Years ago when I was a practicing psychotherapist in Istanbul people came to see me, in fashionable Nisantaşi the equivalent of London’s Harley Street. I was the ‘English’ therapist. I briefly became fashionable and couples dripping with designer jewellery would appear at my rooms every few hours to discuss their difficulties.

Over a few months a similar pattern emerged for at least half of my visitors. The husband had a small but expanding business. The wife was attempting to get back to work after having kids. They had hired a carer to help with the children after school. The carer was not Turkish but came from one of the countries that speak the Turkish language. The children, and their friends were starting to speak with the accent of agricultural regions of those Turkish speaking states, despite being sent to expensive private schools and wearing designer sneakers.

The family was once happy. They had lived in a spacious, by English standards, apartment in a central area of Istanbul. Meals were eaten around the kitchen table. Father would remove his shoes and sit in his socks watching football matches on television with the family active in the background. Friends would drop by. Kisses would be exchanged and the bank balance would be in the black. The woman would find bargains in brand outlets, the whole family would be groomed to look like film stars.

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Then one fateful day as the woman is driving to Akmerkez, which at the time was probably the most expensive place to shop anywhere in Europe, she saw blazoned across a bill-board the promise of a better future.

A wonderful panoramic vista with a slogan, possibly, adapted from Leo Burnett’s campaign for smokers in 1954, had done its work.

It’s not surprising Burnett’s work is much ‘borrowed’ for he created an icon that elevated Marlboro from an unknown brand into the most popular cigarette in the world for over 25 years. In it great swathes of the American plains are depicted with a mounted wrangler meditatively drawing on a smoke as he surveys God’s paradise. It’s pure genius, but as cigarettes rot your gums, heart, arteries and lungs, also a downright lie.

And something similar pertained in this advert for housing in a dormitory area on the edge of Istanbul. ‘Come to Kemer Country‘, it suggested before going on to list all the attractions of living in the countryside, but with access to such amenities as private schools, nurseries, a country-club, a boutique shopping centre and a host of other heavenly delights.

Many influenced by the promise moved there, In those days the place was largely a building site. Heavy lorries would come, and go, carrying building materials and road chippings. Bulldozers could be seen alongside 4 x 4s in the high street, but it was temporary people thought – after all they were the select few who had got in on the ground floor.

The problem wasn’t that the dozers were still around long after paradise should have been paved, but that the family ‘ranch’ was throwing up more problems than it seemed to solve. Indeed people who had no problems in their former homes started to develop them on estates in this place.

Firstly, the homes that people could afford were slightly smaller than was necessary to accommodate their egos. The solution was to listen to the demanding self-image and fork out for something on the edge of the budget. New homes in Turkey, however, come unfitted. A kitchen has to be fitted at the owner’s expense, similarly floor covering, light fittings, and air-conditioning. Fridges, cookers, dishwashers, must match the decor of the new kitchen, which is of course architect designed. It’s all poorly budgeted extra expense. But hey the family business is booming it will cover it?

Secondly, a the kids are now limited in the kinds of schools they can attend. To attend a state school is unthinkable, people might take them for peasants – no a premium private school is the answer, with ensuing transportation, uniform, sports-club and other costs. The kids are now more competitive than the fiercest American housewives from ‘Mad Men’. Betty Draper has nothing on these guys. Indeed the ‘Mad Mothers’ of this fraternity are under siege from their fashion conscious off-spring.

The family are paying out fortunes in equestrian equipment, riding lessons, tennis rackets, and other sports equipment for their kids. Even attending a birthday party, or sleep-over, racks up serious moolah because the host expects some designer trophy or the ‘guest’ will be ragged.

Finally, the father has disappeared. Yes he comes home late, and the wife hates his new secretary, but even once home will he accompany her to the ‘club’ for a quiet drink where she can pose in her finery? Will he hell! No he’s created a ‘den’ for himself in the basement of the home where connected to the Internet he whiles away hours trying to balance the company books, and figure out new money-making schemes in the hope he can continue to afford this menagerie. A recession has hit the world, the business isn’t expanding anymore.

Nobody sees Dad anymore. He’s no fun.

Inevitably the couple have words. The Bulgarian carer is sent away and one from Turkmenistan engaged to replace her. The children’s attitude and language does not improve, indeed they resent the new carer and treat her like dirt. She is sent home after six months and a Bulgarian is restored, she is most likely a relative of the one who was so recently dismissed. Nothing improves.

Mother is frustrated. Wasn’t it nice when they all used to eat in the kitchen together? A light bulb flashes in her head  as she sits stuck in grid locked traffic on the new motorway that’s being built to provide high-speed access for the super-beings who live in her town. She’s on her way to a self-improvement course in the city. It promises to give her confidence to start her own business.

The problem, she has realised in that traffic jam, is the kitchen! She calls in an architect.

This architect is no common kitchen designer, she is both a qualified architect and interior designer. Walls will have to go, as will the breakfast bar. A new space with ‘controlled ambiance’ is the answer. The ceiling should be lowered to make to seating area more friendly and small window panes installed to create a cottage-like effect when looking out at the artificial lake.

The couple see this as a fresh start to building something new. The kids don’t care. The Bulgarian carer complains about all the muck and dust when the builders move in. Mother complains that she, the carer, has used pan drawers to store food, rather than what they were designed for. The pans are now in a cupboard under the sink next to the refuse-bin. The carer preferred the previous fridge. The freezer compartment was larger, and the shelves would take a favorite large casserole dish. Anyway, she can see this is all a waste. Back home her own family have used the same fridge for the past eighteen years. She’s only working here so she can put her son through college.

The children have disappeared, they are experimenting with smoking. Their preferred brand is Marlboro, even though the packets have a huge warning emblazoned across them, which Leo Burnett could never have predicted.

Father is in his den. The secretary has gone. He is connected to the Internet watching pornography. His wife hasn’t been looking so good recently. She’s no longer paying $250 for hair styling but going to her old hairdresser in the City who charges a tenth of that amount. She hopes that her neighbours won’t notice. It’s not the haircut that’s worse, it’s her self-confidence that is dented. Where once shoes were a replaceable commodity now she is taking them for repairs, just as her mother did when the world was sane.

Months pass. The kitchen intervention has failed. Father has bags under his eyes. Mother is colouring scuff marks on old shoes with a marker pen. The children are re-wrapping the presents they received when they gave a sleep-over and circulating them amongst friends. Someone will soon tumble to this, and then they’ll be ridiculed.

There’s a new therapist in town. He’s rugged, intelligent, a man of the world, well-groomed, and British. Now that’s the fix . . . but he’s making no promises?