Prince Harry’s former therapist used to work with MI6, according to a royal book. The Duke of Sussex has previously opened up about his experience with therapy and how that helped him process the grief following the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997.
But Tina Brown’s book, titled The Palace Papers, gave another account of how the prince turned to a therapist, who was a close friend of Diana and had a connection to MI6. The author alleged that it was Prince Harry’s former girlfriend, Cressida Bonas, who encouraged him to visit a professional, following his “explosive temperament”, according to the Daily Mail.
Harry and Cressida dated for two years from 2012 to 2014 after being introduced to each other by Princess Eugenie.
Ms Brown wrote in her book: “Cressida began to have serious worries about his mental health. It is not widely known that it was she who first persuaded Harry to see a therapist.”
The therapist in question was Julia Samuel, who, apart from being the late Diana’s friend and Prince George’s godmother, was an NHS bereavement counsellor and had links to MI6.
According to the author, a person close to Harry said: “There was a need for someone who could be incredibly discreet and who understood what it’s like to have a public version of your life and a private version. Therapists at MI6, that’s what they do.”
Harry learned to process the trauma caused by his mother’s shock death when he was just 12 years old, according to the book.
Ms Brown wrote: “He at last understood his own evasion of sorrow in tactics that ranged from champagne hooliganism to ‘sticking my head in the sand, refusing to ever think about my mum, because why would that help?'”.
Harry opened up about receiving therapy in his memoir, Spare, which was released in early 2023. He spoke about how a disagreement with his wife Meghan Markle, led him to seek therapy.
The prince said: “Maybe the wine went to my head. Maybe the weeks of battling the press had worn me down. For some reason, when the conversation took an unexpected turn, I became touchy. Then angry. Disproportionately, sloppily angry.
“As the words left my mouth, I could feel everything in the room come to a stop. The gravy stopped bubbling, the molecules of air stopped orbiting. Even Nina Simone seemed to pause.”
He said that Meghan asked him: “‘Where did you ever hear a man speak like that to a woman? Did you overhear adults speak that way when you were growing up?’ I cleared my throat, looked away [and responded], ‘Yes.'”
They agreed that he should go to therapy, as Harry wrote: “It came from somewhere deep inside, somewhere that needed to be excavated, and it was obvious that I could use some help with the job.”