'My journey towards positive mental health' - author shares story in hope of helping others

He’s the Yorkshire-based author of Passionate: The Psychology of a Passionate Life, which explores attachment, crises and therapies in James’ own life and his journey towards positive mental health.

In the book, James – a pseudonym with which he writes – applies the psychological theory of attachment to himself, taking readers on a tour of his life, with self-analysis at each stage.

He credits the theory, which is concerned with relationships between humans, with helping him to understand who he has become as an adult and the “intense, chaotic and passionate” nature of his life.

Having had football – more specifically Coventry City – as his first passion (and one he returned to later in life), James became an enthusiastic convert to evangelical Christianity, giving up supporting the game for his new-found faith.

He went to theological college to train to become a minister, working for a number of years in a parish community and later teaching at church schools.

James, who has experienced anxiety and depression on a number of occasions, then had what he describes as a “crisis of faith”, losing all his religious beliefs - and his identity, career, a long-term relationship and a number of friends in the process.

He sought to replace faith with romance but, by his own admission, found himself on the end of a lot of rejections.

What came next was a teaching career that spanned the best part of 25 years, with James having taught psychology, sociology and the philosophy of religion in a sixth form centre.

But when he retired, he struggled to fill the void of a profession which he had come to have loved. In 2019, James, who is also the author of Attached to Coventry City, began to write in earnest this latest book, sharing the various therapies he has encountered and how they have helped to improve his mental health.

Writing in itself was a cathartic experience but above all else, James wanted to share how his discovery of attachment theory had helped him to better understand both himself, and his journey through life.

“I wanted to help people, by writing this,” he says, “because I’ve been helped such a lot by attachment theory in particular but also by other therapies.

"A lot of attachment theory stuff is very academic - it’s very well researched, but very academic and I wanted to try to popularise it somehow.”

Writing in the book’s introduction, he adds: “This book is written for anyone who feels a shadow hanging over their life and who is prepared to dip into their past in order to understand their present and feel more positively about the future….I hope it will bring a greater awareness, even enlightenment, about the roots of your own life.”