Linda Gask

Linda Gask is a British psychiatrist and writer. She is Emerita Professor of Primary Care Psychiatry at the University of Manchester. She is an advisor to the World Health Organization and been awarded the President’s Medal by the Royal College of Psychiatrists in 2017. She was also a Commonwealth Fund 2000-2001 Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy and Practice based in Seattle. Previously, she worked as a consultant for the NHS, and an academic at the University of Manchester. After retiring, she returned for a year to work with the Greater Manchester Bereavement Service.

Gask has written two memoirs that discuss her experience of anxiety and depression.

Early life and education Gask was born in England, where she was brought up in a working-class household. Growing up, Gask's brother had severe obsessive compulsive disorder, She was the first in her family to go to university.

Writing Gask has written a range of academic work and memoir. In 2004, she published A Short Introduction to Psychiatry, which provides an introduction to the profession from both the practitioner and patient/user's perspective.

The Other Side of Silence: A Psychiatrist's Memoir of Depression (2015) Gask's first memoir was The Other Side of Silence: A Psychiatrist's Memoir of Depression, published in 2015. Drawing on her own experiences of anxiety and depression and training as a psychiatrist, the book describes the way that mental health professionals also struggle with their mental health. She discusses treatment for depression including anti-depressant medication and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Finding True North: The Healing Power of Place (2021) In 2021, Gask published a book titled Finding True North: The Healing Power of Place, a memoir proposing the healing power of place and Gask's experiences of anxiety and depression.

Out of Her Mind: How We Are Failing Women's Mental Health and What Must Change (2024) On 10 October 2024 (Women's Mental Health Day), Gask published Out of Her Mind: How We Are Failing Women's Mental Health and What Must Change on Cambridge University Press. The book aims to walk the complex line where "Women can be both depressed and oppressed; there is no contradiction or mutual exclusivity here."

She was diagnosed with inherited kidney disease shortly after retiring. Gask has also been highly critical of the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder (or Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder) which is primarily diagnosed in women, proposing that the diagnosis should be disposed of.

Books

A Short Introduction to Psychiatry, Sage, 2004. Finding True North: The Healing Power of Place, Sandstone Press Ltd, 2022. The Other Side of Silence: A Psychiatrist's Memoir of Depression, Summersdale, 2015. Out of Her Mind: How We Are Failing Women's Mental Health and What Must Change, Cambridge University Press, 2024.

Co-Authored

Jenkins, R., Lewis, B., Goldberg, D. P. WHO Guide to Mental Health in Primary Care, Royal Society of Medicine Press, 2000. Daines, B. Gask, L., Howe, A. Medical and Psychiatric Issues for Counsellors, Sage, 2007. Goldberg, D., Gask, L., Morriss, R. Psychiatry in Medical Practice, Routledge, 2008.

Edited

Gask, L., Lester, H., Kendrick, T., Peveler, R. (eds), Primary Care Mental Health, RCPsych Publications, 2009. Gask, L., Coskun, Bulent, C., Baron, D. A. (eds), Teaching Psychiatry: Putting Theory into Practice, Wiley, 2010. Gask, L., Chew-Graham, C. A. (eds), ABC of Anxiety and Depression, Wiley, 2014.