Books about mental health against a colourful background.

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Reading lists

Books that can help improve your mental health

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How bad is social media really for our mental health?

What Mental Illness Really Is… (and what it isn’t)

A vital corrective and accessible guide to the science of mental illness

This wonderful book offers an amazingly readable and cutting-edge scientific account of mental illness

Matthew Broome, Professor of Psychiatry and Youth Mental Health

Beautifully written and compassionate... This book is needed urgently so that we can examine fears of a tsunami of mental health problems... Anyone touched by such problems will find much helpful practical advice

Uta Frith, Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Development

A guide to the start of the art in the science of mental illness...lucidly written and builds its case with a winning combination of care and concision... This impressive book is a great starting point for well-informed conversations on the issue

Professor Thomas Dixon, History of Emotions blog

Everyone who either lives with or knows someone with mental illness should read it. In other words, everyone should read it

Essi Viding, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology

This beautifully written and compassionate account, backed by state-of-the-art scientific evidence, delivers an important message: there is far more variation in the state of our mental health and far more complexity in the diagnosis of mental illness than we tend to believe. This book is needed urgently so that we can examine fears of a tsunami of mental health problems, especially in the light of the current pandemic. Anyone touched by such problems will find much helpful practical advice

This wonderful book offers an amazingly readable and cutting-edge scientific account of mental illness and its relation to the stresses many young adults experience as well as the language we use to talk about ourselves

Losing Our Minds communicates complex research findings on mental illness with unusual clarity and compassion, and without oversimplifying or shying away from the difficult questions. Everyone who either lives with or knows someone with mental illness should read it. In other words, everyone should read it

A broad and refreshingly non-political survey ... [that] highlight[s] several difficult truths about the reality of mental illness ... Foulkes carefully lays out what we know ... Some of her findings are surprising ... Foulkes is not interested in grand generational diagnoses. She argues that while everyone may suffer from the symptoms of mental distress, only a minority experience mental illness ... Foulkes's message is a cry for nuance and complexity. As she writes, 'all forms of psychological distress are the price we pay for being alive.' While those who are seriously unwell have a right to professional attention, for the rest of us, an awareness of this truth may be just the treatment we need

A totally counter culture take ... kind and clear-thinking

A guide to the state of the art in the science of mental illness ... lucidly written and builds its case with a winning combination of care and concision ... this impressive book is a great starting point for well-informed conversations on the issue. It speaks with calm, rational humanity about why we should hesitate before medicalising our emotions

This is a book that calls for nuance in answering difficult questions... To Foulkes, the way forward is in acceptance of a hard truth: we need to support everyone who is struggling in a way geared to their needs; we need a different conversation about managing life's sadness

Dr Lucy Foulkes is an academic psychologist. She is currently a Prudence Trust Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, where she leads research into adolescent mental health and social development. She is the author of What Mental Illness Really Is (and What It Isn't) and has written for the Guardian, New Scientist and Wall Street Journal. Her work has been discussed on BBC 2’s Newsnight and reported in The Times, Economist, New York Times and Atlantic, and she has appeared on BBC Radio 4's All in the Mind and Start the Week.

'A must-read... Fascinating' JO BRAND 
 
We need to rethink the conversation around mental health - psychologist Lucy Foulkes explores how and why. 
 
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. 
 
(Previously published in 2021 in hardback under the title Losing Our Minds.) 
 
'Captivating...engaging and lucid' Sarah-Jayne Blakemore 
 
'Clear-headed, compassionate and, ultimately, optimistic' Mark Haddon 
 
'Thorough, wise...much needed' Mark Rice-Oxley

Lucy Foulkes

Wise and compassionate, well-researched and straight-talking - Lucy Foulkes shows with stories and with science why the teen years are so intense, and how today's adolescents can be helped to flourish in life

Compelling, useful and fascinating . . . revealing its unwritten rules and some really vital insights

A wise and compassionate book, and moving too ... I imagine I might want to reread this book when my own children become teens. But for now, I found it helped me better understand my own awkward adolescence ... Once we better understand the psychology of these awkward, in-between years we can start to be a bit kinder towards our awkward, in-between selves. And who wouldn't want that?

[An] eye-opening guide to the psychology of adolescence . . . Foulkes conducted 23 in-depth interview for Coming of Age and they are by turns funny, hair-raising and desperately sad . . . They have a sort of novelistic potency . . . Adolescence may be the first draft of personhood, but it doesn't have to be the last, as the wise and revelatory book shows

A refreshingly clear-eyed description of the forces shaping adolescent behaviour and emotions . . . teens are often viewed through a lens of judgement or morality . . . but you will find none of that here. Each short chapter is cleverly punctuated by often-moving interviews . . . Foulkes delivers a positive message . . . an eye-opening read for anyone who knows a teenager, or who has been one

Expertly distilling academic research into readable insight peppered with fascinating, moving case studies, Foulkes offers a clear-eyed, unerringly sensible and sympathetic survey of adolescence . . . there is insight and kindness throughout this book

Thank goodness . . . for this timely . . . and eminently sensible book . . . You will read this book and sigh in recognition . . . just knowing that everything they – and we – struggle with is normal, and necessary, is helpful

Excellent and insightful . . . As an academic psychologist at Oxford University who has been studying adolescent cognition for more than a decade, Foulkes is steeped in knowledge about, as well as respect for, teenage life. She expertly marshals clinical research, both classic texts and recent findings, interlaced with moving accounts from people . . . who open up about their formative years . . . It’s worth getting adolescence right because it doesn’t ever go away

A myth-busting . . . eye-opening guide to the psychology of adolescence . . . delivers many counterintuitive insights

Lucy Foulkes’s wonderful and deeply moving book shows us the potentially positive aspects of adolescent experiences so often seen as negative. You will almost certainly find yourself reassessing your own teenage years

Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

This is a must read for everyone interested in what is going on with adolescents. Scientific findings are discussed incisively and illuminated with real life accounts of adolescent joys and sorrows. This book is full of insight and compassion

Essi Viding, Professor of Developmental Pyschopathy, UCL

This is a compelling read, deploying an engaging combination of narrative and science to make important points about a much misunderstood and maligned age group

Tasmin Ford, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Cambridge

The adolescent years are probably the most dramatic period in human life, and yet they are still the least studied. Lucy Foulkes is an ideal and compassionate guide to unlock this secret world

Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development, UCL

Captivating and novel, providing valuable insights into the physical, psychological and emotional changes that teenagers navigate

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, author of Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain

Hopeful, inspiring . . . leaves you with a greater understanding of your own adolescence, and greater compassion for those currently in its throes

Camilla Nord, author of The Balanced Brain

Comprehensive, accessible, and super useful

Dr Tara Porter, Clinical Psychologist and author of You Don't Understand Me

Offers a refreshing lens on adolescence as a profound developmental period that shapes how we become, and understand, who we are. This book is essential reading for researchers, parents, professionals, and anyone seeking to better understand themselves

Ola Demkowicz, Senior Lecturer in Psychology of Education, University of Manchester

Beautiful writing and robust science rarely travel together; they do so in this remarkable book by Foulkes who will guide you through the complex world of adolescence and its science

Argyris Stringaris, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, UCL

I loved this book. Lucy writes so thoughtfully and movingly about this uniquely challenging and exhilarating period of life – to help us better understand and support our teenagers, and as adults, to give our own teenage selves a break.

Polly Waite, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford

How Adolescence Shapes Us

What we experience during adolescence shapes us for life, but psychologist Lucy Foulkes shows that too often we fear, dismiss or even try to prevent aspects of it that are crucial to our development. Drawing on decades of psychological research, and including profoundly moving interviews, Coming of Age gets beneath the recent myths and age-old stereotypes of adolescence to reveal the reasons why teens behave the way they do. 
 
Above all, Foulkes shows that adolescents have an extraordinary capacity for resilience, empathy and mutual support, and that even the most challenging encounters are part of an essential process of self-discovery.

Lucy Foulkes

Praise for Coming of Age

Wise and compassionate, well-researched and straight-talking - Lucy Foulkes shows with stories and with science why the teen years are so intense, and how today's adolescents can be helped to flourish in life

Compelling, useful and fascinating . . . revealing its unwritten rules and some really vital insights

A wise and compassionate book, and moving too ... I imagine I might want to reread this book when my own children become teens. But for now, I found it helped me better understand my own awkward adolescence ... Once ...

Wise and compassionate, well-researched and straight-talking - Lucy Foulkes shows with stories and with science why the teen years are so intense, and how today's adolescents can be helped to flourish in life

Compelling, useful and fascinating . . . revealing its unwritten rules and some really vital insights

A wise and compassionate book, and moving too ... I imagine I might want to reread this book when my own children become teens. But for now, I found it helped me better understand my own awkward adolescence ... Once ...

Wise and compassionate, well-researched and straight-talking - Lucy Foulkes shows with stories and with science why the teen years are so intense, and how today's adolescents can be helped to flourish in life

Compelling, useful and fascinating . . . revealing its unwritten rules and some really vital insights

A wise and compassionate book, and moving too ... I imagine I might want to reread this book when my own children become teens. But for now, I found it helped me better understand my own awkward adolescence ... Once ...

Books by Lucy Foulkes

Articles featuring Lucy Foulkes

Books that can help improve your mental health

How bad is social media really for our mental health?

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