as legitimate. There is also a concern of self diagnosis from this over awareness - and with this self diagnosis comes the possibility of over medication and the overuse of already limited resources.

This is a highly debated topic and honestly there is no real answer to the questions that are brought up throughout the book. I found everything that was brought up was very thought provoking. The use of scholar articles allowed these arguments to be debated. Is there is an overexposure of mental health concerns? Possibly but this is not a black and white question and answer. Knowledge regarding mental illness is crucial in ability to provide people with the guidance that they are looking for. This book is very nuanced way of the beginning that type of conversation.

How was the narration?
Losing Our Minds is narrated by author Lucy Foulkes and is approximately 7 and a half hours in length. I listened to it at 1.5 speed and found it easy to understand. I'm not sure if my background in psychology helped with this or not but, I think that the arguments were presented in the simplest of forms. Having the book read by the author that has these questions regarding mental illness was good because it brought a sense of these issues being personal to her. Given that she is from England, she has a English accent which I found to be so soothing. I found myself nodding along as she attempted to answer these black and white questions.

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Was this review helpful?

⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

A thorough discussion of mental illness given through an evidence-based lens. I particularly found the chapters on the effects of social media and the Covid 19 pandemic to be especially thought provoking. While the author is based in the UK and thus the statistics are associated with the people in that region, the overarching themes can be applied worldwide. My only qualm is that I found the way in which the material was presented to be dry and un-engaging at times.

Thank you NetGalley, the author, and MacMillan Audio for a copy of this audiobook in exchange for an honest review!

Was this review helpful?

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Great read, took my time listening to this one, this is one of the better self help books ive read imo. 4.5.

Was this review helpful?

The theme of this book is "IT IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT! THE BRAIN IS COMPLICATED AND MENTAL ILLNESS IS COMPLICATED AND WE BOTH NEED MORE AND BETTER THERAPY AND THERAPISTS AND TO NOT OVER DIAGNOSE!" And I am in full support of that thesis. But the problem with complexity is that people don't like it. In some ways the complexity of the brain and the emergent phenomena of thinking, feeling, behaving are beyond our ability to grasp in totality, and what's worse, nuance makes life harder and more difficult and we in many (most?) cases don't want that. So it makes this book feel a bit like a polemic aimed in all directions, both at the limitations of our current diagnostic model for mental illness, the wrongness of those who want to stigmatize or deny the ways our brans/minds can go wrong, and those who may not want to admit that calls for awareness and acceptance can have downsides (especially when mental health providers are underpaid and undervalued).

Was this review helpful?

This book brought something wonderful to the conversation around mental health: context and nuance. There’s a lot of hype around mental health and the mental health crisis of modern times and Dr. Foulkes does a great job presenting the data in its complexity. Having worked in public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, I realize that people don’t want the messy, complex reality of science but thankfully this book gives us what we need, not what we want.

It’s impossible for me to distill the messages in this book down to a few sentences but I do think anyone interested in the topic will gain an important and necessary perspective.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ALC and thank you to the author for sharing your personal and professional knowledge.

Recommended for: anyone interested in mental health, has mental health concerns, or cares for someone with mental health challenges, especially parents, teachers, and health professionals.

Was this review helpful?

This is a good comprehensive discussion about mental illness. To start, the authors takes on what actually defines clinical illness versus normal reactions to stressful events. An actual diagnosis through that is most used is the DSM-5, but this changes many times. Illness is not so easy to put in one category and often what matters is the degree of suffering, the change in one’s ability to manage their life, and the longevity of it. It is important to know that chronic mental illness often starts in adolescence. Severe illness is easier to see, and almost always shows up before age 24 years. Subtler illness the author argues may not be clinical illness, but actually adapting to life stressors such as grief, loss, and normal anxieties as life changes. This was easy to read and understandable information.

The introduction of Social Media was discussed primarily about young people. Yes, it can have a profound effect on vulnerable individuals as you can look up Pro-Anorexic sites and find others, sort of normalizing the behavior. I definitely think some guidance is needed for young adults to identify dangerous behavior and be discouraged from seeking these sites out. However, there are many social media sites that are from people active in recovery that can offer help and hope to those who are suffering. I do think Social Media can be a serious problem as people are always on and managing their ‘Public Branding’ of themselves. I am not sure seeing and reading only the best of others lives is true or helpful long-term. Yet, Social Media is new and all new things usually present both positive and negative outcomes.

Discussion of the Covid-19 Pandemic I thought was very good. How much effect it will have really is yet to be seen. Will there be resiliency and most ok or as this drags on longer and longer, will we see more pathological illness.

This was written by an author living in the UK so some issues are different. Yet, it seems like waits for help are long there, too. Yet, often people in the US can not access services due to lack of adequate health insurance. This is a huge barrier.

Discussion about biological pre-disposition offers insight, but it is hard to pin down. We are unlikely to find an ‘anxiety gene’, it is far more complex then this, yet clearly it plays a crucial role. Hearing that Anti-Depressants in clinical trials offer little more positive results then a placebo is certainly troubling, but hardly new news.

So, I thought the author covered a lot of ground quite well. People with chronic mental illness need more support then 10 minute psychiatric visits. It seems obvious that managing an illness requires more then just a quick visit for medicine and more clinicians to talk to about how to best cope with this. Also, there is a big gap about talking about illness, seeking help, and then you are left on your own. More after care for longer periods of time is needed, the same as is done with physical illness. Another important point is how mental illness has a strong genetic component. It was not really discussed how having family members ill and the chronic stress this causes on an individual and what support is actually available. I would say little. It is a serious problem.

Overall, a very thorough book that is trying to look into the multi-faceted issue of mental illness, from the mild to severe. I found this book offered much needed information.

I had both the e-book an the audio version for this book. I think with non-Fiction that enhances the books.

Thank you NetGalley, Luck Foulkes, St. Martin’s Press and MacMillan Audio for a copy of both the e-book and the audio book. I very much appreciate this.

Was this review helpful?

An insightful and intelligent approach to figuring out the mental health crisis we are currently facing and have been facing. I learned a lot and hope to translate some of it to my own life. It is true that mental illness is becoming more well known, but the author questions if this is a result of over sharing in social medial, over diagnosis, self diagnosis, and inability to define mental illness. I agree on all fronts. I have questioned some of this myself. We need more funding, more research, and more solutions. Pills are not the long term answer.

Was this review helpful?

This was very interesting; it raised some good questions about mental health.


Review copy provided by publisher.

Was this review helpful?