Tales from the couch

07/05/2010

Philippa Perry

By Vicky Davidson

Graphic novel that sets out to demystify the art of therapy

Philippa Perry insists that her nine-to-five job as a psychotherapist is “quite conventional really”. But reading the subtext – quite literally – in her new graphic novel, Couch Fiction, what’s hidden beneath the surface of a therapy session is often enormous enough to sink the Titanic.

The book contains confessions from both sides of the couch, with thought-bubbles divulging the thoughts behind both therapist and patient, while boxes beneath the strip give a formal running commentary, a sort of field guide to therapy.

Bright and cheery, Perry – who has been a psychotherapist for 10 years and is married to outré Turner Prize-winning artist Grayson Perry –  variously describes her first work of fiction as a comic book, textbook and novel.

It is, she says, the sort of book she wanted to read herself, but didn’t exist. “So I had to bloody well make it,” she says. “If I had anybody in mind as a target audience it was me, 30 years ago, when I had a vague feeling about what therapy was, what it might or might not do, but it was all a bit of a mystery. I wanted to demystify psychotherapy, and it’s aimed at anybody who also wants it demystified.”

She took a year-long sabbatical from private practice to focus on writing the book, first crafting the story, then sketching out the cartoons with stick-men, finally having it drawn up by her friend, illustrator Junko Graat, who drew the slightly jaded Pat Phillips and her well-heeled kleptomaniac client James Clarkson Smith.

To what extent does Pat reflect Perry? “Oh, I think there’s probably a lot of me in Pat. There’s probably a lot of me in James as well. The psychotherapist who’s experienced might get too complacent and trip up, which is what she does. And I wanted to have a quite narcissistic client, so that’s what I invented.”

It was always going to be a comic book format, she says. “I always knew it was going to be a graphic novel. I didn’t know it was going to be a textbook, as such. I thought it was going to be a novel. But I found after I’d done it as a novel I wanted to explain a little bit more.

“A picture is the simplest way to explain things. You can see at a glance what’s happening: the two people in the room, you can see where they’re sitting, some of what it might feel like.”

She is already working on second and third books. The next will be about therapy for couples. “I want to write more about the variety of clients seen.

At the moment it’s a very white, middle class thing, unfortunately, because they tend to be the people who can afford it.”

In the past, Perry has worked with a drug and alcohol charity in Camden, which gives counselling to people for whatever they can afford to pay – be it 50p or upwards. “People are formed in their relationships with their parents and environments, and being fucked up is not a privilege just of the working classes. You can come from an incredibly rich background and never see your parents, be passed off to a nanny, and that’s the same as being put in care.

“I’m afraid no one is spared psychological pain.” She describes herself as a disciplined, punctual person, as is her husband, who is famed for his extravagant transvestism, courtesy of his alter-ego Claire, and his pervy pottery, depicting scenes of sexual extremism.

Grayson is, like herself, “incredibly punctual”, she says, with a particularly fabulous taste in glamorous high heels – which he has specially made – and flamboyant frocks. Does Perry feel that when they go out together she and her husband are in competition over who gets to be glammest?

“There is some competition,” she concedes, “but you just have to realise you cannot win.” Nevertheless, she says they are “quite a conventional couple”.

“We like curling up in front of the telly,” she laughs. “I’m sorry about that, we are quite dull!”

Couch Fiction: A Graphic Tale of Psychotherapy (Palgrave Macmillan, £12.99) is out now in paperback