Psychologist, broadcaster and author Dr Sian Williams spoke to the Sunday Express about her health and mental health (Image: Phil Harris)
The debate over ADHD diagnoses has hit the spotlight in recent weeks amid rising diagnostic rates, increased prescription numbers, and the pressure placed on healthcare systems like the NHS. An official government review in England found this month that there is a risk of people being over-diagnosed with ADHD and autism, and called for tougher regulation of private firms that offer assessments for the NHS over concerns about quality and consistency – and a ban on advertising.
But former BBC Breakfast presenter, Dr Sian Williams, now a psychologist specialising in anxiety and trauma, believes the rising numbers of diagnoses reflects better awareness rather than a change in the true underlying prevalence of the condition. “Historically there has been an under diagnosis of ADHD so what we are seeing is a correction which is not a bad thing,” she says. “I also don’t think it serves anyone to diminish people’s experience when we don’t know what it’s like to walk in their shoes. Also, I’m not somebody who thinks that we have a snowflake generation because I don’t believe we do.
Sian with BBC Breakfast co-presenter the late Bill Turnbull (Image: PA)
“Young people are experiencing different pressures perhaps to the ones our generation experienced. There are massive reasons for people to feel anxious and uncertain at the moment. Political, global and climate uncertainty and financial insecurity. So while we wait for institutions to do the right thing, or for more physiologists and pychotherapists to be trained in the NHS to respond to the need, we have to work as individuals to recognise and protect ourselves and work with tools that are available to us.”
Earlier this year Williams made headlines by opening up about her own “lifelong” struggle with severe anxiety while promoting her new book The Power of Anxiety: How to Ride the Worry Wave. She revealed that the condition was so intense during her early broadcasting career that it once caused her to physically “keel over” while covering the opening of the Diana Memorial Fountain in 2004, an event attended by Queen Elizabeth II. As a psychologist, she now actively campaigns to change public perceptions of anxiety, re-framing it as a protective, natural mechanism rather than something to fiercely fight against.
“Growing up, I was told I was a worrier and too sensitive and that I needed to grow a thicker a skin,” says Sian, 61, speaking backstage at the Wimbledon BookFest where she was in conversation with writer, chartered psychologist and existential psychotherapist Dr Chris Cleave. “But actually one of the things I write about in the book is how important sensitivity is. A third of the population are highly sensitive individuals. That means they will experience anxiety and depression more than people who are not. Just the idea that sensitivity could be a strength can feel liberating to people.”
She hopes to change public perception and move away from the negative language that we use daily about anxiety and to de-stigmatise the idea that it is weak or dramatic. “You should never have to “admit” to having it because it’s nothing to be ashamed of,” she says. “We can get into a pattern of shame and blame when anxiety IS around and we need to look at it holistically. The book is about reframing anxiety as something we can live with well if we’ve got the right tools to do so,” she says. “Creating space for yourself, walking in nature, practising slow paced breathing.
Sian with second husband TV producer Paul Woolwich in 2016 (Image: Alan Davidson/Shutterstock)
“There is a long waiting list for many therapies, so it can feel inaccessible, so I wanted to write something for people who want to do something to help themselves in the meantime.” She adds: “But I would always say, if you feel like things have got out of control, you must go and see your doctor.
Anxiety is a weird thing in that it is a basic clinical necessity. We need it to keep us safe and protected and out of danger. And that can be for a whole host of reasons. Maybe you experienced an unpredictable childhood for example, and your anxiety helped to keep you safe. But sometimes it’s switched on when it doesn’t need to be switched on.”
Petite and glamorous, the prominent journalist and broadcaster has been a familiar face and voice on BBC Breakfast, television news, and Radio 4 for many years. Now, she’s a presenter on Radio 3 Unwind on BBC Sounds and she also presents Life Changing on Radio 4, interviewing people who have lived through extraordinary events which began a new series this week.
Her first guest was Richard Jackson whose life was turned upside down when he left a top secret government file on a train while employed as a senior civil servant. Williams’s own life was turned upside down when she was diagnosed with breast cancer a week after her 50th birthday in December 2014 and she revealed in 2016 that she had undergone a double mastectomy.
Her own experiences with cancer have directly influenced her psychological research, prompting her to publish academic work focused on the power of self-compassion for individuals navigating cancer recoveries. “It’s been 11 years since my diagnosis and I’m a long way from it now,” she says. “I have six monthly regular check ups and my cancer was very treatable so I was extraordinarily lucky. I’ve returned to working in psycho-oncology which is emotional support for people with cancer in the NHS. I feel very privileged to work in this area helping people.”
Sian, pictured here at the London Marathon 2017, is training for the 2027 event (Image: Joanne Davidson/Shutterstock)
Williams co-presented BBC Breakfast for 11 years regularly sharing the sofa with co-star Bill Turnbull until she left the programme in 2012. She published moving tributes to Turnbull after his death from prostate cancer aged 66 in 2022 after a courageous fight against the disease, writing affectionately about their 25-year friendship, “He is very much missed,” she says simply and remains in touch with his widow Sesi.
After anchoring Channel 5 News for six years, Williams stepped away from the newsdesk in March 2022 to fully lean into her psychology career. Her work is important to her and it seems incredible that she still manages to juggle her hectic life with being a mother to five children. She has two children, Joss, 34, and Alex, 32, from her first marriage to Neale Hunt and three with her second husband TV producer Paul Woolwich, Seth, 20, Evie, 17, and a step-daughter Emily, 27.
Married in 2006, she prefers to keep her relationship off limits. “Richard’s a private person,” she says. “My job is quite front facing but not everyone in my family chooses that so I respect their privacy and there are no pictures of us anywhere.”
Motherhood, she says, is everything to her: “Most of my life is being a mum.” I say her children must be very proud of her, and she laughs when asked if her psychology work has helped her understand them more, “Oh I don’t know, you’d need to ask them!” But suffice to say, her youngest son Seth was in the audience to watch her speak at Wimbledon BookFest.
Sian says she was “very average” at school. She remembers a critical school report from a teacher who wrote: “Sian Williams is a small girl with thin powers of concentration who tries hard and is keen to please.” Decades later, she still recalls every word.
Later on, she was told not to become a journalist as she wasn’t bright enough to go to university. Despite the hurt, the setbacks drove her forward. “I thought, ‘I can do it. It might not be perfect, but I can do it’,” she says. Still, even now, imposter syndrome has never left her. “Everybody has it,” she says simply.
Sian reveals that her husband Paul is very supportive. “When I was sitting there saying, What am I thinking? Doing a doctorate in counselling pyschology when I was so often below average at school? He was always saying: You can do this, don’t even think you can’t’. Sometimes you do have to fake it and push forward when you’re not feeling like it. But anything worth doing is worth working hard for, and I do know how to work hard.
The Power of Anxiety: How To Ride the Worry Wave by Dr Sian Williams (Allen & Unwin, £14.99) is out now (Image: Allen & Unwin)
“I’ve had a great career It looks very clean on paper but I’ve never had a plan, it’s zig zagged! Stuff can come up and I’ll think, ‘Let’s have a go at that’.” Will she be back on TV screens anytime soon? She pauses and says, “I’ve got a really good balance and I’m happy.” And as for the BBC’s future in light of recent publicised budget and staffing cuts, she says, “The BBC is always changing and evolving.”
She continues to keep a watchful eye on her own mental health, “Music really helps me. I have to be in nature, movement, and running regularly. I’m lucky at that moment that I’m healthy. I can move, I can go running with the dog in the morning. Age has never played a part in my thinking.”
Next year she will take part in the London Marathon with her brother Dave coached by close pal Sophie Raworth, “We go back years. We are running for the Royal Marsden Hospital to thank them for all that they did for my Dad and for Bill.
“I was up out there in the dark at 6am this morning with my head torch running with the dog,” she smiles. “I’ve been doing it since I was a kid. Running is the only thing I was ever any good at. For me, it’s a great place for processing.
“It helps me. The reason the book is called The Power of Anxiety is because anxiety has an enormous power to keep us inside, and away from opportunities, people and places and things we love. But we can reclaim a bit of our power by saying to anxiety: I see you, I know what you’re trying to do and I know it’s not my fault and I know I’m not going crazy and also these are the things I’m now going to put in place to help me live with it well.”
She thinks about the advice she’d give to her younger self. “If I was going to tell my 18-year-old self one thing, I would say the sensitivity you have been told to get rid of is the one thing that is going to really, really help you in life – so don’t let go of it.”
The Power of Anxiety: How To Ride the Worry Wave by Dr Sian Williams (Allen & Unwin, £14.99) is out now
