Kate Richards – October 2014

Mental Health Week – October 5-15 2014

Kate is a writer of fiction, narrative nonfiction and poetry. She has a medical degree with honours and works part-time in clinical cancer research in Melbourne. Kate is well positioned to ask the hard questions about our mental health system. She experienced episodes of depression and psychosis well into her adult life and is an advocate for empowering patients and their families to be active members of treatment teams believing that when mental health patients are heard, respected and understood, sustained healing can begin.

Madness: A Memoir
Penguin Australia, 2013; ISBN 9780670074778

Living with psychosis over a period of ten years, in which bouts of acute illness are interspersed with periods of sanity, the world is beautiful and terrifying and sometimes magical. The sanctity of life is at times precious and at times precarious and always fragile. This is a story of learning to manage illness with courage and creativity, of achieving balance and living well. It is for everyone now living within the world of madness, for everyone touched by this world, and for everyone seeking to further his or her understanding of it.

Is There No Place for Me? Making Sense of Madness
Penguin Australia, 2014; ISBN 9780143571872

Psychosis and severe depression have a huge effect on how you relate to other people and how you see the world. It’s a bit like being in a vacuum, or behind a wall of really thick glass . . . you lose any sense of connectedness. You’re cast adrift from everyone and everything that matters. This is the story of living with acute psychosis and depression for the best part of twenty years. It follows a journey from chaos to balance, from limbo to meaning.