Gavin Francis

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF ADVENTURES IN HUMAN BEING AND RECOVERY This book is about the contours and landscapes of mental health. We experience the world through the filter of our emotions, but those emotions can be fickle as well as misleading. As human beings we have power over them, and when your feelings are bad, it can be helpful to remember that your being is something quite separate from them entirely.Maps of the Mind traces some of the routes through mental health that Dr Gavin Francis''s patients have shown him over his decades as a physician. The twenty-first century has opened up vital conversations about ''mental weather'': moods that bring gusts of panic, others that bring freezing fogs of despondency. Now, we need a new model of healthcare which moves beyond diagnosis and offers robust shelters to take cover in until the worst storms pass. What would a framework of mental wellness look like instead, one which understands the different landscapes of mental health we continuously move in and out o? eaturing sensitive case studies from his own practice alongside conversations with therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists, Dr Gavin Francis examines the landscape of Western mental healthcare today and offers new perspectives on the maintenance of mental wellbeing.

In a world preoccupied by borders, bridges celebrate the possibility of connection Dr Gavin Francis crosses bridges both actual and metaphorical on a journey through six continents, twenty countries and four decades of travel, exploring answers to questions of peace and conflict, connection and community. From Rome''s Ponte Sant''Angelo to Brooklyn, Victoria Falls to London, Singapore to Siberia, Francis''s tour of bridges around the world demonstrates what the building of bridges has meant to our civilisation, how crossings can enrich our lives, and the price we pay when we tear them down.