It was the early 90s. The usual number of people were suffering from plunging self-esteem. For the past decade, the book shelves had been bursting at their pressboard seams with every conceivable fix. Psychiatrists were booked up for months. Gurus were turning them away at the door. Lifestyle coaches were rolling in dough from workshops, book sales, self-help tapes, videos, tête-à-têtes, seminars. High priests, low priests, monks, ministers, astrologers, palmists, psalmists, phrenologists, hypnotists, aura readers, astral pocket jockeys, harmonic wave surfers, all were the rock stars of a new age of enlightenment.

But the zaniest of all of the obvious signs that the world had gone completely mad and people would embrace just about anything or anyone in a desperate attempt to conjure up the NEW YOU, was the lady we will meet in this book. Unorthodox? How about Alice in Wonderland strange. Weird. Off the charts. Barking mad. Totally whack. We’re talking about … Dr. Joy Smothers, the folk singing psychologist.