BabyLunLun asked Joanne Macgregor:

How does being a psychologist help you in your writing?

Joanne Macgregor Hi Min Yue,

I think that being a psychologist helps me have a deeper understanding of the nature of personality, and the problems that can occur.

Many of my characters (like many people in real life) have problems of, for example, anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress. And I think I write more accurately about this because I know what it looks and feels like.

Sometimes I read a book where a character loses their mother or sister to death, for example, and they have a little cry and then seem to be over it a chapter later. But that's not how grief works!

So I think (I hope) my books are deeper, more nuanced, more complex and realistic when it comes to these issues.

What I never do is to use the actual experiences and specific details that clients disclose to me in therapy sessions in my stories. What happens in the therapy office stays in the therapy office!

Thanks for a great question :)

Joanne Macgregor

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