BU Professor receives Honorary Fellowship of the British Association of Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapy

A Bournemouth University professor has received an Honorary Fellowship from the British Association of Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapy (BABCP).
 
Roger Baker, a Professor of Clinical Psychology at BU, received the Fellowship in honour of his outstanding contribution to psychological therapy services.

He said: “It’s obviously an honour for me because it is a lifetime recognition of my work.

"I didn’t know exactly what ‘being a fellow’ meant or what you have to do – so had lots of gibes from family about being a jolly good fellow and the like - but what it involved was the President reading out a citation of what I had done at the BABCP annual conference at Warwick University.

“What was pleasing was the President’s reference to my having made an outstanding contribution to psychological therapy services over the years.”

Professor Baker started his career in 1967, treating long-term schizophrenic patients, before specialising in cognitive therapy for those suffering from panic attacks and anxiety disorders.

He wrote the self-help book Understanding panic attacks and overcoming fear, which is now in its third edition and has been translated into nine different languages.

After coming to Bournemouth, Professor Baker received many referrals for post-traumatic stress disorder and wrote the self-help book Understanding Trauma; how to overcome post-traumatic stress”; he also helped establish a clinic at Royal Bournemouth Hospital for the treatment of cancer survivors with post-traumatic stress.

Professor Baker was a Visiting Professor at BU from 1996 – 2008, before being appointed Professor of Clinical Psychology.

He helped establish the MSc Foundations of Clinical Psychology course and has worked with the BU Clinical Research Unit to investigate emotional processing.

“Having treated many different psychological conditions, what began to interest me most what the emotional features which seemed to underlie all psychological conditions; along with researchers at BU Clinical Research Unit we began to investigate “emotional processing”, that is how we deal with life’s stresses at an emotional level," he said. 

“Recently, The Emotional Processing Scale which measures a person’s emotional processing style was published by a leading psychometric test publisher. This was the culmination of 15 years of research by our research team.”

The BABCP is the largest organisation for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) in the UK with 10,000 members - comprising psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, counsellors and other health professionals.