I’ve occasionally thought over the years, if I hadn’t been a journalist, I’d liked to have tried my hand at being a psychologist.
The workings of the human mind and finding ways to help people overcome troubled times have always fascinated me.
That’s why I couldn’t wait to read the latest book recommended to me.
It’s by social commentator, Hugh Mackay, and is entitled The Therapist.
Now I have long admired Mr Mackay’s many writings on societal problems.
He’s a psychologist and I have always found his work to be informative and thought-provoking.
I was shocked to find he also has a long list of fiction to his credit, The Therapist being the latest.
It tells the story of Martha Elliott, described in the book’s blurb as a maverick psychotherapist with dark secrets of her own, who is more interested in helping her clients rather than playing by the rules.
Martha has extended her skills to include meditation and foot massage, to help her clients become relaxed enough to spill the beans.
Mackay takes his time in revealing each character, their lives, their foibles and their Achilles heel.
They include Martha’s practice partner Joe, who is entangled in a romance with the feisty Constancia, Martha’s daughter Samantha, who is looking for the right sperm donor before her biological clock runs out, and a mysterious couple that sends Martha into a potentially catastrophic spiral.
The threat to Martha’s professional and personal lives doesn’t materialise until quite late in the book and it is shocking, unsettling and quite insane.
The Therapist is a brilliant read and made me realise that fate had guided me quite rightly to journalism rather than psychology as a profession.
Apart from the six years it takes to gain a degree in psychology and the huge HECS debt I would have incurred along the way, I think I am much better suited to working out what makes an interview subject tick than the inner turmoil of human beings.
The Therapist is published by Allen & Unwin.
•Jan Deane is a Shepparton local and a journalist with more than 30 years’ experience. Each fortnight her column Books and more will appear in The News. Jan would love to hear from readers. Email her at books.more@mmg.com.au