You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Former New Labour spin doctor Derek Draper is prescribing lifestyle advice in a new book published by Hay House.
Life Support will be released in paperback on 2nd April priced £9.99. In the book Draper explores 40 issues that affect people’s lives including shame, coping at Christmas, and therapy on television.
One chapter is devoted to Britney Spears’ breakdown last year, claiming society was so interested because it was a way of giving vent to the destructive envy people felt about her success.
Draper worked for Labour business secretary Peter Mandelson during the 1990s. He was later involved in a "cash for access" row and had to resign from his role as a lobbyist. Following a nervous breakdown, Draper received an MA in clinical psychology and now practises in central London.
Michelle Pilley, managing director of Hay House, said it was Draper’s background that led her to contact him proposing he write a book.
"What I like about his approach is that he believes therapy is everybody’s birthright to help them get through the ordinary challenges in life," she said.
While a typical chapter is only three pages long, Pilley denied that Draper was only looking at the surface of each of the issues examined.
"He is trying to write something for someone who wouldn’t have read an in-depth therapeutic book," she said. "He’s trying to write something to appeal to a very broad readership."
Pilley said news articles in the Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Telegraph had been arranged to promote the title, and campaigns were being finalised to market the book to bookshops and online retailers.