Sob Sisters

Four advice columnists talk to Dr Stephen Black 'Advice columns are all written by cynical middle-aged male journalists who make up the letters between trips to the pub ...', or so runs the popular mythology. The reality is not quite so cosy. Every year in Britain more than half a million troubled people seem to find that they have no one else to turn to. They all get an answer, and the tiny percentage of letters that appear in print give only the palest indication of the avalanche of sexual ignorance, personal anxiety, guilt and loneliness that the columnists are, every day, called upon to cope with. Who then, are these people who have to find all the answers - what is the reality behind those reassuring bylines?