No Ordinary Life

The story of how movie therapist Bernie Wooder-war baby, print worker, union official-became a Buddhist-psychotherapist in Harley Street, is in itself the stuff movies are made of. Bernie Wooder describes growing up during and after the Second World War in a tight knit, working class community in London’s East End. From the time his terrified mother took him to the cinema to escape the bombing raids his childhood was filled with the magic of film. But he was stricken by illness and injury from an early age, and this ordeal set him on a spiritual quest culminating in the Buddhist retreat which changed his life. Leaving behind his job in the rough and ready newspaper world he plucked up courage to train as a psychotherapist and later made his name pioneering the use of film as part of the therapeutic process. This is life at the sharp end of psychiatry in post war London-a memoir told with warmth, humour and a generous dose of humanity.