Gwen Adshead

Gwen Adshead (born 1960) is a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist who has worked for the NHS for nearly three decades. She currently works as a consultant at Broadmoor Hospital. She has published hundreds of research papers and is a Sunday Times bestselling author.

Early life Gwen Adshead was born on 14 September 1960 in Christchurch, New Zealand. At the age of 11, she flew alone to England to attend Cheltenham Ladies' College as a boarder.

Education Adshead qualified in Medicine in 1983. She then trained in general and forensic psychiatry at St. George's Hospital. She became an elected member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1987, and in 2005, she was made a fellow.

Adshead holds a Master's degree from King's College London in Medical Law and Ethics, where she took an interest in responsibility, moral reasoning, and psychiatric illness. She also holds a Master's of Science degree in Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy from Oxford University. She is also a qualified member of the Institute of Group Analysis and has trained in basic mentalization-based therapy. The field of forensic psychotherapy helped in bringing together Dr. Adshead's interest in psychology and law together. During this time, Dr. Adshead was also a consultant forensic psychiatrist at Ravenswood House, a medium security unit for treating individuals with violent behaviours and severe mental health matters.

Adshead has also acted as an expert witness in different cases and, in March of 2021, she was doing most of her work with family courts. As of 2024, she works part time in the NHS, with a focus on forensic psychotherapy, as a consultant in a high secure hospital and in a women's prison. She has spent her career trying to understand the psychological mechanisms that result in violence and life threatening behaviours toward other individuals. Her articles have been published in Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, Frontiers in Psychiatry, Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, and Medicine Science and the Law. professional ethics, and attachment theory in forensic settings.

The Guardian reviewed The Devil You Know, describing it as a compassionate and insightful exploration of violent offenders' stories. The review notes that Dr. Adshead draws on her extensive clinical experience to present deeply human and thought-provoking accounts of patients' lives.

The Times described Dr. Adshead's upcoming book, Unspeakable: Stories of survival & transformation after trauma, as a deeply human exploration of trauma, highlighting her use of clinical experience to present survivors' stories.

Media Appearances

Adshead has appeared on several radio programmes including:

October 1999, In Our Time, BBC Radio 4 – to discuss atrocities in the 20th century. 1 July 2010, Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4. August 2022, BBC HARDtalk – discussing her career, compassion and the concept of evil. November 2024, she delivered the BBC's annual Reith Lecture series opening a 4-part discourse on BBC Radio 4 commencing 26 November 2024.

She has appeared on podcasts including:

August 2022, Zeinab Badawi's podcast – discussing why she thinks compassion should be used with people that others consider to be evil.

She has also been interviewed by several publications including:

2014, British Medical Journal.

Awards Adshead has received several awards for her work, including:

2012, Jerwood Award to support the writing of A Short Book About Evil, which was published 28 April 2015. In 2013, Dr. Adshead was honored with the Royal College of Psychiatry's President's Medal for her work in ethics in mental health. Additionally, in 2024, Dr. Adshead was named one of five honorary fellows of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Personal life Adshead is the mother of two boys.

Adshead is a Christian and enjoys singing as part of a choir. "Psychiatric staff as attachment figures - Understanding management problems in psychiatric services in the light of attachment theory" "Life after homicide: accounts of recovery and redemption of offender patients in a high security hospital - a qualitative study"