Review: Emotional Processing by Dr Roger Baker

Emotional Processing is a short book by Dr Roger Baker in which he uses the experiences of some of his therapeutic patients from his 20 years in the practice and supplementary research to explain his view of how people process their emotions generally and in response to key life events, in both healthy and destructive ways.

Rather than separating out the patients’ stories as happens in longer analytical books, the tales are woven into Dr Baker’s commentary. Only the background research is contained in a final appendix. This approach helps make Emotional Processing more immediately accessible to the layman. Occasionally, Dr Baker illustrates more than one client’s story within the same section to compare and contrast how both might be right or wrong about their choice of emotional processing – and whether there is a sole right or wrong way in every case. I was stretched by reading the title and when you recognize some of the highlighted behaviours in yourself, the book becomes inspiring and helpful in helping you dig yourself out of whatever rut you were stuck in, and move on.

It didn’t feel like 200 pages, I finished it in less than four hours. It’s certainly worth a loan from the library, I found the book at the right time and at some point, will buy my own copy. It’s certainly worth a place on your shelf if you think you need to hammer home the points made by Dr Baker. Otherwise you can check out his other work regarding panic attacks and self-esteem if you’ve experienced those issues in addition to general emotional problems.

Amazon information page is located here.

– CBG