Flagging the Problem: A New Approach to Mental Health

by Harry Barry

Written for the professional and layperson alike, this book looks at mental health, a growing concern amongst the rapidly changing and ever-faster pace of modern society. Each section marked with a colored flag represents a particular mental state or area of the normal mood system, depression, anxiety, addiction and suicide. The author deftly explains the physiology of mental health and helps open a new understanding for sufferers and their families. There is a technical section, and extra appendices at the end of the book including information on self-help groups, and a list of commonly used medicines.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

317 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2007

Reviews

[Aoife Lennon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Green Flag - Normal Mood
Red Flag - Depression
Yellow Flag - Anxiety
Purple Flag - Addiction
White Flag - Suicide
Dr Harry Barry explains the mood system and brain in an engaging way and how under each section this can lead to mental illness. The book is quite technical but is very absorbing and informative.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

My therapist recommended that I read this book, and because I want to get a good grade in therapy (something that is both reasonable to want and possible to achieve!!), I did so. However, I suspect she meant me to read Flagging the Therapy, not Flagging the Problem.

This book is very much a treatise on the conditions of depression, anxiety, addiction, and suicidal ideation, with a heavy focus on neuropathology and pathogenesis. It would, in fact, be a great book for medical students or clinicians who deal in mental health. However, I wasn’t approaching this as a doctor but as a patient. I was only interested in my own condition (anxiety) and looking for tips to ameliorate it, rather than having an academic interest in the subtypes of depression or the multifactorial aetiology of addiction. Moreover, this book justifiably highlights causes for all these conditions that boil down to: poverty, abuse, extreme trauma. It’s the kind of focus that for years added to my personal mental pile-on, because I am not poor, abused, or traumatised, so why the fuck are you so mentally fucked, dude? It was only with the discovery of writers willing to treat of middle-class white girls with massive Good Girl anxiety that I could see myself reflected in a way that was helpful for me in overcoming the worst of it.

None of which is Barry’s fault in the slightest – indeed, Flagging the ‘Therapy’ may be just the book I need for the next step. But I would definitely point this book at people who are, like, doing an exam in psych soon or something, rather than, say, people looking for help dealing with exam stress.