Published By: Wellcome Collection
Pages: 304
Released On: 12/02/2026
Between a quarter and a fifth of young people in the UK now suffer a mental disorder. One in four adults are prescribed psychiatric medication. These numbers represent a huge and recent expansion in mental health labelling, but reveal nothing of the experience of those seeking help.
In The Unfragile Mind, Gavin draws on conversations with patients, colleagues, and his thirty years of practice to explore the chequered history of psychiatry, the nature of mental health and ill-health, and the problems – including mood disorders, trauma, anxiety and addiction – that he addresses daily.
The mind, he argues, is dynamic and adaptive – better addressed not with rigid labels and protocols, but with curiosity, kindness, humility and hope.
*****
Thanks to Wellcome Collection for the advance copy of this title in return for an honest review.
This is a heavy book and it’s hard work, I won’t pretend otherwise, but it was what I expected. It’s not really a book you can pick up and flick through whilst watching the telly, this needs your complete focus and attention in order to understand it, and even then I struggled with some bits, particularly in the first section as it’s very heavy on the technical and science.
It is less about how to manage mental health and instead focussing on the science behind it, which was very interesting to read. The first half is focussed on the history and science behind mental health, and the second is more about individual mental health, so there is a nice balance.
It’s a relatively short book which is good, because I think if it was any longer then it would definitely feel too heavy and too much, this pitches it just right, I think.
I have a neurological condition that straddles the physical and psychological, and so I really enjoyed his explorations of mental and physical health and how they affect each other. The brain, mind, soul, consciousness, and physical body are not all separate entities, and should be approached as one.
There are some images, photos, sketches and the like, I’d have liked a few more as I am quite a visual learner, but I do think they add extra depth to his explanations.
You can tell that medicine is not just his job, but his passion, and this is a compassionate, powerful, layered, learned piece of writing. And not only that, there’s a kindness to it, this understanding that whilst this might all be in a day’s work for someone working in the field, to other people, these physical and mental issues are top priority and can cause distress, and he’s just approached that so sensitively.
This is my second Gavin Francis book, and whilst they’re not easy books to read, they are definitely interesting, and I will keep my eye out for more.
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