The Incurable Romantic

She had looked into the abyss and the pain she felt was devastating. 'I know ... I know.' That's all she said. I can still recreate the sound in my mind, even down to the acoustic properties of the room we were sitting in: hesitant, slightly hoarse - a double cadence - full of sadness and resignation.

Love and desire are fundamental to the human condition; but when we love, we also flirt with madness.
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 lascivious demon. These are just some of the people whose stories psychotherapist Frank Tallis records 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 and key ideas from the major schools of psychotherapy, Tallis explains 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.