I wouldn’t have admitted to anyone – least of all Mum – how many times I’d visited it since Wednesday. Amber’s dark hair was longer in the picture, flowing down over the shoulders of a floral red boho dress. Her face was cocked towards the camera, an almost-smile playing around her lips. Her eyes drew you in, as if it was you specifically they gazed on, not some random internet stalker who’d chanced on her site. It was crazy, but it felt in that moment like she knew I was sitting here, on a government-issue swivel chair designed specifically to guard against costly lower back pain, wondering what the point of my existence really was. Maybe it wasn’t crazy: she’d said she would be keeping me in her thoughts. No, she’d said she’d be keeping both of us in her thoughts. Mum, too.

I clicked on the ‘About Me’ section.

Amber Greville has a passion for helping her clients become their best selves. After a hugely successful career in the advertising industry, Amber was set to take over as creative director of a blue-chip agency. It was not to be – within days of starting the role, she was struck down by a crippling autoimmune disease, with no apparent medical cure. Looking back, Amber couldn’t be more grateful – as for many of her clients, her breakdown proved to be the ultimate breakthrough!

I risked reading that sentence a couple of times, even though it made me emotional. I steadied myself and carried on.

While her doctors remained baffled, Amber took herself to an ashram in South East Asia, which began her journey on the spiritual path. Working with a range of healing modalities, she finally got to the root course of her disease and became determined to help other stressed-out Westerners recover from the spiritual burnout that blights our frenetic lives. Amber’s sincere desire is to help you rediscover your innate goodness, your right to be here and the blissful tranquillity that is your true destiny.

My innate goodness. I rolled the phrase around my mind – it felt alien, a language I didn’t even have a phrasebook for. I clicked back to her photo. She looked different this time. More enigmatic. Wiser.

I looked down at the pile of printouts on my desk, then over to the row of glass-fronted meeting rooms that ran down the length of the room. Duncan was in one of them with a whiteboard, a gaggle of graduate trainees hanging off his every word. One more section, then I’d carry on. The next tab across was Testimonials. I hadn’t read these before. I felt a little thrill of anticipation.

‘Thank you Amber. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Without your wisdom, your patience, your stubborn belief in me, I’m not sure I’d be here today.’ (Freya, 35, London)