He thought about this, and he smiled. ‘That’s not how I see it. I like the way you let your clothes speak for you,’ he said.

Phobias.

Now, standing on the pavement outside the flat all ready to go for my interview, I’m looking at Alexandra Booth’s card and wondering: am I grown-up? The question is quite depressing.

Harnessing my inner adolescent, I throw it to the fates and dial the hypnotherapist’s number. If Alexandra Booth answers, I’ll go and see her. If I get her voicemail, I’ll go to the interview.

I don’t have to worry about it for long because she picks up on the first ring.

‘Hello? How can I help you?’ she asks.

LOT 27

Baby Dior size 6A silk crêpe dress with full gold net skirt, 114cm, 1990s

First of all, I don’t know if hypnotherapy works but I’m willing to give it a go on the basis I’ve got nothing to lose.

I reschedule my interview at Top Shop and meet Alexandra Booth in St John’s Wood. She has a consulting room in an office block. She’s in her forties, kind and calm, dark hair and a short bob, and she’s wearing a well-cut charcoal-grey suit with high-heeled shoes, so already I have a lot of faith in her.

She admires my jacket and tells me that she, herself, had the exact same one.

I laugh – well, actually …

So already, it’s nice that we have a bond.

She makes a steeple of her fingers while I sit in her claret armchair and tell her about my fear of dogs.

As I lean back in my chair, relaxing and gazing at a spot on her oatmeal wall, she asks about my first memories of being afraid of a dog. I close my eyes and relive the time I was six and chased by an Alsatian in Regent’s Park, when I got knocked face down in the mud in my gold tulle party dress.

I was, as my mother has said, a shy and timid child.

And to my surprise, and probably Alexandra Booth’s, as I relive it, I start to cry. I feel as if my heart is breaking. Every dog that I’ve ever encountered since then has been that dog and every fear of being knocked down has been that fear.

I remember the jangle of its collar getting louder in my ears and running as fast as I can, running like the wind but at the same time experiencing the terror of knowing without a doubt that it’s going to get me. WHAM! It does. It barges into me, stands over me, pinning me down in the cold mud, panting its hot, meaty breath in my ear.