ASCOTTISH JOURNALIST'S magazine column about her therapy sessions which regularly captivates thousands of women all over the UK every week is to be turned into a major Bridget Jones-style novel.

Lorna Martin's column Conversations With My Therapist - which appears in the top-selling weekly glossy Grazia and has become increasingly popular with thousands of fans who read all about her love life, friendships and therapy sessions with psychiatrist, Dr H Grazia - has a UK circulation of more than 210,000 each week.

After she had been writing the column for seven months, publishers began a bidding war to secure a book deal with Martin, who settled on a six-figure deal with John Murray Publishers last week.

Martin said: "It's going to be kind of like a Bridget Jones's Diary, but it's a narrative story. There will be a story running through it and the therapy sessions will form part of that, but it won't be an episodic diary entry."

Martin said her popularity has grown because women identify with the situations she finds herself in when it comes to love, work and friends.

"Relationships are difficult and we do the most stupid things to get in to one or to avoid one. I think people identify with that," she said. "Things like being jealous of a toddler; that's a bit crazy, but I'm sure there are some people out there who are a bit jealous of new, young life.

"Nobody comes out looking bad but me. The joke is always on me. We're all a little bit nuts and you have to learn to laugh at yourself."

A few days before Martin's 35th birthday, she experienced what she has described as "a premature mid-life crisis and breakdown rolled into one". She decided to embark on therapy and wrote an article for a newspaper on her first sessions, before being approached by Grazia magazine to write a weekly column.

Describing her novel as "The Hungry Years meets Bridget Jones", Eleanor Birne, the acquiring editor, said it is "a warm and funny account of a year in therapy, as Lorna battles and triumphs in her work, family and love life".

She added: "Hers is a fantastically entertaining voice, and she is a brilliant addition to our ever-growing list of non-fiction."

Martin said she was aware of her critics who felt she was revealing too much of her personal life in the columns.

"This was something I wanted to do. I'm not exposing everything of myself and I've decided on what I feel comfortable to put out.

"I went in to therapy because I had issues, not because it was project. After a while I felt safe enough about what I wanted to go to print and people should remember that the column is primarily entertainment. It's not a warts-and-all outpouring," she said.

"Therapy is something shrouded in mystery and secrecy and I liked the idea of opening that up, for a writer it's too tempting, you have to write about it."

Martin's book will be called Woman On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown; Life, Love And A Year On The Couch and is due to hit the bookshops in spring next year.