The Therapist's Use of Self

by John Rowan

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Author: John Rowan

Publisher: Open University Press

Paperback:
ISBN 10: 0335207766
ISBN 13: 978-0335207763

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.

"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.

About the Author

John Rowan is the author of a number of books, including The Reality Game: A guide to humanistic counselling and therapy (2nd edition) (Routledge 1998), Ordinary Ecstasy: The dialectics of humanistic psychology (3rd edition) (Routledge 2001), Subpersonalities (Routledge 1990), The Transpersonal in psychotherapy and counselling (Routledge 1993), and Healing the Male Psyche: Therapy as Initiation (Routledge 1997). He has co-edited The plural self. Multiplicity in everyday life with Mick Cooper (Sage 1999). There are chapters by him in many other books on psychotherapy. He is on the Editorial Board of Self & Society, the Journal of Humanistic Psychology, the Transpersonal Psychology Review and the Counselling Psychology Review. He is a founder member of the Association of Humanistic Psychology Practitioners. He is a past member of the Governing Board of the UK Council for Psychotherapy, representing the Humanistic and Integrative Section. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. He teaches, supervises and leads groups at the Minster Centre, where he is also the Middlesex University Link Tutor. His workshop interests are creativity, research, subpersonalities and the transpersonal. He has had six books of poetry published. He and his wife live in North Chingford, London: he has four children and four grandchildren from a previous marriage.

Michael Jacobs was for many years Director of the Counselling and Psychotherapy programme at the University of Leicester, having before that worked as a counsellor and psychotherapist in the same university. He is now in independent practice and living in Swanage, Dorset, where he supervises counsellors, sees clients and continues to write and edit. His books on psychodynamic counselling and therapy are used as key texts on many training courses - notably The Presenting Past (1998 - 2nd edition - Open University Press), Psychodynamic Counselling in Action (1999, 2nd edition, Sage) and Still Small Voice (2nd edition 1993, SPCK). He has also written on Freud and Winnicott, which books have been translated into Chinese. He is a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, a psychodynamic psychotherapist registered with UKCP, and an honorary life member of the Bath Centre for Psychotherapy and Counselling. His semi-retired status gives him time for walking in the nearby Purbeck Hills, listening to music, reading biographies and involvement in the local community. He is married, and has three children and two grandchildren from a previous marriage.

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