Linda Gask

Linda Gask spent more than thirty years working as a psychiatrist despite personally experiencing recurring periods of anxiety and depression. She eventually became a professor of psychiatry at the University of Manchester, has been an advisor to the World Health Organisation, and travelled far and wide, training health professionals in many different countries in how to listen and talk to people with mental health problems. She is passionate about reaching a wider audience in order to bust the stigma that continues to prevent people from getting the help they really need.

THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE (Vie, 2015) is her highly acclaimed memoir, which weaves her own experience with that of her patients while giving an insight into some of the therapeutic answers for people suffering from depression. Her book shows it is possible to experience depression but still have a successful, happy life and build a career. Having mental illness does not mean you will fail and ironically it brings a perspective on what is important in life that others do not have. Rights have been sold to Germany, Korea and Turkey.

She now divides her time between Yorkshire and a home in Orkney, off the North coast of Scotland.

Visit Linda Gask's website.
Follow Linda Gask on Twitter. 
Listen to Linda on BBC World Service 20 mins in here.
Listen to Linda on BBC Woman's Hour here.

'This is a compelling and moving personal account of the reality of depression, but it is much more.  Dr Gask weaves her personal and professional knowledge into a narrative, reflection, handbook and guide.  Professor Sir Simon Wessely, President, Royal College of Psychiatrists

 ‘Linda is a brave and brilliant woman’ Kate Figes, Books Editor, YOU Magazine

‘Honest, vivid, powerful…anyone who has struggled with what are called ‘common mental health problems’ will identify with this book’
Carolyn Chew-Graham, GP and Professor of General Practice Research, Univ of Keele

‘People who have been depressed, or lived with depression in the family will recognise the self-doubt, the gnawing anxiety and the brave public face, though not all reach the self-acceptance that she finally manages. Linda Gask has achieved something unusual: a book about depression that is both personal and scientifically sound. ‘ Louis Appelby, former mental health czar

'This is an honest and impressive book. Linda Gask’s understanding is extended and enriched by the patients she has treated, described in vivid prose that brings them to life as real people, not dry clinical examples.  Despite its subject this is not a depressing book. It is a rich, human story, mercifully devoid of the clichéd oversimplifications that crowd this area. Dr Gask knows an awful lot about depression and, most importantly, she knows what we don’t know.' Tom Burns, Emeritus professor of social psychiatry, Oxford