Dr Gwen Adshead: Why Dealing With Difficulty Is Important & How We Grow Up

“Life is difficult sometimes. The fact that something is difficult, hard or boring doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the wrong thing for you. It may be important to work out why it’s so difficult, hard and boring and try and go a bit deeper… You don’t have to like every situation you’re in. Life is full of suffering and we need to develop resilience."

My guest this week is Forensic Psychiatrist, Dr Gwen Adshead. She is a leader in a very specialist field, in which she seeks to understand and treat the behaviour of some of the most vilified and socially rejected members of society.

Currently working at Ravenswood House in Hampshire and a women’s prison in Surrey, she previously worked at Broadmoor Hospital for more than a decade, an institution home to more than 200 men convicted and accused of the most heinous of crimes.

With over 20 years of practice in the NHS, Gwen qualified in medicine in 1983\. Since then, she has become a contributing member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. She also works with young offenders, supports crime victims and has written over 100 academic papers in addition to co-editing textbooks about Psychotherapy and Forensic Psychiatry.

Gwen is a regular guest on radio and television, where she has discussed the nature of evil, criminality and the state of the Health Service is the UK. Her “Desert Island Discs” is also an absolute must-listen. Having known she wanted to be a doctor from the age of 7, Gwen says she still can’t think of anything more interesting than being a Psychiatrist.

I discovered Gwen when I listened to her Desert Island Discs, first broadcast in 2010 (and an absolute must-listen if you haven’t heard it). I was fascinated to hear her talk about her path in life, but also the nature and origin of evil and what happens to trigger someone to commit a serious offence. In this episode, we talk all about how Gwen found her calling, how she dealt with difficult decisions and navigated her career, the power of being open-minded, reflections on her time at Broadmoor and working with people for whom everything went wrong. We also talked about what it means to grow up from a psychological standpoint and how important learning to deal with difficulty is - a perspective we don't hear enough.

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Listen to [**Gwen's Desert Island Discs**](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00syzlf)