Product Description

Martin Sturrock desperately needs a psychiatrist. The problem? He is one. Emily is a traumatised burns victim, Arta a Kosovan refugee recovering from a rape. David Temple is a longterm depressive, while the Rt Hon Ralph Hall MP lives in terror of his drink problem being exposed. Very different Londoners, but they share one thing: every week they spend an hour at the Prince Regent hospital, revealing the secrets of their psyche to Professor Martin Sturrock.Little do they know that Sturrock's own mind is not the reassuring place they believe it to be. For years he has hidden in his work, ignoring his demons. But now his life is falling apart, and as his ghosts come back to haunt him, the only person he can turn to is a patient. Set over a life-changing weekend, Alastair Campbell's astonishing first novel delves deep into the human mind to create a gripping portrait of the strange dependency between patient and doctor. Both a comedy and tragedy of ordinary lives, it is rich in compassion for those whose days are spent on the edge of the abyss.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14327 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
'A serious subject adddressed with compassion, intelligence and sensitivity...this is an emotionally engaging and thought-provoking book' --The Times, November 1, 2008

Review
'One of the few books that has brought me close to tears in places, yet it is surprisingly uplifting and often very funny'

Review
'Campbell knows his business, which is telling well-paced and compelling stories...the novel succeeds because of the clarity of his reporter's prose'

Customer Reviews

Written from the head rather than from the heart
The former spin-doctor for the Labour government and writer of the generally well-received work of non-fiction THE BLAIR YEARS now turns his hand to writing a novel for the first time, and in doing so reveals some of the vices of his own past in a story that has acknowledged adaptations of autobiographical events. Drawing on personal experiences of depression and alcoholic addiction, All in the Mind explores mental illness and alcoholism by way of a cast of a psychiatrist and six of his patients spread over a period of just four days. Central character Professor Martin Sturrock harbours secrets of his own and it emerges that he is as desperate for help as his patients, one of whom is a politician with drinking problems and another is someone who has a psychotic breakdown similar to an experience the author suffered some twenty years ago.

Cynics might argue that this is not in fact Campbell's first stab at fiction and that he should be credited with the infamous `dodgey dossier' of 2003 that led to the invasion of Iraq, even if he was later officially exonerated. This new novel won't attract any allegations of scandalous untruth made against it, and while it feels authentic - the author having experienced most of these personal problems directly or indirectly - there is something of a dramatic void with regard to the narration and the reader might sense that Campbell could have dropped to deeper and darker depths of his soul in describing the stresses that the various characters endure. In his own life he has presumably come out of the darkness and up into the light a survivor, and possibly as a consequence the general flavour of the story is not the one of hopelessness or despair that might otherwise have tugged more passionately at the reader's heartstrings. The first fifty to a hundred pages are impressively brave and the writing is confident, fascinating and audacious, but eventually it becomes clear that the six patients are not so much characters as characteristics of the conditions they suffer from, and this gives off a feeling of banality as opposed to in-depth character study. The result is a book that feels more like a mildly fictionalised series of real-life accounts of depression and addiction, written intelligently but lacking the heart and passion of a decent novel. There is an air of incompleteness about it, by which I mean that the synopsis is interesting but a good editor would probably hand it back to Campbell and tell him to flesh out these characters more richly so that the re-written manuscript felt more like a work of fiction as opposed to a slightly uncomfortable account of actual events and experiences from the author's own life. Instead it feels halfway between fact and fiction and lacking the flair of a true story-teller. Interesting, though.

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie"
My question is, does "All in the Mind" live up to the sensitivity and insight shown in the documentary "Cracking Up"?

"All in the Mind" is a novel about a psychiatrist and six patients, whose lives interweave with his own. Like all first novels, it owes a lot to autobiography. Alistair Campbell's own interest in psychiatry stems from his experiences openly and frankly described in "Cracking Up".

The central character, Professor Sturrock is a likeable character who cares more about his patients lives than his personal life, for which he pays the unavoidable price. The Professor has a humanistic approach to psychiatry rather than the "Give them drugs and see if they need sectioning" of modern NHS psychiatric service. As a result there are plenty of details of the lives these people, to which Professor Sturrock responds with everyday, formulaic advice. The advice such as "write down your goals", "do not be afraid to do what you want", combined with weekly homework for his patients, might as well come from a life coach,.

The theme of the book is people, and how they respond to events in their lives, rather than choosing the lives they lead. It is not obvious why Alistair Campbell wrote this book, other than these stories needed to a voice.

The book is important because of the background against which it was written and what it tells us about Campbell's role in government. Sturrock has a lot in common with Campbell. Sturrock is a man who hears peoples' confessions but has limited power to improve their lot beyond offering bland advice, regular meetings and even, when required sanctuary in his own home.

His patients include the David, the humble factory worker, whose final eulogy has a lesson for us all. Others include Emily Parkes, disfigured and desperate to regain the life she lost; Arta Mehmet, the refugee from Kosovo; Hatsatu, whose profession throws Sturrock's own moral values into confusion; and Matthew the sex addict, or not. The final patient, Ralph is Secretary of State, who Sturrock fails to help control his secret drinking.

These are people Campbell knows well. The game must be to put names to faces. However it will take someone with more inside knowledge than I have to complete the clues to this crossword, for example, "The first one is in Jelly but not in Joy"

Campbell's resignation statement contained the everlasting statement "get a life back for me and my family". In his case, it seems likely to be true. Campbell resigned at the time of David Kelly's death and war in Iraq. It is easy to understand why someone whose values are essentially decent found it difficult to continue in government. Equally, Sturrock, at the end of the book realises that something in his life has to give, whether it is his patients, his family whose lives are increasing disrupted by his work, or himself.

There is a final point. I have yet to meet, or meet anyone who has met an NHS psychiatrist who is involved with his patients lives to the extent of Sturrock. I have yet to discover an NHS psychiatrist who can spend a morning seeing six patients for an hour each or treats people with anything other than major psychosis. In the private sector Yes, in the public sector No!

This omission could be forgiven in an ordinary writer but from someone who was at the heart of government from 1997 to 2003, this is worrying. It perhaps explains why our mental health services are in the state they are. This book is evidence that no one in the Blair government bothered to look further than the bland reassurances of doctors at the "top" of the medical profession. Perhaps Gordon Brown's accusation of politicians having Style rather than Substance, applies equally to David Cameron and to the Blair government of which Gordon Brown was part.

Is this a worthy sequel to "Cracking Up"? Yes and no, it lacks the personal insights and sensitivity of that documentary but read in a historical context, it is well worth the money.

For me the book was excellent and somewhat important...
As a person that has suffered depression in the past and as someone that treats clients that are currently battling their way through mental health issues, I found this book to be a fascinating insight into the world of sufferers and into the potential problems that the professionals that treat them may obtain through their working life.

For me the book was excellent and somewhat important. You see, as a therapist one of the challenges in treating people with depression, is the way that people react to their illnesses (sometimes not even seeing them as ill at all, but attention seeking). For far too long many people have been misunderstood when they convey to friends and family that they are suffering from a mental health issue such as depression. This book would certainly help to educate those friends and family members that are willing to be open minded and to learn.

All of the story lines from the various characters were handled with respect and where delivered very interestingly.

I am looking forward to this becoming a film on the small screen sometime in the future and awaiting eagerly the announcement of Campbell's next novel.

I would be interested to hear the views of other therapists or sufferers of mental health issues on this book.

Warmly,

Richard MacKenzie
Author of Self-Change Hypnosis