About the Book: 

The Catching Force arose from a chance meeting in the tropical paradise of Goa between Cosima Somerset and Father Joe Pereira, a Catholic priest who ministers to alcoholics and other addicts. “Addiction is a physical ailment as well as a mental one,” he tells her, “ and my approach is to treat the body and the mind through yoga”.

For the next ten years, Cosima follows Father Joe around the world, keeping a highly personal diary of his astonishing healing powers through yoga, while gradually winning his trust and learning his own remarkable story. “I had never met anyone like him before – somebody who embodied the principles of uprightness, goodness, compassion and discipline. I recognised how rare he was and I didn’t want to lose him. In fact, I felt that if I didn’t hang on to him he might disappear in a cloud of dust, and all I would be left with was a pleasant dream.”

The Catching Force is more than a biography about a man of faith and his journey from a small town in India to the slums of Calcutta and Mumbai to work with Mother Teresa and then, following her death, to carry on her work among alcoholics, drug addicts, prostitutes and thieves. Above all, it is a story of hope, of a healing dynamic arising out of defeat and humiliation; the catching force of unconditional love that enables Father Joe to heal pain through the gift of yoga and to replace desperation with a new life of freedom and happiness. 

Cosima Somerset’s first book is a story of extraordinary depth, power and perception about one man’s love of humanity that guides him through a cruel, unequal and often dangerous world, interweaved with Cosima’s own challenges with debilitating depression. 

About the Author: 

Cosima Somerset is a London-based business entrepreneur. She founded Concierge London in 2000, recently renamed SomersetWhite, now operating in London, New York and Los Angeles. 

In the 1980s, Cosima worked at Andy Warhol's New York magazine Interview under Shelley Wanger, and later in London for the literary agent Gillon Aitken. In the 90s, after the birth of her two children, Lyle and Romy, she worked for documentary maker, Belinda Allen, as a researcher for TV documentary films including Tory Wives and Juries.

She has a passion for horses and dogs, yoga and cold water.

This is Cosima’s first book on the life of a man who has worked with addicts since the 1960s. She explores the connection between trauma, addiction and physical health and the healing potential of yoga, 12 step fellowships and faith.