Bøger af Lucy Foulkes

'A must-read... Fascinating' JO BRANDWe 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

Adolescence is the most dramatic and formative period of our lives. It is when we become who we are, when the smallest things can have life-long effects. But it is also full of contradictions, making it bewildering to live through and widely misunderstood. We may struggle to understand the adolescents in our lives, but most of us have yet to come to terms with our own adolescence.In this expert, empowering book, Lucy Foulkes draws on the latest research and in-depth interviews to demystify adolescent behaviours - friendship, risk-taking, sex, love, bullying and more - and expose the surprising and often moving reality beneath them. We see that teenagers are far more conservative than rebellious; that apparent recklessness is often calculated and risk-averse; that popularity is a mixed blessing even as friendships can be a life-changing good. We understand why social hierarchies are so fiercely policed, even while adolescents have an extraordinary capacity for empathy and mutual support; why appearances are overly important, and why rejection at this age hurts so much. We see that even the most difficult experiences are part of this essential and life-shaping process of self-discovery.If our identities are a story, then the crucial first draft is written in adolescence. Coming of Age helps us read that story with clarity and compassion so that we can appreciate the adolescents we know but also those we once were - those wild and fragile people who helped us become who we are.

Adolescence is the most dramatic and formative period of our lives: both thrilling and traumatic, it is when we become who we are, when the smallest things can have life-long effects. But it is also full of contradictions, making it bewildering to live through and usually misunderstood in retrospect. We often struggle to connect with the adolescents in our lives, but most of us have yet to come to terms with our own adolescence and how it has shaped who we are.In this moving, empowering book, which is full of counter-intuitive insights, Lucy Foulkes, an expert in adolescent psychology, draws on the latest studies and in-depth interviews to demystify adolescent behaviours - friendship, bullying, risk-taking, sex, mental illness, love and much more. She unpicks the social hierarchies that colour all of adolescent life and reveals some surprising underlying truths: that as adolescents we are deeply conservative more than we are rebellious; that what seems like recklessness is often calculated and risk-averse; that the same peer influence that can lead to bullying can also be used to prevent it; that popularity is a mixed blessing even while friendship at this time can be a life-changing good. She explains why appearance counts for everything at this age and why we can be so fickle and cruel, but also how adolescents can astound the adults in their lives with their empathy and capacity to support and nurture one another.If our identities are a story, then the first crucial draft is written in adolescence. This book helps us to read that story - in ourselves and as it is being written in others - helping us to appreciate and accept it and where there is pain to begin to rewrite it.

A compelling and incisive book that questions the overuse of mental health terms to describe universal human emotionsPublic awareness of mental illness has been transformed in recent years, but our understanding of how to define it has yet to catch up. Too often, psychiatric disorders are confused with the inherent stresses and challenges of human experience. A narrative has taken hold that a mental health crisis has been building among young people. In this profoundly sensitive and constructive book, psychologist Lucy Foulkes argues that the crisis is one of ignorance as much as illness. Have we raised a 'snowflake' generation? Or are today's young people subjected to greater stress, exacerbated by social media, than ever before? Foulkes shows that both perspectives are useful but limited. The real question in need of answering is: how should we distinguish between 'normal' suffering and actual illness? Drawing on her extensive knowledge of the scientific and clinical literature, Foulkes explains what is known about mental health problems-how they arise, why they so often appear during adolescence, the various tools we have to cope with them-but also what remains unclear: distinguishing between normality and disorder is essential if we are to provide the appropriate help, but no clear line between the two exists in nature. Providing necessary clarity and nuance, Losing Our Minds argues that the widespread misunderstanding of this aspect of mental illness might be contributing to its apparent prevalence.