**THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER**

A humane, hilarious and heart-breaking window into the world of psychiatry from ‘the Adam Kay of mental healthcare’ (THE TIMES)

'Very funny and deeply sympathetic. Really excellent' HENRY MARSH

'This is honestly my dream book. Both fascinating and bleakly funny' FERN BRADY

‘Honest, funny, saddening and uplifting all rolled into one’ JO BRAND

A woman in a wedding dress arrives at the hospital looking for Harry Styles.

A lorry driver with schizophrenia believes he’s got a cure for coronavirus.

A depressed man hides his profession from his GP due to stigma.

Most of the psychiatric cases in this book are his patients. Some of them are family. One of them is him.

Unlocking the doors to the psych ward, NHS psychiatrist Dr Benji Waterhouse provides a fly-on-the-padded-wall account of medicine’s most mysterious and controversial speciality.

Why would anyone in their right mind choose to be a psychiatrist? Are the solutions to people’s messy lives really within medical school textbooks? And how can vulnerable patients receive the care they need when psychiatry lacks staff, hospital beds and any actual cures?

You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here explores these complicated questions from both sides of the doctor’s desk.

This is the perfect read for fans of This Is Going to Hurt, Unnatural Causes and The Prison Doctor.


Instant Sunday Times bestseller, May 2024

"Hilarious, shocking and urgent… a deeply compassionate book, which paints a picture of professional dedication in the face of almost unbelievable dysfunction" - The Times, *Book of the Week*

"It has a freshness and verve that sets it apart... What is unwavering and beautifully described is the inspiration Waterhouse continues to find in his patients. He has that essential trait of all good doctors: a sincere and lasting tenderness for his flawed and frail, crude and complicated, broken and brilliant fellow human beings… Ultimately, this is a campaigning work, both brilliantly funny and deadly serious…. His book is humane, hilarious, eye-opening – and deserves to be widely read" - Guardian

"Humorous and humane … [Waterhouse] finds the funny without turning patients into punchlines... It’s a warm-hearted reminder that the [NHS] system is still staffed by many people doing their darnedest to connect with and care for people" - Sunday Telegraph

"Funny, humane and insightful " - i news

"Fascinating, heartbreaking and hilarious " - The Times

"Funny but also touching and, at times, incredibly sad. A love letter to both psychiatry and the patients we care for, the author's humanity and devotion shine through." - Daily Mail

"[A] superb memoir… a book that should really prompt a public inquiry but is also, somehow, hilarious… If this book does not serve as a wake-up call that serious change is needed, I don’t know what will" - Evening Standard

"Furious and very funny… If you want to read something that matters, try this" - Sunday Times, *Summer Reads of 2024*

"[A] compassionate, insightful and thought-provoking memoir" - Daily Express

"A topical read that sheds light and humour on a dark crisis" - Mail on Sunday, *Summer Reads of 2024*

"Waterhouse…manages to tread that delicate line of being both humane and hilarious" - iNews, *Summer Reads of 2024*

"[A] stark, funny, and humane account of working as a psychiatrist in the UK’s National Health Service… profoundly and ruthlessly honest" - Lancet