'Poignant, funny, engrossing' - Jo Brand

'A sensitive and immersive voyage through the career of a forensic psychiatrist' - Kerry Daynes

'a beautifully balanced and compassionately written memoir... This is a fascinating account of a fascinating journey' - Dr Richard Shepherd

Meet Dr Ben Cave. For over thirty years he has worked in prisons and secure hospitals diagnosing and treating some of the most troubled men and women in society. A lifetime of care takes us from delusional disorders to schizophrenia, steroid abuse to drug dependency, personality disorders to paedophilia, and depression so severe a mother can kill her own baby.

These are the human stories behind the headlines. The reality of a life spent working with patients with the severest mental health disorders. The tragic and often frightening truth about what happens behind closed doors.

Dr Ben Cave takes us on a journey to the heart of this highly emotive environment, putting himself under the microscope as well as his patients. In the process, he allows us to share what they have taught each other, and how it has changed them. To share the psychological battle scars that come with a career on the frontline of our health service. To learn about the brilliant mental health nurses for whom physical injury and verbal abuse are a daily hazard. To learn about ourselves, and what we fear most.

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Thoughtful, revealing, often haunting and always enlightening, if you liked Unnatural Causes by Dr Richard Shepherd, Do No Harm by Henry Marsh and This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay this book is for you.

Dr Ben Cave is the pen name of a practising general and forensic psychiatrist, also a specialist in substance misuse, medico-legal expert and a member of the judiciary. Over a career spanning almost 35 years, he has worked as a prison psychiatrist, community psychiatrist and as a consultant in medium-, low-secure and general mental health units. He has dealt with the whole range of psychiatric conditions, from personality disorders and schizophrenia to addictions, and continues to make challenging judgment calls on when patients are no longer a risk to themselves or others and can be released back into the community. This is Dr Ben's first book.