John Barker was born in Derbyshire. He attended the village school, and later went to the University of Nottingham, where he gained an honours degree in psychology. He continued in the department of psychology where he was awarded a doctorate. His research centred on the natural history of criminal behaviour carried out by emotionally and behaviourally disturbed delinquents. He became a senior lecturer in psychology; then moved to become principal psychologist at a residential school for emotionally and behaviourally disturbed children. During this time, he trained in contemporary Freudian theory and Practice at the West Midlands Institute for Psychotherapy, becoming a United Kingdom Chartered Psychotherapist. He worked for different police authorities and also worked in a private practice. He is writing a trilogy based upon a fictional special hospital. The first book is Michael Toons; Killer of Minds. The second is centred on a pyromaniac; A Burning Desire. The third and last in the series enters the world of paedophilia; The Reflection in the Mirror. The three books have a central theme: the creative unconscious mind which when dredged at its deepest levels, creates a world which for most of us sleeps, but which can be awakened with devastating results.