John Rowan

Revised edition of the author's The reality game, 1998.

A Guide to Humanistic Counselling and Psychotherapy

The Reality Game

This original and pioneering study of how men relate to feminism will appeal to all men who are concerned about their response to the women’s movement and to the women in their lives. It will also be helpful for women seeking a constructive response from men. John Rowan, drawing on his personal journey through feminism and on his considerable experience as a therapist, tackles the issues in a much deeper way than has been attempted before. For men to discover feminism is wounding for them. It can even make them despair about being men at all. But unless they accept that wound, nothing much will change. John Rowan shows that men have to heal that wound at a conscious social-political level, changing laws, practice and daily behaviour. They have to heal it at an unconscious level, through therapy, exploring their profound feelings about their mothers, their fathers and their own internal female nature. They also have to heal the wound at a spiritual-transpersonal level, exploring the world of the Goddess and the Horned God. Only then, says, John Rowan, can they start to have any real dialogue with women, and only then can the world begin to change for both men and women.

Feminism and Men as Wounding and Healing

The Horned God (RLE Feminist Theory)

John Rowan argues that if men are to escape from their old roles and the new pressures of social uncertainty they need to be initiated into a new kind of masculinity, but that this process must be personal to each man. He explores how therapy can help or hinder the process of transformation. Written for men who are looking for a new way of understanding their predicament as well as psychotherapists and counsellors working with men, Healing the Male Psyche is packed with useful information and exercises and supported by a wide range of references.

Therapy as Initiation

Healing the Male Psyche

This book investigates how men relate to feminism, the women's movement and to the women in their lives.

Feminism and Men As Wounding and Healing

The Horned God

Will (8 Pages in All) of Hon. John Rowan, Sr

Michael Jacobs

"Most therapists, regardless of theoretical approach, intuitively recognize that their sense of self intimately influences their work. Using this elemental truth as a launching pad, Rowan and Jacobs articulate the different avenues through which the self informs therapy, and how each can be used to improve therapeutic effectiveness. Along the way the authors provide a masterful exposition of transference, countertransference, and projective identification, throwing much needed light on topics that have long been mired in controversy and confusion.The book is a priceless resource for experienced therapists and those just beginning the journey." - Professor Sheldon Cashadan, author of Object Relations Therapy and The Witch Must Die: The Hidden Meaning of Fairy Tales "Outstandingly in the current literature, this book meets the conditions for integrative psychotherapy to fulfil its undoubted potential as the therapy pathway of the future. Much has to change in our field. First, people have to become better informed and more respectful of other traditions than their own, engaging with all kinds of taboo topics. Next, vigorous but contained dispute has to take place without having a bland synthesis as its goal. Finally, the current situation in which 'integration' runs in one direction only - humanistic and transpersonal therapists learning from psychoanalysis - has to be altered. Rowan and Jacobs, each a master in his own field, have done a wonderful collaborative job. The book's focus on what different ways of being a therapist really mean in practice guarantees its relevance for therapists of all schools (or none) and at every level." - Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology, University of Essex and Visiting Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies, Goldsmith's College, University of London "There is no question in psychotherapy more important than the degree to which the practitioner should be natural and spontaneous. Would it be sensible to leave one's ordinary, everyday personality behind when entering the consulting room and adopt a stance based on learned techniques? This is the question addressed by Rowan & Jacobs in The Therapist's Use of Self, approaching it from various angles and discussing the relevant ideas of different schools of thought. The authors are very well-infomred and write with admirable clarity, directness and wisdom and have made an impressive contribution to a problem to which there is no easy solution". - Dr. Peter Lomas, author of Doing Good? Psychotherapy Out of Its Depth. This book deals with what is perhaps the central question in therapy - who is the therapist? And how does that actually come across and manifest itself in the therapeutic relationship? A good deal of the thinking about this in psychoanalysis has come under the heading of countertransference. Much of the thinking in the humanistic approaches has come under such headings as empathy, genuineness, nonpossessive warmth, presence, personhood. These two streams of thinking about the therapist's own self provide much material for the bulk of the book - but other aspects of the therapist also enter the picture, including the way a therapist is trained, and uses supervision, in order to make fuller use of her or his own reactions, responses and experience in working with any one client. The book is aimed primarily at counsellors and psychotherapists, or trainees in these disciplines. It has been written in a way that is accessible to students at all levels, but it is also of particular value to existing practitioners with an interest in the problems of integration.

The Therapist's Use Of Self

Have you ever felt there is more than one you? That sometimes you are one type of person, sometimes another? Do you ever find yourself saying `yes' when you meant to say `no'? Or deciding to do one thing, then actually doing another? Most of us have had this experience of another personality taking us over, causing us to behave in an unintended way. Why do we do it? What's going on? Well known psychologist and writer John Rowan shows how each of us is made up of a number of `subpersonalities'. Some may help us, some may hinder us. If we want to be in charge of our inner world we had better find out who they are and what they do. John Rowan has written this book specifically to enable you to do this. Lively and entertaining, with questionnaires and simple exercises, Discover Your Subpersonalities will enable you to get to know the people inside you!

Our Inner World and the People in it

Discover Your Subpersonalities

The Future of Training in Psychotherapy and Counselling presents a revealing and stimulating account of the current state of training that demonstrates how training will have to adapt if it is to sucessfully meet the needs and challenges of the future. In an attempt to look afresh at the whole question of training, John Rowan proposes that there are three ways of doing therapy and any examination of training has to consider each of these: * the instrumental, where the main emphasis is on the treating the client or patient * the authentic way, where the main emphasis is on meeting the client or patient * the transpersonal way, where main emphasis is on linking with the client in a more personal way. Each approach makes different assumptions about the self, about the relationship, and about the level of consciousness involved in doing therapy. By challenging the basic precepts of traditional training, John Rowan encourages the reader to reconsider subjects including the difference between counselling and psychotherapy, culture and ethics, the origins of disturbance in clients, and child development. The Future of Training in Psychotherapy and Counselling provides a much needed new perspective that will compel all psychotherapists and counsellors to take a closer look at training in the field.

Instrumental, Relational and Transpersonal Perspectives

The Future of Training in Psychotherapy and Counselling

Humanistic Psychology ranges far and wide into education, management, gender issues and many other fields. Ordinary Ecstasy, first published in 1976, is widely regarded as one of the most important books on the subject. Although this new edition still contains much of the original material, it has been completely rethought in the light of postmodern ideas, with more emphasis on the paradoxes within humanistic psychology, and takes into account changes in many different areas, with a greatly extended bibliography. Ordinary Ecstasy is written not only for students and professionals involved in humanistic psychology - anyone who works with people in any way will find it valuable and interesting.

Humanistic Psychology in Action

Ordinary Ecstasy

The Dialectics of Humanistic Psychology

Our Inner World and the People in It

Mick Cooper

[This book's] fundamental thesis is a rather challenging one - the idea that the unified, singular "self," which we all take for granted we possess, does not exist... fascinating and important... I will certainly revisit the book... when you're ready for a challenge, this book is certainly worth dipping into' - "Counselling News " I thoroughly recommend this book. I found it challenging, provocative, exciting and full of delights. (It makes such a change to be told that ideal personality characteristics would include a Monty Pythonesque sense of humour and a tolerance of mind-altering drugs!) While reading it I often felt nourished and refreshed'" - The Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy "With the emergence of postmodern thinking, the notion of a unified, singular self' appears increasingly problematic. Yet for many, postmodernism's proclamation of the death of the subject' is equally problematic. As a response to this dilemma, there has been a rise of interest in pluralistic models of the self' in which the person is conceptualized as a multiplicity of subpersonalities, as a plurality of existential possibilities or as a being' which is inextricably in-dialogue-with-others. Bringing together many disciplines, and with contributions from foremost writers on self-pluralism, The Plural Self overviews and critiques this emerging field. Drawing together theory, research and practice, the book expands on both the psychological and philosophical theories underlying and associated with self-pluralism, and presents empirical evidence in support of the self-pluralistic perspective, exploring its application within a clinical and therapeutic setting.

Multiplicity in Everyday Life

The Plural Self

Heather Rowan

Jake the Bombed Out Bomb Dog is a story about a curious, loveable dachshund named Jake who gets discovered in a local animal shelter by Officer Johnny. Officer Johnny and Jake develop a very special bond as he is put through police training as a bomb dog. Unfortunately, Jake who is curious of his new surroundings, escapes from his cage and gets into mischief resulting in an injury. Jake's injury results in a permanent disability that teachs a very special lesson to all about overcoming disabilities.

John Rowan

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