As suicide rates rocket, the author is donating all royalties to CALM: The Campaign Against Living Miserably

Introduction

I was delighted to hear from book publicist Grace asking if I might highlight Jane Haynes new book ‘In the Consulting Zoom – A Psychotherapist’s Journal of Lockdown’ from which all royalties are being donated to CALM. Well, how could I not say a great big ‘YES’? Such a wonderful organisation to support and a compelling book to read for those who need to connect with how they feel, begin to understand what they are feeling, that they are not the only one feeling these things and know that there is help if needed.

‘If the origin of the word ‘patient’ was linked in Greek to the word: ‘suffering’ we are all patients now, regardless of whether or not we have the virus’

Jane Haynes

Described as a ‘maverick’ psychotherapist on BBC London, Jane Haynes has been sharing her expert advice on how to mentally prepare for lockdown and the coming year in Vogue, the BBC and Times Radio. As the UK enters a third lockdown, her journal is compulsory reading.

After suffering from a bout of writer’s block, Jane re-read Defoe’s A Journal of a Plague Year and was inspired to write her own journal of a Covid-19 lockdown. Starting at the beginning of March, as Jane suffers symptoms, this diary captures the fear and uncertainty of Spring 2020. Unable to get tested, Jane vividly conjures the national frustration and tightness in the chest the early days of the pandemic induced. As lockdown continues, we follow Jane through perviously uncharted territory; the life of a full-time psychotherapist.

Not only are we privy to the trials and tribulations of running her practice online and the ways Jane’s ‘patients’* respond to the new virtual consulting room and their new realities, but we also accompany Jane through the weekly anguish of sheet-changing, recycling, feeding cat Zen and dog Dido, and coping with her husband’s messy sourdough experiments. Living in the flat below her eight- and one-year-old grandchildren, Jane also offers insight into locking down with children and the psychological impact on them. 

In the Consulting Zoom will take you on a trip into one of psychotherapy’s most original minds. It will make you, laugh, smile and scowl at all the governmental mistakes. Interesting, informative, philosophical, political, honest and heart-warming, we watch Jane unravel the mysteries Zoom, online bridge and innovative ways of getting food delivered, while emotionally navigating her way through the terror of the virus. 

*Jane Haynes was granted permission by her patients to reference them.

‘It’s hard not to admire Haynes for confessing her failures – in this admission… she goes where her peers fear to tread.’

The Spectator

My thoughts

Doesn’t it sound amazing? Oh and if that isn’t enough come back here on the 8th February to read an excerpt of In the Consulting Zoom by Jane Haynes.

Finally – All you need to know

Buy: Amazon

Author

Jane Haynes is a writer and relational psychotherapist who lives and practises in London, and more recently on Zoom. Jane co-founded the Blue Door Practice in Marylebone. In 2008 her book Who is it that can tell me who I am? (Little, Brown) was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize for literary autobiography. If I Chance to Talk a Little Wild (Quartet Books) was published to critical acclaim in 2018.

Jane Haynes: on Facebook | on Twitter | on Instagram

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