PC
T&P
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PERSONAL CONSTRUCT
THEORY & PRACTICE
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Vol.7 2010 |
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| Author |
| Reference |
| Journal Main |
| Contents Vol 7 |
| Impressum |
| BOOK REVIEW | ||
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PERSONIFICATION:
USING THE DIALOGICAL SELF IN PSYCHOTHERAPY AND COUNSELLING |
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| John Rowan |
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| Oxford: Routledge, 2009, Paperback, 168 pages, £19-99 | ||
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| reviewed by David Winter |
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 The notion that there are multiple aspects
of the self, albeit described in different ways, has been put forward by
authors from a range of theoretical traditions, including psychodynamic,
humanistic, cognitive-behavioural, constructivist, and narrative schools. For
the personal construct psychologist, perhaps the best known example of this
approach is Miller Mair’s (1977) metaphor of the person as a community of
selves. John Rowan provides an integration of these various perspectives,
attempting to move beyond arguments about the different definitions, and
consequent reifications, of parts of the self, which he regards as "any aspect
of the person which can be personified". His concern is not with the relative
validity of the alternative views but primarily with their utility,
particularly in therapy. This book represents a development in his own
thinking, in which he discards the term subpersonalities, the title of one of
his previous books, and replaces it by the notion of I-positions. This
transition reflects the influence of work on the ‘dialogical self’ (Hermans,
2003).
 The book provides the reader with a
background to, and illustrations of, the use of personification in therapy, as
well as a vision of an integrative approach to psychotherapy drawing upon this
concept. Although covering a wealth of material in a relatively small number of
pages, it could have been written more carefully in that there is a certain
amount of repetition and some approaches appear to be considered under
inappropriate headings (e.g., Jeffrey Young’s schema theory under the heading
of assimilation theory and person-centred and Gestalt therapy in a section on
the dialogical self). The terms constructivism and constructionism tend to be
used interchangeably (so that, for example, the first sentence under the
heading of ‘The varieties of social constructionism’ refers to ‘the basic case
of social constructivism’), and perhaps a clearer distinction between these two
positions would have enabled the tempering of such statements as
"Constructivists have a bad habit of making an excellent case for the primacy
of discourse, and then letting themselves down by denying the importance of
realism." The writing itself seems to reflect different I-positions, ranging
from the more academic and impersonal to the more conversational and less
precise (e.g., "The thing about questions deserves some further words here.")
In its final chapters, the book considers ways forward, including moving beyond the individual person to group work and the transpersonal realm. The latter section, continuing the author’s previous work in this area, is perhaps the most innovative part of the book, and points to such intriguing possibilities as that the real self, the soul, and the spirit might be treated as I-positions. The chapters on group work and the transpersonal are sprinkled with such statements as "Personification can be very useful here", but the reader might at times be left wishing for more details of exactly how, and for clearer connections between the ideas described in earlier sections of the book and those on which these chapters focus. In conclusion, this book provides a brief and tantalising glimpse of the integrative potential of the notion of the multiplicity of the person, and the therapeutic possibilities of personification. | ||
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ABOUT THE
AUTHOR David
Winter is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Programme
Director of the
Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the Email: d.winter@herts.ac.uk |
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| REFERENCE Winter, D. (2010) Review of Rowan, J.: Personification. (2009). Personal Construct Theory & Practice, 7, 12-13, 2010(Retrieved from http://www.pcp-net.org/journal/pctp10/winter10.html) |
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| Received: 8 January 2010 - Accepted: 9 January 2010 - Published: 11 February 2010 | ||
ISSN 1613-5091
| Last update 11 February 2010 |