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American born Irma Kurtz has been Cosmopolitan’s agony aunt for the last 40 years. Lending an ear to the nation’s most intimate secrets, Irma has informed the lives of millions of women - and a few men - on everything from mother in-law trouble to the thornier sides of love and sex. Jane talks to Irma about the laughs and the shocks, the evolving content of her postbag, and why often all it takes is a little common sense.

My Life in Agony: Confessions of a Professional Agony Aunt, published by Alma Books, is out 20th Feb 2014.

Earlier this month, figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre included in the annual report on the (IAPT) programme showed that the highest numbers of people seeking help for anxiety and depression were women and young people.Ìý Depression is a mental health problem most people are aware of but is less talked about. And anxiety is an emotion we all experience from time to time. We explore when anxiety becomes a problem and if there enough awareness and understanding of it as a mental health problem. We hear from 27 year old who has suffered from anxiety since she was 15 and from David Clark who is Professor of Experimental Psychology at Oxford University and is the national clinical advisor for Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT).

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WhyÌýdoes only 1 father in 6 request flexible working hours? And why are fathers still almost twice as likely as mothers to be turned down? Results from a study by charity Working Families yesterday identified fathers between ages 26 and 35 as being most resentful towards their employers about their work/life balance. Sarah Jackson OBE from Working Families speaks to Jane about why cultural prejudices towards traditional parenting roles are so slow to change.

The UN estimates that 14 million girls enter into child marriage each year and that this becomes the basis for other forms of abuse including rape, domestic violence and the removal of future opportunities. This week the charity Equality Now which campaigns against sexual violence against women and girls around the world, has published a report on the issue and is calling for 18 to be the new global minimum age for marriage. Anber Raz from Equality Now joins Jane to discuss the report.

Recently we broadcast an archive interview with speaking on Woman’s Hour in 1979. One of the questions asked was about her adopted daughter. Bette Davis replied that a daughter is a daughter, regardless of adoption and we received a number of responses from listeners agreeing with her. So how do parents and children negotiate introducing a new child to the family? What is that experience like for the parent, the birth siblings and the adopted child? Jane is joined by Avril Head who has three birth children, two adopted children, Dominic and Simon, as well as two long-term foster children, and Alice Noone, from the adoption charity which runs classes for parents who adopt.

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