Dr Lucy Foulkes

Welcome to episode 120 with Dr Lucy Foulkes is an academic psychologist at the University of Oxford who researches mental health and social development with expertise in adolescent and student mental health.

She is an honorary lecturer in psychology at UCL and her book ‘What Mental Illness Really Is (and what it isn’t) explores how we talk about mental health and mental illness and explains why we need to rethink the conversation around these things.

In this episode I chat to Lucy about her book and what inspired her to write it.

We chat about the language that is used to talk about mental health and mental illness and how the words we choose can have both a positive and negative impact.

We look at the need to distinguish between the 'normal' challenges of modern life and actual illness and discuss the medialisation of human emotions.

We chat about the good bits and the bad bits of mental health awareness and have a good look at what that even means and who that conversation helps.

We get in to social media, environment, parenting, diagnosis and everything in between.

This was a fascinating episode to record!  It’s a deep dive in to a topic that is not straightforward and it was great to get the chance to explore it with both nuance and compassion.

Follow her on Instagram @drlucyfoulkes and Twitter @lfoulkesy

Her website is www.lucyfoulkes.com and her book is available everywhere!

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Thanks for listening!