Exciting news!

I've hinted more than broadly in this blog on several occasions that I've been working on a new and significant publishing project concerning sexuality. Sadly, I still can't spill the beans too publicly - the publisher concerned has issued a total embargo on coverage until the summer, when books will be available and the publicity campaign can begin in earnest.

But that doesn't mean to say I can't tell you about - make that crow about - all the work that I and my team have been doing to prepare for that campaign. Since our first publicity meeting six weeks ago, we've actually been working flat out.

Laura has been putting together list after list of names that the publishers can approach for coverage, comment and endorsement. Not just contacts in print, radio and television. Not just other agony aunts, media medics and columnists. But academics who might want to put it on their reading lists, academic journals who might want to review it, and counselling organisations who might want to invite me to speak at their conferences. (I"m already speaking about the project in Rome in a few weeks' time, but more about that later.)

In the meantime, Joy has been doing 'projects'. Commissioning a special postcard to be handed out to all and sundry... talking to bookshops and venues to arrange a Cambridge launch... liaising with certain Universities to organise debates on the topic... briefing the publisher's Special Sales department on whom they could approach to get tie ins or merchandising.

My role - along with working on the next stage of the project - has been quite simply to gather as many contacts as I can. If I speak to a journalist, I ask them if they want to be including on the mailing list. If I do a show, I ask the presenter if I can let him know nearer the time. When I talk to anybody and everybody who might have a professional interest, I tell them the bare bones and ask if they want to be kept informed. They all do.

If you're reading this as a journalist, academic or columnist who might be interested in covering the story - without yet, of course, knowing exactly what the story is :) - let me know. I shall put you on the mailing list and, nearer the time, the publishers will send you a press release and, if relevant, a review copy.

Eat your heart out, Corrie!

As well as covering "drugs, sex and rock and roll" for the mass media, I'm also heavily involved in the more academic side of things - most particularly sexual health. Yesterday, for example, I attended the quarterly meeting of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Family Planning and Reproductive Health, a cute little mag that belies its rather ponderous name to give coverage of a range of topics from menstruation to the menopause by way of contraception, sexually transmitted diseases and cervical cancer - anything to do with women's and men's bits, basically.

Of course it's a serious journal - the list of contributors always reads like a Who's Who of key world figures in sexual health. But what always amazes me during our meetings is the fact that in addition it's so much about real life, real stories of patients who have had to make difficult choices, real concerns of health professionals who have had to face difficult challenges. Granted, unless you have a medical interest in the topic, you won't keep a copy on your bedside table; but beneath the long Latin words and the carefully correlated statistics, there lie so many human stories - stories that frankly, I find much more interesting and inspiring than any TV soap.

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.