The extraordinary letter from Dr Alan McGlashan, right, to Charles’ friend, Laurens Van der Post

you might be I thought that being so far away, since you left interested in what has developed a good deal about London – though maybe you know He telephoned me it already through the Young Man. see D the following on 24 January and asked me to girl, facing day, which I did. She is a very unhappy she finds difficult situations on various fronts which a courageous to deal with, though (she is) making by an army of effort to do so. She has been surrounded anti-depressants doctors… and has been dosed with techniques. and sleeping drugs and Behaviourist is a normal girl I came to the conclusion that she not pathological. Her whose troubles were emotional, a patient with an doctors had been treating her as which baffled them. obscure and dangerous illness and they were, Her symptoms plainly scared them of dynastic one and all, overawed by the possibilities that they all treated disaster. She complained to me her ‘as if I were made of porcelain’. for me, coming It was a difficult & delicate situation scene, but this was into such an overloaded medical who has gently but greatly simplified by D herself, all. firmly distanced herself from them