The conventions of psychotherapeutic practice have evolved to ensure the physical and psychological safety of both therapist and recipient and not for the creation of a page-turning novel. While some aspects, such as supervision and personal therapy for the therapist, have the potential to enhance character and plot development, others serve to minimise the jeopardy and tension that is often required for a good story. As I’ve discovered through my reviews of novels in this series some writers blur the boundaries through lack of knowledge, but even a former psychotherapist and a practising clinical psychologist have relaxed the rules of therapy when turning to fiction. Having discussed the limitations of the fictional therapist and how to overcome them with former psychotherapeutic counsellor, Kate Evans, on Twitter, I was intrigued to see how she had tackled the issue in her own debut novel.
The Art of the Imperfect is set in and around a psychotherapy centre in Scarborough, a decaying seaside town in the north of England. It begins with a kick when trainee counsellor, Hannah Poole, discovers the body of one of the therapists, the renowned Dr Themis Greene. That Dr Greene has been a bit of a maverick is perhaps an understatement, having had an affair with one of her patients and in failing to report a high level of risk in another, but her rule breaking is at least acknowledged by the other characters and, of course, serves to widen the net of potential suspects for her murder. It’s a clever move of the author’s in making one of the main characters a trainee, giving her access to secrets while still prone to the kind of blunders that move the story along. For me, however, Hannah doesn’t come across as the ideal candidate for a therapy training – although it could be that some of her defensiveness could be attributed to the trauma of moving in with her parents to complete her course – but she is in receipt, albeit reluctantly initially, of both clinical supervision and personal therapy. While I would have wanted to see her better prepared for meeting with a new client in a GP surgery, and offered admin support to obviate the temptation to give away her personal phone number to her regular clients, I did enjoy seeing how she overcame her initial terror of her patients in order to begin to be of use to them, alongside discovering the value of her own therapy.
Hannah’s sessions with Izzie, her therapist, were among the delights of the novel for me, making a beautiful advert for this much misunderstood relationship. Unfortunately, they weren’t sufficient to prevent Hannah’s unravelling. I imagined the author having fun satirising the still too common petty prejudice against ‘nutters’ and the whole therapy enterprise, especially among the police service. Crime isn’t my genre and I did struggle a little to follow the multiple threads but I’m otherwise delighted to be able to introduce the first trainee fictional therapist of this series. My thanks to the author for my review copy.
Next in this series – and it might not be so far away given my commitment to Sophie and Suze’s Review Challenge – will be The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.
Hannah’s sessions with Izzie, her therapist, were among the delights of the novel for me, making a beautiful advert for this much misunderstood relationship. Unfortunately, they weren’t sufficient to prevent Hannah’s unravelling. I imagined the author having fun satirising the still too common petty prejudice against ‘nutters’ and the whole therapy enterprise, especially among the police service. Crime isn’t my genre and I did struggle a little to follow the multiple threads but I’m otherwise delighted to be able to introduce the first trainee fictional therapist of this series. My thanks to the author for my review copy.
Next in this series – and it might not be so far away given my commitment to Sophie and Suze’s Review Challenge – will be The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.
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