'Frank Tallis brings a lifetime's clinical experience and wise reflection to a condition that, by its own strange routes, leads us into the very heart of love itself. This is a brilliant, compelling book' Ian McEwan
Love is a great leveller. Everyone wants love, everyone falls in love, everyone loses love, and everyone knows something of love's madness. But the experience of obsessive love is no trivial matter. In the course of his career psychologist Dr Frank Tallis has treated many unusual patients, whose stories have lessons for all of us.
A barristers' clerk becomes convinced that her dentist has fallen in love with her and they are destined to be together for eternity; a widow is visited by the ghost of her dead husband; an academic is besotted with his own reflection; a beautiful woman searches jealously for a rival who isn't there; and a night porter is possessed by a lascivious demon. These are just some of the people whom we meet in an extraordinary and original book that explores the conditions of longing and desire - true accounts of psychotherapy that take the reader on a journey through the darker realms of the amorous mind.
Drawing on the latest scientific research into the biological and psychological mechanisms underlying romance and emotional attachment, The Incurable Romantic demonstrates that ultimately love dissolves the divide between what we judge to be normal and abnormal.
'Tallis writes with clarity and wit about the morbid condition of love, which emerges here as a kind of mental disorder . . . riveting stuff' Sebastian Faulks, Guardian
'A hugely entertaining, informative and often disturbing look at love in some of its strangest forms. Can't recommend it enough' Mark Billingham
Drawing on the latest scientific research and key ideas from the major schools of psychotherapy, The Incurable Romantic examines the biological and psychological mechanisms underlying romance and emotional attachment . Elegantly written and filled with fascinating insights into intimate relationships, this candid clinical memoir demonstrates that love dissolves the divide between what we judge to be normal and abnormal.
'It is utterly compelling: the details, the dialogue, which bring each character leaping off the page . . . He knows how to tell a story. Boy, does he know how to tell a story. This powerful and moving book is not just about individual cases. It's also about what the human animal needs . . . They are certainly enough here to create something that feels profoundly truthful. Something that feels, in fact, like an act of love' Christina Patterson, Sunday Times
His case studies are fascinating
