Did you go into therapy just to write about it?
No. I had therapy first and foremost to sort out the mess my life was in. On the surface my life looked pretty good. But underneath it was a completely different story. I was crying uncontrollably all the time. I was behaving like a love-sick maniac in a relationship with a guy I should never have been involved with in the first place. I was on the verge of quitting a dream job and, once again, running away and avoiding difficulties in my life. I was perpetually late. All of these things were symptoms of the chaos in my life and my lack of responsibility. I went into therapy because I was in a state of inner disarray and all the things I’d relied on in the past – friends, new challenges, exercise, Prozac, avoidance, travel, reading, writing, getting drunk, detoxing, multivitamins, fresh air, charity work, being in relationships, avoiding relationships et cetera, et cetera, et cetera – no longer worked. I felt desperate and therapy was, for me, a last resort.

Isn’t it selfish and self-obsessed to spend a year navel-gazing?
I can understand why, when we live in a world with so many problems, that it would seem like a selfish, self-indulgent act to spend time looking within. This was exactly what I thought when I was considering going into therapy. I felt guilty because I thought, compared with the real problems some other people face, I had nothing to complain about. I thought about my mum and my gran, who I felt had coped with much more than I’d ever had to, and I thought about people I’d met in my job who had suffered terrible losses in their lives. But the truth is I was a mess and I realized I had to do something drastic to sort myself out. Having tried many times in the past to pull my own socks up, I decided this time I needed some help. Going into therapy may well have been self-indulgent, but I can’t apologise for it. I am at long last a happy, content and much less anxious and self-destructive person. (As a consequence I’m more productive, no longer on Prozac and no longer drawn to unhealthy relationships – so there are wider benefits!) I feel as if I have made peace with myself. I know this sounds terribly airy-fairy and corny, but it’s the way I feel after therapy – two stones lighter. As a society we spend a fortune on gym memberships, faddy health foods and diets, expensive clothes, mortgages we can’t afford. As long as it’s on the physical or external side, it’s fine. But as soon as you take a little time to try to make yourself a better, more honest and stronger person on the inside, to gain insight, and try to understand yourself and other people a bit more, you are accused of being selfish. That is crazy.

What was the biggest surprise about therapy?
There were so many. Initially, I found the very nature of the relationship weird and frustrating. I suppose, although I told myself otherwise, I wanted to be advised, comforted, praised, reassured, guided. I wanted some kind of reaction from this woman. But I soon realized that this is not the way this kind of therapy works. In many ways it is about making you feel uncomfortable initially – letting all your anxiety bubble up to the surface – and then examining the roots of this anxiety and chipping away at the façade you’ve been unwittingly presenting to the world. It is, I suppose, a journey to find out who you really are. Without sounding too psychobabbly, in some ways it’s about rediscovering the creative, adventurous, individual child within. It is a search for truth about the self, which is surely as valuable as the search for truth in any other area of life. This involves being brutally honest with yourself, confronting all your hidden fears, and letting go of your defences, which is often deeply uncomfortable. I honestly thought I knew myself before I went into therapy. The biggest surprise was probably realizing that I didn’t.

Did you ever worry about exposing so much of yourself?
Yes, often. In the magazine column I felt I was giving only a tiny bit of myself. I was having three fifty-minute sessions a week and writing a 450-word column. So I felt I was receiving the benefits of therapy but using a very small part of it for journalistic and entertainment purposes. I received so many letters from women saying they identified with some of the issues I was writing about. This gave me reassurance and encouragement while writing the book. But that said, yes – I did worry about confessing these things to the world at large. I had read some female columnists who seemed to be involved in a kind of masochistic confession. I was aware of the dangers of that. However, I realized, partly from the reaction to the column that many of the issues I was writing about – repressed anger, envy, rivalry, the desire for unconditional love, fear of rejection and deep intimacy, being involved in messy unfulfilling relationships – were not unique to me, but were universal, and all part of the human condition. Also, it was written with, I hope, a touch of humour. Although it is a personal story my hope was always that it would resonate with some other women and men, as it has done, and make them think about their own lives and relationships.

What was your family’s reaction?
I mentioned in one interview that my sister was initially appalled that I had written that first article about going into therapy. But this was before she’d read it. After she realized it wasn’t a warts-and-all stream-of-consciousness outpouring she was very supportive and is probably now my biggest fan. I showed her most of the Grazia columns, and the book manuscript, ahead of publication in case there was anything that she thought was a bit too open. I don’t think it can have been especially easy for my mum and dad to read that their daughter was in therapy and up to no good in a relationship. But they are strong, enlightened people. They know that life is full of ups and downs, and that people make mistakes. They also, thank goodness, have a great sense of humour and an ability not to take themselves, or life’s trivialities, too seriously.

Did you record the therapy sessions?
No. I kept a very detailed journal – my ‘Notes on a Recovery’ and I relied on memory. But any mistakes are mine!

Is it all true?
Yes. Some identities have been changed to protect people’s privacy and some chronological details have been altered to make the narrative flow more easily. But I have tried to preserve the integrity of the emotional experiences I had.

Was it easy to write the book?
No. I had a very tight deadline for the UK edition – six months then another two months to tidy it up. I basically hibernated for eight months and worked on the book seven days a week, often waking up in a sweat in the middle of the night. In many ways I’m glad I had so little time. If I’d had any longer I’d probably have changed my mind about writing it! On reflection, even though I didn’t find it easy to write, I think the book kind of poured out of me. It is quite raw and in parts perhaps a bit too honest. But there you have it – it’s my first attempt.

Isn’t therapy what good friends are for?
I’m often asked why you would pay someone to talk when you can speak to friends and family. But there is a world of difference between talking to friends and having therapy. For a start friends don’t challenge your self-perception. It’s not their job. Good therapists do. Second, friends often give advice, whereas good therapists rarely do. If you’re looking for support, comfort or advice, turn to your friends or a self-help book. If you want to explore why you keep repeating self-destructive patterns in relationships, or if you feel inhibited in work or in life generally. Or if your life on the surface appears near perfect, and you can’t understand why you feel unhappy, discontent, unfulfilled, then therapy may just provide some of the answers.

Wasn’t there a survey recently that said therapy doesn’t work?
Large parts of the media picked up the findings of a survey by Mark Seery, an expert in the psychology of stress at Buffalo University. He tracked 3000 people in New York and Washington, none of whom had actually been personally involved in the 9/11 attacks, and concluded that a stiff upper lip is the best way to deal with shock. It was virtually meaningless. As a journalist I can understand why this went global. ‘Therapy doesn’t work’, is a much better story than ‘therapy does work’. There are acres of research showing that people have undergone profound change and benefitted hugely from talking to a professional. But it’s not as good a story. As a journalist, we generally thrive on delivering negative and bad news. Good news is rarely as interesting. It’s important to bear this in mind when considering such surveys. But it's also important to remember that people are different. The simple but boring truth is that therapy will help some but not others. It worked for me. That's all I'm saying. Running marathons, flower-arranging, believing in God works for others. I don't want to idealize therapy. It is not a cure for the human condition. It is simply a way of helping some people live a more insightful, happier, more fulfilling, more creative, and more honest existence.

Was it worth it?
I took a large loan out for therapy but it is without doubt the best money I have ever spent. I’ve heard objections to therapy on the grounds that its solutions are internalized. I think this goes back to the obsession with the physical. If I’d made visible ‘improvements’ to my physical appearance – had a nose job, perhaps, some collagen implants, a boob job, liposuction, worked out – that would have been ok? But taking time to try to become a more honest, emotionally-strong, more creative, more confident, less anxious person isn’t? Although the improvements from therapy may appear non-tangible, if you asked my close friends and family they’d probably say it is a changed person who emerged after therapy.

What are you doing now?
Relishing and cherishing life, and trying to write another book.