Podcast: Sunbathing in the filing cupboard

When they first met, Welsh Poet Laureate Gwyneth Lewis and psychologist Dorothy Rowe realised they had more than a publisher in common. In their recent books, Sunbathing in the Rain and Beyond Fear, respectively, they both interpret depression.

In my view, Gwyneth has penned one of the best first-person accounts of the state in Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book About Depression . The book is part memoir, part literary guide. She writes

Depression is internal snow. Black snow. The flakes whirl around like motes in the water around your personal shipwreck. The quicker you dive down to see your sorry state, the better for you in life. For above you, if only you can reach it without getting the bends, are sunshine, laughter on a yacht, the clink of plates as a lunch of steaming fish is handed round.

Dorothy, meanwhile, has worked in clinical psychology for many decades, and her now classic book Beyond Fear is one of the essential must-read titles for anyone researching or exploring this topic. (I spoke to her earlier in the year in a series of podcasts broadcast here).

They both visited the filing cupboard this week to record this conversation about living well, and how to interpret and survive darker times — one of our best podcasts yet, I think.

Dorothy Rowe in conversation with Gwyneth Lewis (18MB)