You dont have to be mad to work here

I loved this book, so interesting to get a truthful insight into this industry, I loved the writing style. I hope there is another book on its way. Perfect for fans of Adam Kay

Thankyou to the author , netgalley and the publisher for the arc

It is inevitable that You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here by Dr Benji Waterhouse will be compared to This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay. Waterhouse does for the field of psychiatry what Kay did for obstetrics and gynaecology, describing the harsh reality of working in NHS hospitals with dark gallows humour while making serious points about underfunding, bed shortages and staff burnout. The nature of serious psychiatric illness poses diagnostic challenges, particularly when patients can’t report their own symptoms and believe that they are werewolves or about to marry Harry Styles, and Waterhouse quickly finds the system is too overwhelmed to provide compassionate care. As well as portraits of colleagues and patients, Waterhouse also navigates the sources of his own anxiety and dysfunctional family issues. He still works for the NHS alongside gigs as a stand-up comedian, and he deploys humour with great effect in his insightful book about the mental health crisis. Many thanks to Random House Vintage Books for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

Thank you for allowing me to read an Advance Review Copy of this book. I enjoyed it thoroughly, laughed out loud several times and read passages out to my husband. It was well written and there was true feeling in his words. However, it makes you aware of the desperate state of the mental health services at the moment and the NHS in general, both from a patient and care giver's point of view.

This book is a heartfelt look into the author’s experience as a psychiatrist, showing his deep care for his patients and diving into the tough realities of the NHS. It tackles everything from staff shortages and frustrating red tape to the constant pressure and lack of funding that healthcare workers deal with. The author shares it all with light humour which keeps it relatable. He’s refreshingly open about his own struggles and moments of self-doubt, especially when facing big challenges, both on the job and in his personal life. This book feels honest, eye-opening and inspiring. If you’re curious about the life of a psychiatrist or the inside story of the NHS, you’ll enjoy this book!

This book was so difficult to put down. It was humorous but sensitive and was a brilliant account of what its like working in the Mental health field and the pressures on the NHS.

If you loved Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt, you are going to love this.

I loved this book. I worked for the NHS as a nursing assistant on mental health awards and also suffer with mental health so I related to this book so much. The dark humour is on point. Mental health sucks and this book shown that in such a good light, the complexity of it, the good the bad and ugly. Heartbreaking yet joyful. I love Benji’s writing style. Definitely recommend.

A very amusing read, most enjoyable. Very likeable and interesting characters. A real page turner. Many thanks.

An entertaining read and eye opening at the same time.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

A funny read that just felt good to read whilst the weather is miserable. The writing style was fun, gave off vibes of reading a diary

Unlocking the doors of the world of a psychiatrist, this is a fascinating book into a world not everyone has entered for real, but have seen, fictionalised in film and in tv.

Humans are so complex beings and some require the psychiatrist's chair as it were. The human mind fascinates me and I figured that it would interest other people and we've all heard of (and perhaps some of you have used to services of) a psychiatrist and seen films with the psychiatric chair, so I felt it would be interesting to explore a book that's by a psychiatrist and from his point of view.

You Don't Have to be Mad to Work Here is a book that I dipped in and out of, quietly contemplating and isn't one I felt I could race through, but in saying that, it truly is a fascinating read and you do get swept a long a bit. Not having used a psychiatrist myself, I am nonetheless interested in the profession and it's interesting to hear from both sides of the desk. Dr. Benji Waterhouse seems pretty candid in how and what he writes.

It tells about the NHS crisis and how it impacts this important profession and debunks the myths. Dr. Benji Waterhouse doesn't claim to be perfect himself and has had his own share of time in the patient's shoes too, which made for interesting reading.

I feel it would make an interesting documentary series. You get a real sense of what it is like to be in a psychiatrist's office and the people who require this profession to be in their lives.

The book is heart-wrenching and darkly humorous as well as humane and sympathetic and understanding as he tells about patients who go through the door into the ward.

This is a book I recommend to see what life is really like in the NHS in the mental health profession part of it.

This was a really enlightening read, I will definitely recommend and look forward to discovering more of Benji Waterhouse's work.

I'm not particularly partial to work memoirs. Before this, I'd only read two, one about a vet (because I have pets so was intrested) and the other the one that started the craze This Is Going To Hurt (because lets face it most of us did). Both fantastic books but generally I'm not interested in other people's work problems. I have enough of my own. So my reason for this demanding a read? My 13 year old daughter decided she wants to be a psychiatrist. This is no whim. She's had her mind on it for years. So I was interested to hear an insiders thoughts and experiences.

And my conclusion? I've spent the last two weeks trying to convince her any other job is what she should go for! And yet, for the first time, I understand why anyone would want to do this. The book is full of the usual funny/sad/horrific workplace tales. But the bravery and humour in the face of such an impossible task is amazing. I don't think I ever realised before there's no 'cure' for any mental health issue. Whether it's anxiety and depression or bipolar, OCD or BPD, there might be a beginning, but there's no end. Only management. So, no ringing the bell in these wards. The sheer weight on the shoulders of these professionals must be crippling. Ironically, it seems treating mental illness in itself can cause mental illness. And you can hardly say physician heal thyself if they have a breakdown.

In conclusion, we all know our NHS is under huge pressure, especially in mental health services. But this book opens your eyes to the very human stories and what it takes to try and make a difference. You'll laugh, you'll cry....hell you might go outside and start making a noise for the NHS again.

"You Don't Have to Be Mad to Work Here" by Benji Waterhouse is a compelling and often humorous exploration of life within the British healthcare system. Waterhouse, through his experiences as a consultant psychiatrist, delves into the intricacies and absurdities of providing mental health care. His writing is marked by a keen observational wit, capturing both the frustrations and small victories inherent in the daily operations of the NHS. The book offers readers a glimpse into the challenging yet rewarding world of mental health professionals, emphasizing the human side of psychiatric care.

Appropriately framing this personal account relative to a sentinel yet satirical account of psychiatric with "Mount Misery" by Samuel Shem, we can compare real world psychiatry to idealized fiction. Comparing these two works, both authors use their insider perspectives to shed light on the respective mental health care systems in the UK and the US, but through different lenses. Waterhouse's approach is more light-hearted and accessible, aiming to entertain while inform, whereas Shem's work is deeply satirical and critical, focusing on systemic issues and their repercussions. Together, they provide a complementary view of psychiatric care, combining humor, critique, and empathy to portray the complex landscape of mental health services on both sides of the Atlantic.

This was a really interesting read into some of the cases the author dealt with.
Highly recommended if medical memoir-type books are what you enjoy.

A change from my usual fiction reads, this is a memoir of a psychiatrist working for the NHS - at first glance not perhaps the most engaging subject.

Benji Waterhouse writes with great compassion and a touch of humour, making this book very easy to read. He takes us through some of his training placements in hospital and also within the community, sharing the highs and lows of trying to help people with various mental health issues against a backdrop of lack of funding, lack of spaces/beds and lack of staff. There is always the possibility of danger too with the patients, either against themselves or the staff.

Benji is very open about his own struggles with mental health and doubts around his chosen career path, we get some insight into his childhood and family setup - but who really has a perfect childhood without any trauma of any kind? He attends therapy to explore this and help confront his demons.

There is a lot of humour throughout the book, often dark or absurd but never belittling or demeaning the patients or what they are going through. The footnotes throughout help to add clarity where needed which was very helpful. Definitely worth a ready, recommended!

A really well written & clever read. It's a sad & heart-breaking eye opener into the mental health sector and extreme lack of resources and help but also a stark reminder that the staff are not the issue, they are hard working, dedicated and struggling against pencil pushers & bureaucracy.

Despite the heavy subject this is an entertaining read full of black comedy, proof that often laughter is the best medicine.

As a mental health patient of legitimately half my life with the NHS it was both enlightening and infuriating to read about the way the mental health system in this country deals with patients. Especially those who are arguably worse than me yet still get the same “not sick enough” treatment.

Heartbreaking and funny in places I don’t feel like this really added anything new to the world of non-fiction psychiatry books but I did enjoy reading it all the same. I really feel for the patients the author had to see and for the author himself who felt lost and helpless in the underfunded, understaffed and under-appreciated mental health system in the NHS.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher. 3.5*

You Don't Have to Be Mad to Work Here is an illuminating look into the treatment of psychiatric illness in the UK, which is at turns warm and bleak but always fascinating.

Psychiatrist Benji Waterhouse admits that he and his colleagues often resort to gallows humour in order to cope with the demands of a draining, depressing job which at times feels impossible to feel you've done well, and he deploys humour adeptly here to help the reader to engage in a difficult, unsettling subject. This book is often very funny - I particularly enjoyed Waterhouse's account of his first day, which involved an overzealous trainer preparing the trainee psychiatrists for fighting their patients - and he uses dry wit to highlight the difficulties of helping his patients through a chronically underfunded NHS system; at one point Waterhouse describes how he keeps a plant on the desk of his cupboard-cum-office to symbolise life, but it's a cactus, a plant that has adapted to survive on the bare minimum - 'a fitting metaphor for the NHS'. The combination of humour and sobering statistics and anecdotes reminded me of the work of Gervase Phinn.

Waterhouse succinctly summarises the reasons why mental health is still not taken as seriously as physical by society, for example, because it is harder to diagnose mental illness and sufferers don't always recognise that they are unwell or accept treatment. He then sets out the real term impact of this situation, using statistics to starkly lay out the inequity between mental and physical health provision. I was stunned to read that mental illness accounts for 28% of the overall disease burden in the UK but only receives 13% of NHS funding. In real terms, there were 49,000 fewer psychiatric beds available in 2019 than in 1988, resulting in many patients having to travel across the country for treatment. The news that the NHS is in crisis is not new, but hearing indisputable facts like these couched within one doctor's own observations and experiences is invaluable.

Waterhouse touches on some important themes, such as the disproportionate representation of Black and Asian people among psychiatric patients - along with the fact that these groups are the least likely to see help for mental health issues, and I would have liked to see him unpack the reasons behind this state of affairs in greater depth.

He does examine the stigma of admitting to needing mental health support though, through his own experiences of therapy and coping with depression - including not wanting to confess to his GP that he is a psychiatrist, supposedly the one who fixes other people's struggling minds. I hope the author realises that his book, which puts a human face on conditions such as schizophrenia, does much to break down the stigma.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for the opportunity to read and review an ARC of this book.

Shocking, sometimes funny, always interesting, Benjamin tells of his life story as a psychiatrist.
I enjoyed it hugely, and also learnt quite a bit.
It was interesting to see how Benji progressed, very slowly but surely gaining in confidence, knowledge and empathy - he seems a great bloke!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing this book for review.

I loved this book. It was a great insight into working as a Psychiatrist the NHS. It was happy, sad and hilarious in places. It grabbed me from the first page.