TALKING THERAPY - by Steve Murphy

Celebrities are helping to shatter stigma by opening up about their own mental health and the benefits of therapy.

Many of us find it difficult to speak about mental health issues – especially our own – but a growing list of celebrities are talking publicly about their struggles and the positive benefits that therapy can bring.

For example chart star Camila Cabello told E! News’ Daily Pop that she’d sought therapy following her break up with Shawn Mendes. The 25 year old singer, whose third studio album Familia was released in April, has spoken about suffering from anxiety when she split from the Stitches hit maker last year. She’s reported as saying that her life had become ‘bad and painful’ prompting her to seek help from a therapist.

And Camila’s not the only one; British pop star Anne-Marie – whose hits include Rockabye, Ciao Adios and 2002 – has also spoken about learning to ‘love herself’ thanks to having therapy during a ‘horrific’ 2020.

Anne-Marie has discovered the simple tools that mean she treats herself with the love and respect she needs.

Anne-Marie

The Brit Awards nominee, and mentor for BBC TV’s ‘The Voice’, now 30, has discussed her mental health – including her trials with anxiety and fear of judgement – with broadcasters, saying that it was ‘reopening the door’ to a teenage trauma during the

first lockdown that prompted her to seek help in therapy. She told Hits Radio that: “Since the pandemic I had time to realise I needed some help with my brain and I finally found the light.”

Perhaps it’s not surprising then that her second album, released last year, is entitled, ‘Therapy’.

“As well as music being my therapy, I’ve also been seeing a psychologist for about a year now, once every week and it has completely changed my life” she said to Hits Radio. “This album represents that journey. It’s full of happy, sad, revenge, love and revelation and I hope you feel all of those things when you listen to it.”

As well as her therapy inspired album Anne-Marie has released a self help book, ‘You Deserve Better’. Her publisher says that Anne-Marie has “discovered the simple tools that mean she treats herself with the love and respect she needs and this, in turn, means she’s able to go out into the world and be as strong, confident and true to herself as she can be. And she wants you to be able to do the same.”