Couch Fiction: A Graphic Tale of Psychotherapy

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All-in-all, if you were ever interested in a look behind the curtain of psychotherapy, this is the book for you. One has the choice of reading the story, and then going back for the footnotes, or reading page-footnotes-page-footnotes straight through. Having said that I did like that Philippa acknowledges that the counsellor could make mistakes and correct herself so that counsellors are not perfect but that its important to be real and genuine. Seeing the nuances of therapy, the missed moments and the overzealous comments made me cringe and chuckle in equal merit. Her second book, How to Stay Sane, was written for a series published by the School of Life and Pan Macmillan in 2012.

Because of this the comic never takes off as a story and heightens the sense that it is an introductory-type pamphlet on psychotherapy to those interested in it.Bestselling author Philippa Perry (The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read) turns her keen insights to the power of therapy. Maybe I would've expected it to be more inclusive of the kinds of questions raised during therapy, but the limitation was imposed by the anecdote, which is understandable, but makes it fall short on certain accounts. She was born and raised in the wilds of North London and still lives there with two lovely homosexual housemates and a terrible cat. I took the latter approach, which may have hurt my initial enjoyment as I found the story difficult to get into at first.

A graphic novel that explores the months-long encounter between London psychotherapist Pat and her client/patient/co-lead James, a successful barrister with an unhealthy compulsive addiction, Couch Fiction does a superb job of illustrating what exactly happens in a modern psychotherapy session. There are so many problems I have with psychotherapy but like religion it's because I never "got" it. Patricia Phillips practices psychoanalytic psychotherapy (think Freud here, guys), but is not a perfect therapist. Therapy and recognition of mental health has come a long way, but stigma still exists partly because the mind is like a black box, this book makes progress in a humorous way (for a change) and for that I applaud the author!I really liked it - I think it would be interesting to therapists and people who've been to therapy (and curious others). In this case, it's addressing the underlying sources of a successful barrister's inexplicable kleptomania.