ABSTRACT
In July of 2004, I became the Resident Psychotherapist for B.B.C. Radio 2, the most popular radio station in the United Kingdom, which attracts approximately 15,000,000 listeners weekly from all parts of the British Isles. Some four months earlier Lesley Douglas, the forward-thinking and visionary new Controller of Radio 2, had invited me for a breakfast meeting atop St. George’s Hotel in Langham Place, near her offices at Broadcasting House in Central London, to discuss the possibility of presenting solid psychological and psychotherapeutic ideas on the radio. As we munched on delicious croissants, Lesley told me that as the new Controller she not only hoped to maintain and, indeed, to expand upon the high quality of Radio 2’s current music and arts programmes, but she also wished to find a way for Radio 2 to help foster a greater sense of well-being and “citizenship” in Britain, 16and she wondered whether a mental health professional might be able to make a contribution to the network.
