Benji is a psychiatrist for the NHS. Mostly humorous sometimes poignant this is an inside look at the mental health services and the people who work there and service users. It's a really good read and I found myself laughing out loud at times as well as being knocked sideways by some of the more difficult stories. Mental health services are oversubscribed,underfunded and understaffed and this book highlights the struggles that professionals have in that system.Dark humour at its best,thank you to netgalley and the publishers for the ARC

I highly recommend this book. As an ex-mental health nurse and current counsellor, this appealed to me and the accuracy of the residential and community aspects of care are spot on! I enjoyed the five elements that are woven together throughout - the Daffodil Ward, the community care setting, the author's upbringing, his experience in therapy and the informative footnotes explaining the medical and legal aspects in an easy to understand style. The humour makes this a thoroughly engaging book.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for a DRC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book struck the perfect balance between humor and heart, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and heartfelt emotions. The characters were endearing, the dialogue was snappy, and the comedic timing was spot-on. It's a feel-good read that will leave you smiling long after you've finished the last page.

Read this book! It's sad it's hilarious, you experience all sorts of emotions and it highlights the issues of mental health today.
Benji the author, a psychiatric doctor himself, about his real experiences and issues with mental health and that of his patients. It gives the reader, us 'normal' people a better understanding of what some people are going through. He also discloses the mistakes he has made over his time as a doctor. This is a bare all book with a different angle and a really good read!
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Uk, Vintage for an advanced copy upon my request.

Dr Benji (actually Benjamin but not Ben please!) Waterhouse tells the tale of his time as an NHS psychiatrist from his start in the specialty. After 6 years at medical school and 2 years as a junior doctor he started to work as a psychiatrist and this is his journey from then until roughly the end of the main part of the COVID epidemic. Among many doctors the idea of specialising in psychiatry is seen as strange/a waste of a good doctor and the like. This opens with a preface which looks at the "why" of the book and gives a sensible overview of psychiatry. It is also quite funny! Over the book as a whole Benji addresses the "why" of his choice of specialty too.

The chapters generally have a patient's story as well as some personal narrative and insight into the "organisation" of mental services in the NHS at that time. I guess for those who have watched the various 999 type TV programmes in the UK that look at emergency responses to mental health crises this looks at the other side of that coin. For me every one of the stories were sad or powerful or funny and many managed all of those. There is certainly humour here however it is needed maybe to balance the grim realities of mental healthcare. For me the humour didn't feel as though it was thrown in for effect to any great degree which I thought was appropriate.

I found the stories here generally very vivid. Among the ones I made a note of was Gladys who was sure she was dead… It was so interesting to see just how hard it is to convince someone who does think that that they are not. A recurring story is that of Tariq and his dog (Benji is not a fan of dogs!). So many stories were powerful and moving but this was definitely one of them for me.

For a while Benji moves onto the PICU - Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit. If you think things are dark before this then be ready for the darkness to get quite a bit deeper. Femi's story was a real roller coaster ride. Femi is a 45 year old who believes he is a werewolf and behaves like that some of the time. It really is quite remarkable. Throw in Dr Benji's own mental health issues - working with the people he does it is hardly surprising - and you get a feel for the breadth of this book. The latter part of the story of some of his own issues with his parents was as powerful as many of the other stories in here.

This isn't really written for academics or other mental health professionals to me. It is written in a very accessible way and I think anyone with an interest in or concern for mental health would find this well worth a look.

Graham thinks he’s Jesus but ends up being sectioned after nearly drowning in a swimming pool trying to walk on water. Barbara flies to the UK in a bridal gown so that she can marry Harry Styles, and it’s only the death threats made to Styles then girlfriend (Taylor Swift) that result in her sectioning. Jamal knows that the psychiatric ward is in fact a TV set because it’s so shitty and real ones would be much nicer. Damien unintentionally outs himself after drinking hand gel by announcing his illness, thereby proving himself sufficiently sane to remain at large. Benjamin senses his mental heath worsening, uncertain he’s really fit to do his job, struggling to come to terms with an attention seeking mother and an angry father. He’s also the psychiatrist responsible for treating all the preceding characters and author of this “fly on the padded wall” book.

Mental illness is no laughing matter, but for the most part Waterhouse makes himself the target of the jokes. It’s a personal book, as much about this relationship with his parents and his girlfriend as it is the people he works with or tries to heal each day. His patients and their conditions are described with care and compassion, the darkness that defines so much of his working day lightened by the absurdity of so many of the situations he encounters. He admits to often being mistaken for a patient by other staff, and once accidentally sectioned himself due to filling the form in wrong.

As he points out early on, as a psychiatrist you are basically a social worker with a stethoscope, but you can’t hold it to someone’s head and hear the voices. A patient who says they are in a bad place could be telling you they are suicidal or just visiting Peterborough. He’s experienced both. It’s a line of medicine where you can never be 100% certain about anything, and yet you have to able predict future risks against a backdrop of chronic underfunding. He’s unprepared for the trauma of watching a patient receive electro-convulsive therapy, juxtaposed with the patient’s immediate improvement.

There are a great many sobering passages in this book but none more so than when Waterhouse points out that 25% of the population will suffer mental illness at some time in their life. It represents 28% of the nation’s overall sickness burden, but gets just 13% of NHS funding. There were 67,000 psychiatric beds in 1988, but only 18,000 by 2019.And if you are one of the lucky few to actually get a bed, it could be 300 miles away. Something that won’t happen if you end up on crutches.
Waterhouse uses the book to debunk some common mental health myths – people with schizophrenia are more likely to be victims of violence not perpetrators, limiting the number of paracetamol you can buy at one time reduces suicides simply because it introduces enough of a delay that might lead to someone changing their mind. Although he’s still pissed off that he can’t use the fact that he’s also buying long life milk as a way round the rule.

Of course, there are parallels with Adam Kay and “This Is Going To Hurt”. Kay was far from the first to write about his medical experiences, but his mix of humour and gritty observation are also much in evidence here. Waterhouse book has already been optioned for TV, so his time as a psychiatrist may be coming to an end. Before Kay turned his diaries and notes into a book, he read excerpts at comedy festivals (which was where the idea for a book arose), and I saw Waterhouse present a stand up version of this book (as Benji Waterstones) at the Edinburgh Festival last year. I saw Kay there too, his TV success enabling him to sell rooms 4 times the size of Waterhouse. In truth, neither really seem to be natural standups. Kay’s shows are effectively book readings, which are a little stilted and he’s much funnier adlibbing or playing music. Waterhouse is more natural but performed it lacks the sharpness of the written word.

Is laughter the best medicine? Waterhouse maintains it can be very helpful, although he’d still go for an antibiotic if you end up with chlamydia. Either way, this a funny, sharply observed book.

I enjoyed this book and having worked in psychiatric hospitals myself found it extremely relevant and similar to my own experiences. I loved the stories of the patients and with many similar tales of my own, it did make me miss my patient facing days. A really interesting read.

Witty medical biographies are one of my favourite genres, and this absolutely did not disappoint. Dr Waterhouse compassionately and respectfully documents his training and patients experiences whilst also seeing the humour in life. I'm aware of comparisons with Adam Kay, but I think this book stands out by far. I thoroughly enjoyeded it, and will be recommending it to anyone that will listen

I enjoyed this book so much. It’s full of emotion but told very well with lots of humour. It kept me captivated throughout. It’s refreshing to see that there are NHS psychiatrists that are still passionate about what they do and haven’t burned out, or lost their human side.

If you're expecting nothing but light hearted anecdotes, you'll find this book a shock. Yes, there are a few amusing moments, but it's more an expose on the shameful situation facing anyone caring for the mentally ill. Resources have dwindled to such an extent that a man in London who needed a bed urgently had to be sent to Durham for the one bed available.
Another man who had been sectioned went on to murder his mother, because it takes several days to perform a sectioning with the backup required,
Dr Benji starts his career with hope and the desire to improve the lives of his patients . He's shocked when his first consultant actively encourages sending patients away unless they show signs of doing damage to themselves or others. By the time he's a second year psychiatrist, Dr Benji is the most senior doctor because of staff shortages. His own mental health starts to suffer, particularly as he's dealing with the fallout of his parents' volatile relationship during his childhood.
I finished the book with even more respect for those who devote their career to trying to help those in emotional and mental distress.

What a fantastic book, really well written - laugh out loud funny, underlined with sadness but really well thought through.

There isn't anything funny about mental health and Benji doesn't make light of it at all. This reminds me of Blood Sweat and Tea, another excellent read.

I'll definitely be recommending this one!

'...You can guess what I smelt like when working in gastrointestinal medicine. But psychiatry, what's passed in the air is people's pain'...

I was extremely interested in reading this book, as I'm a CYP therapy student and a lot of our studies could be classed as 'anti-psychiatry'...

...and it was totally worth the read.

The author gives a very balanced view of the pros of psychiatry alongside the challenging, trauma-inducing history; which I imagine could have been quite a vulnerable position to put himself in. It's also an incredibly humorous read and honestly, for those of us who deal in pain, that's often what we need.

I'll be recommending this to all my trainee friends, my network of safeguarding professionals and anyone who enjoyed Adam Kay's books.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC!

Psychiatrist and stand-up comedian Benji Waterhouse relates his experience as a junior doctor - together with his dysfunctional family life.

I work on an acute mental health ward (and love it). I found Benji's account very true to life - if hammed up a touch - and laugh out loud funny, human tragedy aside. Maybe I found it a release, but Benji shows a deft touch with difficult subject matter.

Strongly recommended.

Read in a couple of sittings. Bleak but hopeful! A very honest and frank account of a crushingly depleted NHS told with dark humour and wit. The healing journey of the writer was wholesome to read about and I was fully invested in his relationship with Esther. The best non-fiction book I’ve read in a while!

Thank you to the author, publisher and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A witty but sad read about the state of our society and health care system. The book is well written and flows well both through Benji's narrative and the stories of certain patients. As someone who narrowly missed becoming a psychiatrist it was hard to tell as I read the book that this was indeed a mixed blessing or a missed opportunity. Hopefully this will raise some narrative about the state of the health care provision and the working conditions for those involved in the UK.

A really good insight into the very busy psychiatric side of the NHS - its a side that is growing and growing as more people suffer mental health issues. It is an overused and under funded part. I loved the innocence of the author when he first started out, how he wanted to change the world, gradually realising that you have to go with what you have and do the best you can. I particularly liked the way it wasn't all figures and NHS red tape.

I found the first half of this book really funny, engaging, and informative. The mood does turn somewhat as you hit the halfway point, things get quite serious in places. I did find some of the stories and the authors own journey a little hard going at times. That said I applaud his honesty, especially when he shares his own mental health challenges and his complex relationship with his parents. This is a real behind-the-curtain look at a profession you'd never really had insight into. I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you enjoy Adam Kay's wit and humour you'll enjoy this.

loved this book. There is just the right balance of seriousness, humour and thought provoking content.
It is written in a really accessible way. I like the way the book is laid out and things are explained.

People in the UK are now used to the fact that our beloved NHS is in meltdown, but we sometimes lose sight of the fact that it’s the people who work within it who keep it functioning at all. This book opens the reader’s eyes to the devotion of those working in NHS psychiatry and the personal cost of what they deal with every day of their working lives. Yes, it’s very funny in parts , albeit at the expense of those with psychiatric illnesses, but it is also the deeply personal story of a young doctor from the start of his career and the toll that the work can take. The book is well written, edited to flow seamlessly and with footnotes to explain the more (and less) esoteric terms and history or the specialism. In the end though, this is a book about triumph in the face of adversity, for patients, doctors, NHS workers, and therefore for all of us, to know that the safety net of the NHS is still there, even if it is full of holes at present.

This book is really readable, if a grim reminder of the situation of the mental health system.

My job is adjacent to this world, so I came in thinking I wouldn't read anything particularly new, but it was still eye opening and a book that I will be recommending to colleagues to better understand some of the challenges that we encounter.