Adrenalin junkie!

I really like giving one-off quotes to national newspapers and magazines. There's something incredibly rewarding about being 'flung' a topic at short notice - anything from the McCartney divorce to the efficacy of antidepressants via the Government's latest policy on teen pregnancy. Picking up the phone and instantly being asked to bring all my expertise into play to give insights at the drop of a hat brings with it a rush of pure adrenalin. Can anything beat that?

Well actually, something can. The adrenalin rush of an extended live radio phone-in is, I must admit, even better. My current drug de jour is a monthly co-presenter appearance on Jim Davis' late night Friday show on LBC. I arrive at 9.30. Jim and I enter the studio and pop our headphones on at 9.55. From then until midnight, anything goes. Responding to Jim's sometimes outrageous though always well-thought through questions is the least of my worries. The emails, texts and live calls from our listeners can mean that any topic is fair game.

Last week we began with 'dumping and being dumped' - and the phone lines swiftly started ringing off the hook. Tears, despair, fury - and that was just Jim and I! As to callers, there was the guy who had dumped his one night stand because she wasn't fit enough - and was now asking me to comment on his taking up with her again now she'd lost weight. There was the woman who was agonising over whether to leave her partner of nineteen years. There was the young man who had lost both his girlfriend and his brother at one stroke when he had arrived home early and found them in bed together. All human life was there.

Of course, it's not just the adrenalin rush that keeps me hooked into this kind of work. It's the incredible feeling when someone signs off with the words 'thanks... that's really helped" - or, as happened on my Heart106 programme earlier this year, when a listener emails to tell me that there's been a happy ending and "we took your advice... and the wedding's in June." That, truly, makes everything worthwhile.

Teenage pregnancy - always a disaster?

Did you know that teenage birth rates in the UK are no higher than they were in the pre-Pill 1960s? Or that in those Sixties it was seen as normal for women to be married and mothers by the time they were 18?

Both of these stats pop up in a recent Times article covering an upcoming Channel 4 Cutting Edge about teen Mums. Because for all the horror stories about profligate younger Mums, this article, and the documentary, paints a much rosier picture.

Sure, teen pregnancy without the support of a caring partner is hard, much harder than for older and more mature working women. And I'm not saying that all teens step up to the challenge with mature courage and perfect parenting skills.

But I've felt for a while that we catastrophise teen pregnancies unecessarily. Often, having a baby is - in the words of the Channel 4-featured midwives - the 'making' of a girl. They stay with their partners, they grow into fulfilled and supportive parents. And actually, there is not only nothing biologically wrong with a woman giving birth at 14, 15 or 16. We are programmed to produce early; by 30 we are way past our maternity sell by date; the programme even suggests, with reason, that 30-somethings often make more selfish, less dedicated mothers than their younger counterparts.

So no, let's not argue with the Government's 'reduce teen pregnancy' programme. But equally, let's not demonise the teen Mums. On many levels, they do a super job of bearing and bringing up their kids - after which, they go back to education and spent the rest of their lives in productive, fulfilled careers.

Sex, drugs and rock n' roll!

I spent the weekend catching up on a backlog of work. It's never the same day twice. Yes there are regular commitments - Monday column for AOL, Tuesday phone-in for Heart Radio, Thursday page for That's Life. But otherwise... what do I do, what have you got?

This weekend it was a mixture of sex, drugs and rock and roll.

Sex? I've been working for a while on a rewrite of a (rather famous) sex book, and we've just reached a new phase of firming up on what needs to be done: working through tens of thousands of words of research on such disparate topics as vibrators... orgasms... oral sex and pompoir (don't ask), I caught myself wondering happily how on earth I had, by some miracle, ended up doing as an enjoyable career what most people do just for enjoyment.

Drugs? I'm deeply involved - for personal as well as professional reasons - in cervical cancer campaigning; so on Saturday I spent some time looking over the news clips covering the latest vaccine. Lots of debate about whether 12-year-old girls should be injected, or whether the very act of vaccinating would make them more likely to have early sex. For me it's a no-brainer. If a 12-year-old girl is aware enough to be having the vaccine, then she's probably aware enough to know not to have sex for a while. It's the kids who don't have the vaccine that I worry about - they're much more likely to get caught not taught.

Rock and roll? Well, no, not really... but I did write a comment for a weekly glossy on the Spice Girls Reunion. I love serving up serious psychology that can teach people how to best live their lives... in the guise of a celeb news story. Sneaky, I know, but... such fun!

Welcome to my world

It happens all the time. I'm at a party, or a press launch, or even just a plain straightforward business meeting. I start chatting to someone, introduce myself, conversation turns to what we do, and I admit I'm a relationships psychologist... a media commentator... an agony aunt. Then the questions start. What does that involve? Do you analyse everyone you meet? How many letters do you get? Do you ever make stories up? What's the saddest letter you've ever received? Above all, above all, above all... what do you actually dooooo?

That's what this blog is for - to offer a glimpse into what I actually do, and how I do it.

I'm not used to that - it's usually me being allowed a glimpse into other's lives. As a psychologist regularly I delve into people's minds... as a media commentator I analyse news and celebrity stories every day... on my radio programme I get dozens of calls every week... and as an agony aunt I get anything up to 25,000 letters and emails a year.

And yes, sometimes the whole thing is funny or silly - which is fine. But most of what I do means getting involved with desperate issues that touch people's hearts. I find myself becoming sometimes tearful, often angry - but always involved and fascinated.

In this blog, I absolutely won't break any confidences and I won't expose the details of those who write to me. But I will regularly write about what it's like to do what I do, regularly explore what it means to be a psychologist, a commentator, an agony aunt - and regularly discuss what's happening in society through my own psychological viewpoint.

I will open the door and let you into my world.