Dr Linda Papadopoulos: Decoding manspeak

Canadian-born Dr Linda Papadopoulos occupies a unique position in the public consciousness, being both a regular on daytime TV sofas ("This Morning", "Richard & Judy" and "GMTV") and a respected academic who also finds time to practise as a counselling psychologist. With such a profile comes contact from the public, whose letters partly inspired What Men Say, What Women Hear (Century, September, ¬£11.99 tpb). "I get a lot of letters asking: ’What did he mean by this?’," Papadopoulos says. "Or: ’My friends say that I should do this, because he did that’."

Papadopoulos took her first psychology degree in Canada before coming to the UK to further her studies. The call from the "Big Brother" producers came when she was a reader in psychology at London Guildhall University: "When the series took off, I had a lot of people saying: ’You can’t do that‚people won’t take you seriously.’" She paid no attention. "I’m really proud to have been involved in ["Big Brother"] because I think it was an important moment in the history of television. It was as close as reality TV got to a social experiment. I think every series after that has been, at best, a very different social experiment based more on personalities that are attracted to this type of exposure." And is she still a fan? "I think now it has gone too far. It’s becoming weird for the sake of it. I think human behaviour is weird anyway‚ we’re naturally really strange beings."

She hopes that the book will help couples achieve "a healthier, better relationship". But surely the readership will be exclusively female? She laughs: "I think it’s the kind of book that if you had on your dresser, you’d catch your boyfriend reading it to see what women think about what men think."