Then, during one session, when I was stuck in a particularly vicious circle of overthinking, she said: “Tonight after 6.30pm is ‘No Worry Time’.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Exactly that,” she said. “From 6.30pm until you wake up the next day, you’re not allowed to worry.” “How will that help?” I asked. “By giving your brain a rest, and allowing the other parts of you that aren’t driven by anxiety to come back in,” she said. She told me that anxiety is a bully, and like all bullies, it needed to be put in its place.

Of course I didn’t believe this strategy would work. I thought the only way out of my fugue was to flog my worries to death and think about them every waking minute until I’d “solved” them. Surely putting a lid on them, even if just for a few hours, would make them worse? To this, she said: “Your worries will still be there in the morning if you want to go back to them.” For some reason, this cheered me up.