Breaking the silence - exploring the stigma of women's mental health: In conversation with...

Friday 7 March 2025

18:00-20:00

In conversation with Dr Linda Gask, Dr Rebecca Lawrence and Dr Kate Womersley 

Celebrate International Women's Day with a powerful conversation on women's mental health

Join psychiatrists Dr Linda Gask and Dr Rebecca Lawrence with Dr Kate Womersley by the fireside in the New Library at The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, on 7th March 2025 for an inspiring discussion about their own journeys and two new books: Gask's Out Of Her Mind and Lawrence's An Improbable Psychiatrist. 

These compelling authors explore the unique challenges women face in accessing mental healthcare in the UK and the experience of being a doctor with a mental illness. Guided by Dr Kate Womersley, the event will offer a vision for a more inclusive and compassionate future in psychiatry.

DR LINDA GASK is Emerita Professor of Primary Care Psychiatry at the University of Manchester. Now retired, she has been the Royal College of Psychiatrists Presidential Lead for Primary Care and has written about her own experience of mental illness in two memoirs, The Other Side of Silence and Finding True North. A lifelong feminist, she has an international reputation in the fields of primary care mental health and doctor-patient communication and has been an advisor to the World Health Organisation.

DR REBECCA LAWRENCE is a Consultant Psychiatrist and writer with bipolar disorder. She was first treated with medication and electroconvulsive therapy in her twenties, and subsequently trained as a psychiatrist – despite advice to the contrary. She has blogged and written about her experiences, in both the Guardian and Prospect Magazine.

Chair: DR KATE WOMERSLEY is Co-Principal Investigator of the MESSAGE Project (Medical Science Sex and Gender Equity) at The George Institute for Global Health, Imperial College London. She is also a Psychiatry trainee based in Edinburgh. Her clinical and research interests focus on intersections between the physical and mental health of women and girls across the life course. You can find her writing on science, medicine and books in The Guardian, The Lancet and The Financial Times.

Come and join the conversation in the College, there will be drinks, discussion and Q&A.

RCPE Fellows and Members please note:  there is no special Member rate for this event, the fee is the same for all attendees.