We all need psychoanalysis – it would make Britain a happier, kinder place | Susanna Rustin

With one in four teenage girls being depressed, it's clear that there is no shortage of people needing help. It needn't cost the earth - and it certainly worked for me

Was I mentally ill? I suppose I was, though the first time someone in my family used the phrase "verge of a nervous breakdown", or something like it, I was taken aback. Probably I was about as far from well as it was possible to be while still going about my business: essays, lectures, friends and so forth (I was a student at the time). A broken heart - that, is, a rejection so disappointing I couldn't bring myself to accept it - was the trigger. But it brought up all manner of shit. By the time I went to talk to a psychoanalyst, I had feelings so muddled that sharing them with anyone else would have been weird.

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