Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
Finding True North: The Healing Power of Place
Insightful study of solitude, mental health and geography
FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE: The Standing Stones of Stenness, Orkney [Max Reeves/Creative Commons]

THIS timely memoir by psychiatrist, author and mental-health campaigner Linda Gask draws on her own experiences as a patient and consultant psychiatrist, and serves to remind us of our inner reserves, how to strengthen them and find help in whatever form that may be.

Gask has recurrent clinical depression and, for her, the capitalist view of “recovery” bears no relation to her experiences, professionally or personally. Her own recovery has been a lifelong matter, complicated by early-life events. Mood can dominate her day, draining it of colour and vibrancy.  

She thinks psychiatrists should be asking: “How do you get through the day?” as this gives a much clearer picture of the difficulties patients face.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
divided mind
Book Review / 10 April 2026
10 April 2026

RICHARD SHILLCOCK examines an enjoyable, but philosophically conventional book, and urges Marxists to employ their capacity to embrace the totality in any explanation

TRAILBLAZING RESEARCH: Dr Aggrey Burke in 2022; Jamaican immigrants met by the Colonial Office officials as they disembark from the Empire Windrush one in four will commit suicide / Windrush pic: Whispyhistory/CC
Obituary / 31 December 2025
31 December 2025

1943-2025: How one man’s unfinished work reveals the lethal lie of ‘colour-blind’ medicine

Swee Ang (first on right) during her annual visit to the Sabra Shatila commemoration in Beirut with children born after the massacre Pic: courtesy of Swee Ang
Features / 9 November 2025
9 November 2025

SWEE ANG, the founder of Medical Aid for Palestinians, is a big believer in the power of small actions, and she is the living proof it works, writes Linda Pentz Gunter