Mad, Sad and Bad with Paloma Faith - Philippa Perry: Bad Relationships Made Me Dislike Myself

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

Whenever I’m at a party, I always gravitate towards Philippa Perry. Not only is she a brilliant author, artist, and psychotherapist, but she is also my favourite person to chat with, and one of the wisest people I’ve ever met.We spoke about our mutual love for gossip (yes - therapists gossip too), the ‘blandification’ of culture, and why she’s no longer scared of dying. My amazing friend Airy also popped in, and together we psychoanalysed some inanimate objects around my house (brought to life with some giant googly eyes!).You have to read Philippa’s new book, Shrink Solves Murder, which is released on 7th May and available for pre-order now.Oh, and don’t forget: I’m hosting a watch party for the concert film of The Glorification of Sadness & Greatest Hits on 22nd February! You can get tickets HERE. —Find us on: Instagram / TikTok / YouTube—Credits:Producer: Jemima RathboneEdit Producer: Emilia GillAssistant Producer: Alex ReedVideo: Josh Bennett, Grisha Nikolsky & Harry SawkinsSound: Sid GloverOriginal music: BUTCH PIXYSocial Media: Laura CoughlanExec Producer for JamPot: Ewan Newbigging-ListerExec Producers for Idle Industries: Dave Granger & Will Macdonald Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Paloma Faith and this is my show. Each week I welcome someone fantastic into my home to talk about what makes them mad, sad and bad. Roll recording! I've got to see you! It's so nice to see I've got so many parenting questions. You're doing great. It's fine. It's all good. Do you know what actually? Someone recently said to me a lady,

She said, the best parenting advice I can give you is they all end up okay. Well, some of them do. The other ones come to see me. To you, she's a psychotherapist and author, known for worldwide successes like the book you wish your parents had read. She spent her life helping people and their relationships, a deeply artistic soul at heart, together with her husband, Grace and Perry. She presented critically acclaimed TV show during lockdown.

Grayson's Art Club, not to mention releasing her first fiction book this spring called Shrink Souls Murder. But to me, big plug, she's someone I always see at parties. And every time I see her at parties, I make a beeline for her because I gravitate to the person I most likely might get in trouble with, because I always want to go home with a story. Quite often I end up asking her for parenting advice, which she always replies, You still haven't read my book yet, have you, Ploma? And it's been going on for years, but it's because I just haven't been able to read a book

since I gave birth to my first child. It is available and audible. I'm going to have it on audible. But apparently all of my failings as a parent are in that book. I have actually read half of it, but I haven't finished it. Anyway, I'm going on audible. It's Philippa Perry. Hello?

My first bit I just wanted to ask you, is do you like yourself? Do I like myself? Yeah, I do. Because how do you get to that? Well, how you get to it is that when I was growing up I didn't like myself, because I don't think anybody else liked me very much either. And then as I got older, I surrounded myself with people who did like me.

Quite good to do that, isn't it? And that has changed things. because when you're surrounded by people who appreciate you and love you, I mean, especially your own child, you can get to love yourself, I think. It's happened very gradually, but when you ask me that question, because I haven't asked myself that question, I felt yes, but it hasn't always been so.

I can remember really not liking myself as a teenager and as a young adult, but then I'd have a really difficult boyfriend who didn't like me either. And then it would confirm. And maybe you were chasing the confirmation. I was chasing the confirmation from somebody who wouldn't give it. And why you do that is because you fall in love with what is familiar, not what is right. So I think my parents did love me, but they thought if they showed that, it would spoil me. So I wasn't really aware of their love particularly.

And so I went chasing that same dynamic. you know, this time I'll get someone to like me. And my first boyfriend, stroke, first husband, he never did like me very much. Yeah, that's hard. My mum always used to say to me when I was young, you've got to come to terms of the fact that not everyone will like you. She felt that I was too concerned that everyone must like me

and that I was putting all this energy out to be liked and some people just wouldn't. And I shouldn't bother with those people. I should bother with the ones that did. Oh, yeah, I'm with her all. So, yes. But the ones that do like you, you want them to like you. Oh, yeah, 100%. So she was like, just do yourself a favour and stop worrying about all these people. You don't need loads of people. Just need quite like a little small group that really likes you and you really like them.

But you do need loads of people because you've made yourself famous. I've got the validation, haven't I? Yeah. You're a supersonic pop star. We're going to move into Mad now. Okay, mad. As a professional. Professional mad person. No, it was like a therapist.

How would you define madness? That's very interesting, okay? Because there are thousands of diagnoses and ways of describing being crazy or mad, but there's not one for describing sanity. So I had a go at describing sanity. and when I do that, you'll see what madness is. Madness, I think, is either being far too rigid, setting your ways, not able to respond to the present moment,

or it's being crazy and chaotic and being swept up so much by your every present feeling that you're not in control. So you've got rigidity and chaos. And I think sanity is in the middle where you're kind of flexible so you're not rigid, but you're also in control so you're not in chaos. So madness is rigidity or chaos. So that's good. So what we want to aim for is balance.

Flexibility in the middle. Another definition of madness is when someone else's perception of the world is different from yours. And once I was working with a guy who thought he could see an evening, in the consulting room. And I just said, what's the eagle doing now? Oh, it's on the cupboard. What's the eagle doing now? Oh, it's flown to the windowsill.

Now what's the eagle's doing? It's gone. Oh, okay. I mean, it was his eagle. Yeah. He was seeing it. Do you think that if you can't see something, then it doesn't exist? Well, yes, I do.

what is so fun about that is when you got very tiny baby they don't have something that we call object permanence so what this means is that it doesn't exist once they don't see it and they don't remember it was once there so that's when they scream when you go out of the room because you've disappeared you might not be there my mum's disappeared

yeah horrible do you think like if you know if things don't exist if we don't see them is there an argument to say that like people who are like, for example, politically apathetic, and they say, I don't really do politics, or I don't really follow world events because it upsets me too much. Therefore, those things that are going on in the world don't exist to them, and that's quite luxurious. It's quite luxurious, isn't it? Yeah. That's a way to be.

I mean, it's the only way some people can manage to be. I can't manage the news every day. But do you think it's good to avoid it? Yes, to some extent. I get my news from watching, have I got news for you? Yeah. That's a nice little catch-up at the end of the week. And, you know, the news quiz on Radio 4.

And I can find out what's happening through that. And then my husband listens to all the news he can. So if there's anything I need to know, he'll tell me. That's good. Yeah. So you've got like an immediate news source at home. Yeah. And sometimes I have to go, that's quite enough of that.

Yeah. Have you ever been accused of, being mad? I'm sure people who see the world differently from me might think I am either mad or objectionable, yes. But if you're not subscribing to like putting the brave face on or like keeping up appearances, for example, then people are going, oh, she's a bit mad or mad as a box of frogs is the one they say.

I think the way the world is now with everything being filmed and, you know, and, you know, everything's getting blander. Everything's being filmed and shown all around the world at once. And so there is less eccentricities. There are less different cultures. Everything's getting blandified. All the cars are silver or black. We used to have nice coloured cars.

We haven't got coloured cars anymore. If you see a coloured car, you go, look. This beautiful room It's fantastic because if I go into another Gilver-Bage room, I think I just might melt into the sofa. The blandification of culture is happening. So when you stick your head above the parapet and go, I think I'm going to have, yes, leopard print or tiger prints. We want maximalism. We want an individual to shine.

We want an individual to say, I've had this thought that I've never heard anybody else say. I want to say it. And because nobody else is saying, it doesn't fit within the blandification of life. And so you're just a thought leader, darling. You're not mad. How close have you ever come to that yourself? What, having an original thought?

Yeah. Oh, if only. If only. Yeah, I'd kind of, I'd never strive for that because it seems so out of reach. But then, it's what you do all the time. You make up songs. You sing them. I don't think any of them are original. Well, I haven't heard them before.

We are always on the shoulders of giants. And thank God, because if you look at art from someone who knows nothing about art history, they will be reinventing the wheel. Somebody else will have done it. So it is so much better if someone's actually had an art education and done their art history. I mean, not always, but most of the time. I mean, I do like untrained artists as well. but someone who hasn't had any training and doesn't know about art history,

they tend to do rather trite, cliched things. So if you hadn't heard any song, you'd probably do a bloody nursery rhyme or something. We need the sophistication of what's come before to build something new. What kind of things overwhelm you? Being with people that I don't know 24-7. but on the other hand, once I get to know them, it's fine. I mean, I go on this retreat once a year with about 50 psychotherapists, and I don't find that overwhelming,

but I do have to retreat around about 5 o'clock to my own room just for an hour or two to regroup, and then I can go out again and be with everyone again. Yeah. So I'm pretty good at regulating myself, knowing when I've had too much stimulation and going back. Yeah, I think everyone can. get overstimulated.

I got told because I'm at the duff in case anyone's suspecting. But I just got told recently that I needed to do one thing a day. And I was like, but which thing? Someone tell me which thing. It's anything you put in your dowry. If you've just got one dowry note a day, that's amazing. That's impossible. And what me and my husband do, we put, keep this day blank.

Keep this day blank. We put in blank days. That's healthy. And you're not allowed to put anything on those days. What do you do on them days mostly? Well, usually work. But not with other people. Sort of like, keep a blank day so I can do some writing.

Keep a blank day so he can do whatever he does in his studio. Making art and stuff. Yeah, splashing about with paint or whatever it is. Yeah. So we do put those in so we don't have meetings or anything. I don't ever get anything done. I never get any books written, would I, if I didn't blank out some dairy. She has got a new book, which is her first fiction book.

Yes. Which we're all dying to add to our piles of books. Shrink solves murder. It's blending psychotherapy and crime. I mean, what could be better than that? You say you're really good at gossiping. I love a gossip. It's funny that you're a therapist who likes gossiping,

because you're not allowed to. You're not allowed to tell any. Oh, hi, Airy. That's Airy. Hi, Erie. My friend, come in. Hi. Sit in the middle.

So Aerey's my friend who was just passing by. Hello, Aerey. But also does loads of DJing. But also it's writing a book. Totally written a book. First book ever based on their experiences of being raised in a fundamentalist Christian household from childhood. Okay, cool. That's a queer person.

Oh, you're a queer person. Can you not tell? I don't like to take anything for granted. Honestly. That's sweet. You take that as a compliment. How was it going to writing fiction for the first time then? Have you done it before?

It was really easy because I could make it up. Yeah. When you write nonfiction, you have to look at your research and tell the truth and check all your sources and have an appendix at the back with all your sources. Are you good at structure? I'm getting better at structure. Because that's my problem. I'm trying to write a fiction book. And you're semi-fiction, isn't it?

Yeah, it's sort of like auto-fiction. So it's set in my world. But all the characters are sort of fictionalised. I was talking to, before you arrived, I was talking to Philip about being bad. Yeah. And she was saying she loves gossip. I do love gossip.

Have you got any good gossip at the moment? Not that I'm going to tell on this podcast. Why not? Because I might get sued. I want the ratings. Dirty inside when you gossip, a little bit. Oh. Oh, okay.

It's a king. My favorite sort of gossip is when I was talking about someone this morning with a friend of mine and I mentioned this person and her face sort of went dark and like disapproving

and I went, I don't like them either. And then we share terrible stories about what this person has done. done. Is it what you would call experimenting with the shadow self? Not so much experimenting as a well-trodden path. Just fully leaning in to the darkness. I mean, it's just such a bonding thing when you find common enemy.

Oh my goodness. But do you know how reassuring it is as well when you think you've got a feeling about someone that's based on no facts whatsoever? And you're like, I don't think I like them. And then somebody goes, well, I know some bad things they've. done. And then it confirms your suspicion. It's an instinct though. You've got to trust your instinct, I think, with people. Sometimes you, but you clap eyes on someone, you're like, mm-mm. Do you know what I mean? It depends how often you do it. Sort of like, if you like most people,

but there's just one, then maybe it's okay. But if you've gotten the habit of just like finding something to dislike in anyone, maybe you're the problem. Sure. I agree with that. Well, my problem is I'd like everyone too much, and then I end up getting like burnt by people, You know what I mean? See the good bit too much sometimes I think. No, I'm afraid I dislike until I've got a reason to like.

Guilty until proven incident. I like that. Do you know what? As a fab approach. No, I want to be more like you. I want to be more like you. I want to be more loving and open. But I get there in the end.

Like I usually go, sometimes I go to a party. I think, well, I won't know anyone and don't like anyone. I like that. And then I have a most fantastic time. Yeah, and I love that. It's really nice if you're on your own at a party as well

because you're freer to be open to liking people. And also you just leave when you want. I leave when I want anyway. I do. Yeah, French Hacocet. I'm a bit like that actually. I usually tell my husband I'm going.

If I'm at a party with my husband, I usually say, I'm going to go. And he'll go, well, I'll see you at home later. Or I'm coming with you. Yeah. Yeah, nice. Do you feel guilty easily or are you sorry easily? I usually reflect before I react. So I very rarely do something.

I very rarely shout at someone spontaneously. So I don't really feel particularly guilty. So do you think that that makes you not a bad person? I don't know. It's not for me to know whether I'm a bad person or a good person. Do you think there are bad people? There are people that have had circumstances in their lives that make them behave in an inconvenient way towards others. Such a great dip but I don't think anyone is born bad

Do you think some people are born good? I think everybody's born good I'm not sure that I trust niceness you know Well I like people with corners I think I think if someone's I don't know You know people are super saccharin And don't forget When after Darcy had proposed to Elizabeth

And she'd accepted him in pride and prejudice she wanted him to account for having fallen in love with her and he said it is because you're good and she replies, I haven't got this word perfect but she replies no one falls in love with someone because they're good got one last question on bad that I really want to ask you because it's chaotic so you know a lot of people in the world say that they wouldn't ever kill someone

I believe that in the right circumstances everyone's capable of everything. I think, like you said, we're all born good, but everyone, given the right set of circumstances leading up to a moment, is probably capable of everything, but we just try and stay as far away from it as possible. We don't know what we'd be like

with a different environment and a different set of circumstances. I mean, we might not be able to imagine killing someone, but if it's them or me, I think I might do a bit of killing, Unless my arthritis was really bad and I wanted to be put down. Just a touch of killing. Which circumstances could you see yourself killing someone?

Well, kill or be killed, you know. Self-defence. You know, somebody's coming up to me with a knife and aiming for my throat and I just happened to have a revolver in my pocket, I would use it. A celebrity death match. Do you remember that?

It was on MTV, wasn't it? With a little plasticine figures. Oh, God, I don't know. I never saw that, I'm afraid. It was really funny. Thanks, Erie, for chatting to us. That's all right. Thanks for having me. If you want a cup of tea, we're going to do some art craft therapy later.

We need free therapy from this one. Yeah, I mean, we're trying to sort of, you know, get what we can for free on this show. I love free stuff. It's my favourite. I was hoping for a good about it. I thought she just wanted me to come around for a chat. So sad. Sad. Do you have periods of sadness or is life always a mix of everything?

It's always pretty good. But I was a little bit sad this morning. Oh, why? Because for some reason, my husband's just washed his hair and he pushed it all back like that. And it made him look really old. And then I looked at the hair and it's normally blonde, naturally blonde. And I looked at it and it's gone a bit sort of mousy.

And then in amongst the mousiness I saw grey hair. But I've got so much grey hair. and I'm 20 years younger. Well, I'm not used to him having grey hair. So this was like a big shot. And I've seen him nearly every day since he was 27 and he's 65. And so I've been able to kid myself that I'm having this mad affair with this 27-year-old for the last 38 years. And then the truth dawned on me that he's an old man.

And I saw this old man. And if he's an old man, then I'm an old woman. And it really came on me. And I had a little moment of melancholy there. Did you weep? No, I didn't weep, but I talked to him about it. And how was that? Because you're really good at communicating with each other.

How was that? It was a terrible thing, really, because I ended up asking him to dye his hair, which he refused to do, quite rightly. He's now going to dig his heels in, isn't he? He refused to do because. It's his body, you know, and he should have autonomy over it. I mean, I know it's autonomy, but what about him going, oh, actually, do you know what, for a bit of fun, I might just dye it purple or something? No, he just said, oh, God, I hate men with dyed hair.

He said, I said, oh, you're so straight. That's the most ironic comment ever. Yeah, so I was a bit sad about that. I'm not sad about dying. But you're sad about ageing but not dying Yeah Okay so why Would you rather it was instant?

Why I'm not sad I thought I would be Really really sad about dying And I think anybody I used to think that anyone who lied I thought they were lying Anyone who said they weren't sad about dying Or didn't mind the idea of dying I thought they were lying

Right Until about two or three years ago I had a normal hip operation As I said I'm very old and I have things like new hips. And my body just shut down after the operation. Nobody quite knew why. And my organs started packing up and I went to intensive care.

And I was quite ill. And, you know, here am I. Tubes in every vein and linked up to loads of beeping machines and stuff. And I had a ball. I absolutely loved it. A, I was on some great drugs. Yeah. And B, my lovely, loving husband was by my side.

My daughter was by my side. Two or three of my best friends were there. I thought, I go now, I go happy. This is brilliant. I love it. But then I got better. And then I had to do life again. There was something that I enjoyed about the proof that I was loved.

Because I was never quite sure about it, obviously. But this was real proof that was really loved. And apart from all those besties I had around the bed, people were coming to reception and dropping stuff off. And yeah, I feel quite moved talking about it because it wasn't quite as sad as I thought it would be being really seriously ill. That sounds beautiful. It was lovely. I always said to people that I'm not as afraid of death as I am as suffering. Oh yeah, suffering sucks.

Yeah, I feel like if it was quit, lights off. It's worse for the people left behind. than the person it happens to. But suffering's like kind of awful because you never know how long suffering's going to last. My husband had kidney stones and he was in such agony and we were in hospital and he was screaming with pain but the doctors told me he's not going to die.

Don't worry, it's fine. He'll pass them soon and this all will be over. So I said to Grayson who was rolling around the floor in absolute agony, it's all right darling, you're not going to die. He said, that's the fucking problem. Yeah, because the suffering was awful. Yeah, he wanted to die and he wanted to die right then because he wanted it to stop. By the way, he never passed those stones.

It was agony for a very long time and then he had an operation to get rid of them. So he had a very rough time indeed. Yeah, that's terrible. Poor old people. But now look at him. He's very jolly. Bouncy. Bouncy, just a little bit grey.

I had the same feeling with the haemorrhoidectomy. Oh, you didn't have a hemorrhoidectomy. Was that after a hemorrhoidectomy? Was that after a birth? It was one of the births. But also, the problem with pain, I think, is that it feels permanent. You never know if it's going to stop or not. No.

Is this it now? You think this is me now forever. Forever I'm going to have this gash on my rectum that's going to hurt me forever and ever and ever. I'm going to bleed out of my anus. Awful. Do you think you've got natural empathy or do you pull your boots up? Pull my boots up. And that's, do you think that's in general for yourself and patience?

No, I think most people have got natural empathy. I've got some empathy, yeah. But sometimes I have to work quite hard to imagine what it's like to walk in somebody else's shoes. Imagine what it's like to be them with their circumstances, their environment, their upbringing. And that is quite a lot of hard work. when I was training

I was told that if someone's down the bottom of the well and they're really suffering it's no use shouting from the top don't worry it's lovely up here what you have to do is you have to get in and go down the well

and feel with them and that is quite hard work if someone's really really down you have to feel down with them and that is the only way they can feel seen and heard. And I call it sometimes steering into the skid. You know, when your car is going off on a bit of ice, you want to wrench the steering wheel the other way. That is your instinct, but you can't. You have to put the wheels where the car is skidding and then

you can steer out. And that's what empathy is like. You have to feel with the person. It's not like feeling sorry for them. It's feeling with them. And I find it quite hard work. Is that why you have to have a 10 minute break between appointments? That's right. That's why I can only do 50 minutes and I can't do any longer than that. And then I need to lie down for 10 minutes between each client.

And the other thing is I have now retired and I'm not in active practice anymore. But I can remember what it's like. And I still do hopefully keep my empathy skills up and running. Do you think you learn empathy? or you can teach empathy, or do you think some people are born with it and some people are? I think some people, I think we need all sorts of people in this world. And sometimes we need people to look at, watch patterns and do sums and count things.

And they might be more factual base. And other people are more attuned to other people's feelings and are good at keeping the social group together and making people feel good. And so I think we need both types of people And I think everyone's along a spectrum on being a super empath on one part on one bit And I'm very good at adding up on the other side You know, I think we need both Some people love therapists as well that are like super empathetic

And my experience is because I'm quite naturally I've always been naturally quite empathetic So I feel when somebody's upset sometimes as a kid I used to get upset If I saw someone else upset But like, as a therapy, when I go to therapy, I immediately write a therapist off if they've got too much empathy. I really want them to be, like, quite tough on me and quite challenging and say, yeah, and be like, no, you could have done that or would you, what would have happened if you hadn't of, you know. And it's funny because a lot of people I know when they're looking for therapists, want someone to be sympathetic to them.

Whereas I really don't. good. I'm the second sort of therapist. Yes, favourite. I can do empathy. And when you're working as a therapist, you're a bit like a radio receiver for other people's feelings. I feel like I got a couple of antennae out or antennae all over my body trying to receive the other person and how they're feeling.

And if you've done a sort of six to eight our day as a therapist, and then I get on the bus and I wouldn't be able to switch it. off. And I'd be sitting next to somebody on the bus and I think, I've got a move. They're so depressed. No, you can feel it. And it's not that they're sitting there rocking like a stock photo of depression. They might just be sitting there being normal, but you just pick it up. And I just think, no, I have clocked off. I'm going to the other side of the bus. Yeah, it's hard to leave it. I don't want to get these vibes. Last thing. How do you respond when like people who are really close to you, like Grayson or Flo or your daughter, you know, your husband or your daughter?

are sad and crying in front of you. What's your natural? My husband's quite a sensitive soul. And the other night I was going out and he was staying in. And 10 minutes before I had to go out, we found a lovely burst pipe in the plant room, in the basement. And I said, you're going to have to ring up the plumber and deal with this. And he was going, ah!

Because I normally do that sort of thing. But, you know, if I've made a promise to go out, I'm there. I'm very reliable like that. Yeah. And it really upset him for a long time that he had to deal with a leak. That's the sort of thing he doesn't like. I mean, the plumber came. It was fixed.

Did it irritate you that he wouldn't? No, not really, because I sort of know what he's like. He planned. He planned a cozy evening with Vera. That's a television program, not his lover. And, you know, it was all upset and he got really upset about it. I can sort of understand that. And the next night, he said, I feel melancholy.

And I went, I think it was the plumbing trauma, wasn't it? He went, yeah, it is. I said, you haven't quite lived that out yet. And I was really nice, and I did stroke his feet and stuff. Oh, that's kind. I think it's working. No point getting out of it now, anyway. Wouldn't be asked.

So we're moving on to Glad. What are you glad about today in this moment? I'm very glad to see you. I'm glad to see you. I'm having a very nice time. What else am I glad about? I'm really glad that I had my daughter. And I do think that I love the people in my life.

I love my daughter. I love my husband. I love my close friends. I love my acquaintance. You know, I just have a lovely time. Yeah. And mostly because of other. people. And I am also pretty pleased about how work's gone and how work's going. Like I was a

psychotherapist, sort of working pretty hard for a very long time. And then I moved into writing and left the active clinical psychotherapy behind. And I was pretty glad how the writing's gone. It's pretty good. People love your books. They're always selling really well, aren't they? Yes. And this one is that's nice. Aren't I a lucky woman? Well, not just lucky, brilliant. You're a brilliant woman. Thanks.

I'll say. I'm a brilliant woman. Yes, that's the matter of truth. Let it in, let it in, let it in. Don't bat it back. Bye, Philippa. You're amazing. Thank you so much.

You're amazing. You're incredible. You're the woman I hope I've become. Well, take the while. I'm very old. Bye. Thanks so much to Philippa for coming on. I absolutely love that episode.

If you head over to YouTube, you can see an additional bonus bit that's very visual. Of me and Philippa are sticking googly eyes all over statues in my house and analysing them from a psychoanalytical perspective. Honestly, it sounds a bit mental, but it's hilarious. Well, wasn't that great? All of the links of everything we mentioned in the show can be found in the episode description. Oh, and while you're there, why not subscribe and follow the show too. See you all next time.

Later's potatoes.