Rebecca Lawrence

• Lawrence has publicly described a long and changing diagnostic history. She was initially treated for depression, and over time her diagnosis shifted between depression and bipolar disorder before ultimately returning to bipolar disorder. [3]
• She has written that these changes made it difficult for her to feel fully certain about diagnostic labels, even though she accepts that she has a mental illness. In 2020, she said that she had been diagnosed with depression, then bipolar disorder, then depression again, and later bipolar disorder once more. [3]
• In An Improbable Psychiatrist, Lawrence describes periods of elevated mood that later contributed to her diagnosis being revised again to bipolar disorder. [5]

• Lawrence has described becoming severely unwell at 26 while training as a GP. She became depressed, paranoid, and increasingly unable to function, and was admitted to psychiatric hospital. After returning to Edinburgh, she was admitted again with what was then diagnosed as psychotic depression. This became the beginning of a period of repeated hospital admissions. [1][2]
• In her memoir, Lawrence describes periods of depression so severe that she struggled to think clearly and was unable to work, alongside periods when illness made caring for her young child difficult. [1]
• She has also experienced later recurrences of severe depression, including an admission to a hospital where she had previously worked as a consultant psychiatrist. [6]
• Her illness has also included periods of elevated mood. Lawrence describes times of increased writing and work productivity, greater social activity, and a generally elevated mood; these experiences eventually contributed to her diagnosis being revised again to bipolar disorder. [5]

• Lawrence has received psychiatric treatment for more than three decades, including medication and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). She has described undergoing ECT during severe depressive episodes and later receiving unilateral ECT as an outpatient, which she found had less effect on her memory. [1]
• After her diagnosis was revised again to bipolar disorder, Lawrence was treated with lithium, which she has described as controlling her mood well. [5]

• Lawrence has said that she has experienced repeated periods of illness over the years but is usually well between them. Despite once believing that mental illness would prevent her from working as a doctor again, she later returned to medicine, trained in psychiatry, and became a consultant. [2]
• She has also described the possibility of relapse as something that still influences her decisions. In 2020, she wrote that the risk of becoming unwell again can make her hesitate before taking on new projects, even though she usually feels able to do so with the support available to her. [2]

• Lawrence has argued that doctors and psychiatrists should not be assumed incapable of practicing because they have experienced mental illness themselves. She has spoken openly about her own history partly so that medical trainees with similar experiences can see that a psychiatric diagnosis does not necessarily end a medical career. [2]
• She has also said that being both a psychiatrist and a patient has changed how she approaches clinical work. Lawrence emphasizes listening carefully to patients, avoiding assumptions that one person’s experience of depression or bipolar disorder will resemble another’s, and remembering that diagnostic labels do not capture the whole person. [3][2]

“I was 26, training to be a GP, and I didn’t think I would ever work as a doctor again.”

— Rebecca Lawrence [2]