Sam Baker is a journalist, author, and former editor of Cosmopolitan and Red magazines; she also launched prize-winning digital magazine The Pool with Lauren Laverne. In her latest project The Shift she describes how mid-life left her firstly confused and disorientated, but finally liberated and excited by the post-50 future. It's sub-line is "how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too".

The book mixes Baker's own story with interviews of both well-known and "ordinary" women whose lifestage she was sharing. Menopause, ageism, sexuality, media stereotypes, body changes, male dominance are all discussed, with different opinions expressed and argued out. It is robust and positive.

But at the end of the book Baker reports on doing something she never thought she would do: therapy. In a brave and revealing chapter she writes about an abusive relationship early in her life and how the long effect of that had dogged her for decades. Finally, at the time of her perimenopause she could endure it no more, and sought the help of a therapist. She was treated using EMDR therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD and she believes it saved her life.

In this video she talks to welldoing.org founder Louise Chunn about why she wrote the book and her experience of therapy.

Sam Baker is the author of The Shift: