The Big Business Of Break-ups

Lovesick? There's an app for that. Romance rehab has grown into a booming industry complete withprofessional pocket coaches and five-star retreats. But, asks Kathryn Madden, cangroup chanting and gourmet granola really mend a broken heart?

- Kathryn Madden

It’s a trope as old as time. Boy dumps girl. Girl drowns her sorrows in a bottle of shiraz, washed down with a tub of cookie-dough ice-cream. She blubbers her way through Bridget Jones’s Diary, only emerging from the sea of tissues to text her ex, “Diid you ever even lovee me?” Girl passes out. The next night, she does it all again.

Mercedes Fernandez, 25, was not that girl. Following the breakdown of her three-year relationship, she escaped to a luxury estate on the Malibu coastline. She did yoga and meditation, grazed on organic quinoa and kombucha, talked about her feelings and worked with experts to analyse her relationship patterns. After three days, she felt refreshed, revived and ready to face the world.

Fernandez’s sun-kissed sojourn is emblematic of a burgeoning global trend: the business of broken hearts. Savvy entrepreneurs are tapping into one of our most basic, universal emotions – heartache – and responding with a smorgasbord of services designed to ease the pain. While the ’90s and ’00s saw us dabble in therapy and self-help books, today a new guard of professionals and pocket coaches are here to help us navigate the rocky roads of love.

Amy Chan, 36, goes by the title chief heart hacker. Her LinkedIn page portrays a strong, successful woman – a glossy-haired go-getter whose fruitful career spans corporate communications and luxury hotel reviewing. But seven years ago, the Canadian’s world was turned upside down when she discovered her partner was cheating on her. “I spiralled into depression, I stopped eating, I had thoughts of suicide … it was a really dark time in my life,” she recalls. “Being a typical Type A [personality], I tried everything I could to heal: therapy, yoga retreats, psychics, reiki. There was nothing focused on the type of pain I was going through.”