I thought I would set myself a challenge to explore in less than a thousand words perhaps the most important question of all: what makes...

The death of Nick Kamen from cancer at just 59 has had me reflecting on his influence and legacy. Here was a man who burned brightly for...

One novel I come back to again and again is Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. The opening dream sequence draws the reader into a lost Garden...

When I started my training as a psychotherapist, a friend who had just qualified gave me a book they thought I would enjoy. That book was...

Back in in 1985, a long lost manuscript was discovered in the dusty archives of the Freud Museum in Hampstead, a final opus by the man...

The sepia photograph is of a young man in his early twenties. He stares out with youthful confidence; the white carnation he wears on his...

In my practice room, I have a framed photograph by a local Walthamstow artist called Paul Tucker which people often comment on. It is an...

The actor Rupert Everett was on the radio recently, talking about ‘the beaches of his youth’, those places we regress to when we feel a...

As the nights draw in and the shadows lengthen, the thin place between our world and the afterlife is said to open up allowing us to...

Everyone has a few questions as they start psychotherapy or counselling. Here are just a few of them: LONG TERM? SHORT TERM? OR A QUICK...

A plastic crown worn by the Notorious B.I.G for a photoshoot just days before his murder, has sold at Sotheby’s in New York at their...

Saturday the 28th November 1981 dawned chilly and overcast; a low, damp fog hung over Catalina Island, 85km off the southern coast of...

One of my earliest memories is of being photographed when I was 2-year-old. It was a blustery day and I am standing in a neighbour’s...

On Radio 2 this week, the Rev Kate Bottley was talking about how the coronavirus pandemic has brought her closer to her mother and...

There are many intriguing paradoxes about Sigmund Freud; on the one hand he typified the patriarchal values of his time and yet he deeply...

The 31st of August, 1997 started as a sunny Sunday morning, glorious in fact, the summer not yet over. I had just made my way down to...

For some, it is David Bowie, for others Freddie Mercury, but for me, it has to be George Michael. As a teenager, I watched him from afar,...

As a teenager, desperate for anything that would help me make sense of who I was, I would spend hours hanging out in Waterstones pouring...

There is an episode of First Dates which stays with me. It involved a 'posh' young man, as he described himself, who was looking for...

“My nature demands that my life should be perpetual love.” Benjamin Disraeli Throughout history, there have been many great love affairs,...