Therapy On the Couch ; After Virginia Ironside Wrote in the Mail That Therapy Is a Fraud, Four Famous Names Who Have Been Through It Share Their Very Different Experiences

Summary

---

IN SATURDAY'S Mail, agony aunt Virginia Ironside triggered a fierce debate when she condemned therapy as a fraud. She wrote that having spent Pounds 54,000 on different therapies over many years, almost nothing had alleviated her depression. So is she right that the thousands of Britons who spend millions on counselling every year are wasting their money? Here, four celebrities who have been through therapy give their own trenchant opinions on both sides of the debate.

TV PRESENTER Magenta Devine, 44, was once the supercool face of 'yoof' TV.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Therapy On the Couch ; After Virginia Ironside Wrote in the Mail That Therapy Is a Fraud, Four Famous Names Who Have Been Through It Share Their Very Different Experiences

But in the early Nineties, with a serious heroin addiction and suffering deep depression, she checked into a clinic for six weeks. Six more months of therapy failed to help, so she stopped going. Now single and living in London, she is writing for various publications as well as recording TV and radio voiceovers.

MY CHILDHOOD was idyllic - a beautiful house in the country, good school, lots of friends, two ponies. I have loving, caring parents who have always helped and indulged me. There is no form of abuse in my past.

I've always considered myself to be a 'lucky' person to whom good things happen. And yet, over the past few years, I'v...

See the full content of this document

---