It took a male shrink to fix my fear of men

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer for the second time, I thought I was going to die without ever having found love.

I was 46 years old and I had just been dumped by a man who had promised to be my ‘rock’, but then made it clear that he wouldn’t be.

This latest romance, like all my romances, had lasted just a few weeks, so I shouldn’t have been distraught. But when he told me it was over, I thought the pain was going to crush me. I had lived on my own since I was 26 and been single for most of my adult life.

Why was it so impossible for me to find, and keep, a good man? And now, I thought, I might die without ever getting the chance to find out. I felt like a failure as a woman.

It was a friend who suggested I go to see a therapist. not a bad suggestion on the face of it, except the therapist my friend was suggesting was a man.

And so I found myself knocking on the door of a big house in north London. When a tall, rather distinguished- looking man in a suit and tie opened the door, I felt like a child who had been misbehaving in class and was sent to see the headmaster.

he ushered me into his consulting room and waited for me to speak. As I told him about the operation I was facing, and the man who had broken my heart, I felt my cheeks burn.

he nodded as I poured out my soul. I couldn’t look at him as I spoke. When I’d finished, he said some things that were so astute, and so surprising, that I knew this was the person I had to see. he told me we would need to meet twice a week, but when he told me his fees, I gasped.

But desperate times call for desperate measures. I decided I would find a way to do it, even if it meant taking out a loan.

The next time I saw him, I had lost my breast. I had also lost a big chunk of my stomach, which had been moved to fill the space where the breast had been.

At night, I felt as if I was being stretched on a rack. It was hard for me to stand upright and still quite painful to walk. I couldn’t drive, so I had to get two buses each way to see him. I felt like damaged goods. I thought a man would never want to touch me again.

If I hadn’t managed to have a successful relationship when my body was still intact, God only knows how I would manage it now that I was covered in scars. What happened over the next few months and years is very hard to put into words.

At the shrink’s suggestion, I actually lay on a couch. One day, he asked me why I always had my hands over my eyes, and whether I was protecting myself from him. I didn’t know that I did, but then realised I was. I told him I was deeply embarrassed to be talking about such personal things with a man.

I was even more embarrassed to tell him that I appeared to have a ‘stupid little crush’ on the plastic surgeon who had done my reconstruction. I felt like a gawky teenager who had been caught stalking the handsome captain of a rugby team.

The shrink asked me why I called it a ‘stupid crush’. he said he thought it was entirely natural I would have strong feelings for the person who had reshaped my body. When he said that, I recognised I had always thought that owning up to feelings of desire was something that ought to make you feel ashamed.

After that session, I went for a walk on hampstead heath. I managed to walk further than I had since the operation. I looked at the crocuses that had just come out. As I gazed at them I felt the tears flow — and those tears felt pure and clean.

I saw him for three years. One time, I went when I’d had a migraine for two weeks. I lay on the couch and cried for most of the session. By the time I got home, the migraine had gone.

I can’t remember exactly when it was that I realised the feeling of embarrassment had gone.

My shrink was incredibly thoughtful, and terrifyingly erudite, but he was also funny. We laughed a lot.

There’s a strange process that’s supposed to happen in therapy called transference, where you’re meant to transfer on to the therapist feelings you have towards other people in your life.

Your therapist becomes a kind of father and a kind of mother and a kind of lover, even though all you’re actually doing is talking and writing cheques.

I don’t know exactly how this works, but I do know that, by the time I said goodbye to my shrink, I felt changed. I believed that I could relate to men in a completely different way.

I had lost my fear of men. I had lost my shame about desire. I had lost the fear of intimacy that meant I would start a relationship and then run away. I am absolutely sure this would not have happened if the therapist I had been seeing was a woman.

Since that therapy finished, I’ve had ups and downs. I lost my job. My mother died. But I feel stronger. I feel different.

I met a lovely man and I think I’m learning how to have a relationship. Yes, the cheques were quite hefty, but I owe so much to my clever, kind and ohso-skilful shrink.