A Place for Lost Souls

A psychiatric nurse's stories of hope and despair

Belinda Black

$49.99

Hardback

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English

Quercus Publishing
22 June 2023

Memoirs; Care of the mentally ill; Diseases & disorders; Psychiatry; Psychiatric nursing

'Ultimately, my experiences as a mental health nurse have taught me that we should judge less and open our hearts more.'

Belinda Black was just seventeen years old when she began working as a nursing assistant at the large and foreboding 'madhouse', as it was then known in hometown in the north of England. Following in the footsteps of her mother, she spent a decade caring for patients with widely varying mental health problems, all locked up together and out of view of society. Some had suffered unimaginable trauma, several had violent and volatile tendencies, but amongst this Belinda found moments of joy and even friendship with her patients.

Together, against a backdrop of rattling keys, clanging iron doors, and wards that smelled of disinfectant and stale smoke, these people came together to get through another day. Until the hospital, along with many others, had its doors closed in 1991 - the biggest change to mental healthcare in NHS history.

The result is a moving, shocking but ultimately life-affirming account of a unique and noble profession, told from the frontlines.

By: Belinda Black
Imprint: Quercus Publishing
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 160mm, Spine: 34mm
Weight: 500g
ISBN: 9781529429657
ISBN 10: 152942965X
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 22 June 2023
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Belinda Black is a Registered Mental Health Nurse, and a non-executive director of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and social care in England. She began her nursing career in 1981, and over the following forty years has worked in two large secure hospitals, a regional secure unit, as a court liaison officer at a secure unit for mentally disordered offenders, as the CEO of a Sheffield-based social care charity, and with the National Institute For Health and Social Care Excellence (NICE) to develop national guidelines for the delivery of health and social care. Belinda lives in Huddersfield, and A Place for Lost Souls will be her first book.