Catherine Cho on postpartum psychosis and why we need to talk about maternal mental health

The Sunday Salon with Alice-Azania Jarvis

One day, when her son Cato was three months old, Catherine Cho looked at him and, instead of his eyes, she saw devil eyes. She and her husband James had taken Cato to the US from their home in London to introduce him to relatives. She grew gradually more anxious as the trip went on, before being hit by a tidal wave of postpartum psychosis, becoming convinced that she was in hell and that her son was going to die. She was sectioned.

Inferno is her astonishing memoir about what happened next. Moving between scenes from her childhood, her romance with James, and her newly infantilised existence in a psychiatric institution, it’s powerful, raw and eye opening. I’m so grateful to Catherine for talking to me about this - as well as what it was like reliving her trauma for the book, her anxiety over having a second child, and the urgent need to open up the conversation around maternal mental health.

Buy the book: https://www.waterstones.com/book/inferno/catherine-cho/9781526619044

Edited by Chelsey Moore