Dorothy Rowe

'This book has saved my life', say thousands of people who have changed their lives forever after reading Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison over the past decade. 

Depression is the experience of a terrible isolation, of being alone in a prison.

But by understanding how we build the prison of depression we can dismantle it forever. Dorothy Rowe gives us a way of understanding depression, allowing us to take charge of our lives. She shows it is not an illness requiring drugs but a defence we use to hold ourselves together when we feel our lives falling apart.

This completely updated second edition takes account of recent changes in the NHS and includes information on services available for non-British readers. Those buying a further copy of this popular book will be interested to see new case histories alongside news about some of the people mentioned in the first edition.

Author of ten bestsellers on life and its problems, Dorothy Rowe is a clinical psychologist who now devotes her time to research, writing and teaching. Her work is read across the world in fourteen different languages and she is a sought-after speaker and commentator on depression and a wide range of psychological conditions.

You can't go to a party without meeting at least two people whose lives have been changed by Dorothy Rowe.
Linda Grant, The Guardian

Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison should be required reading for everyone: there are few of us untouched by depression.
Nigella Lawson, The Times

© Copyright 2001 Taylor & Francis group plc. All rights reserved.

First published in 1983, when it won the MIND Book of the Year award, this best selling book has helped thousands of people to break free from the prison of depression with a clear, simple approach to a subject that is often clouded with jargon.

Dorothy Rowe uses humour and stories from real life to illustrate both what defines depression and how it can be defeated through a true understanding of its causes.Depression and its allied problems are seen as the root causes of rising suicide rates, marriage break-ups, family breakdowns, misuse of drugs and many of the psychological problems that beset the modern world.

"Depression: The way out of your prison" is a proven self help guide as well as an invaluable source book that enables professional helpers to enter the world of the depressed person. Its clear account of the feelings and though processes of those suffering from depression will enable them to lead more people out of their prisons for ever.

Second Edition - September 2002

First published in 1987, Beyond Fear has changed the lives of thousands of people. In this second edition, the renowned psychologist Dorothy Rowe examines the changes in the psychiatric system since 1987 in the context of showing how most of our suffering comes from our greatest fear, that of being annihilated as a person, when we shall disappear like a puff of smoke in the wind, never to have existed.

feel this fear whenever others humiliate or belittle us, or whenever we discover a serious discrepancy between what we thought our life was and what it actually is. The greater our fear, the more desperate our defence against it, the most desperate of defences being what psychiatrists call mental disorders. Yet, by knowing ourselves we can go beyond our fear and face life with courage.

"Dorothy Rowe's is the calm voice of reason in an increasingly mad world".
Sue Townsend

Fear is one of the great unmentionables. Weight gain or loss, bereavement, death, rejection, failure, but most of annihilation of the self. Yet all of this we keep to ourselves, afraid of being thought weak.

Denying our fear of self destruction, around which our entire sense of self is built can have profound effects upon ourselves and those around us in later life. It can lead to physical illness, like anorexia or to mental problems, such as panic attacks, depression and schizophrenia.

It lies within our power to break this pattern, discovering greater happiness in our lives. In Beyond Fear, eminent psychologist Dorothy Rowe explains how to recognize the need for change and how to bring it about.

"This is a most extraordinary and valuable book and Dorothy Rowe is a most extraordinary and valuable person. Not only is she phenomenally wise but she also imparts her wisdom in a kind of prose poetry that moves, enlightens, reforms, beguiles and educates, all at once."
Fay Weldon

Available since 4th September 2000, The paperback edition was published in September 2001, with the same cover.

One of our most admired and loved psychologists turns her attention to the essence of the good relationship, and why we need enemies as well as friends.

The desire for friendship is fundamental to everyone - without friendship no amount of wealth, fame, power or achievement will bring us happiness, and changes in society mean that friendship is more important than ever, as we look to friends for the support and closeness that in the past would have been assumed to come fiim family networks.

Friendship at its best can be both glorious and precious.

Yet, if human beings crave good relationships, they also need bad ones. In imagining we have enemies we at least have the comfort of knowing that someone, somewhere, is thinking of us. People and nations seek out both allies and hate-figures, whether they are children at school or the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. It is often easy to hate, even easier to be hated, and we rarely ask why people choose to be enemies rather than friends - whether we can live without enemies or why friendship is so difficult to achieve.

By delving into what it is that makes us hate as well as what makes us love, Dorothy Rowe addresses fundamental issues of human behaviour, drawing upon her own prodigious wisdom and the work of neuroscientists and intelligence specialists to show not only what friendship is but how it may be learned as a skill.

"Dorothy Rowe is that rarest of creatures - an intellectual who not only possesses a profound wisdom about the way people are but is also superb at communicating that wisdom. She expresses life-changing ideas with magnificent clarity. I have read all her books at least twice, and I recommend you do the same."
Tim Lott

"Dorothy Rowe is a most extraordinary and valuable person. Not only is she phenomenally wise, but she imparts her wisdom in a kind of prose poetry that moves, enlightens, reforms, beguiles and educates all at once."
Fay Weldon

"Dorothy Rowe is full of robust good sense, rare intuitive wisdom and unhurried sensitivity. She pursues meaning, self-knowledge and understanding with patient ferocity. She is a giver of courage."
Nigella Lawson

Jacket photography © Mary Teresa McGouran
Author photograph © Bob Seary

Everyone fears aging. Now that life expectancy in the developed world is securely three score and ten, fear of imminent death has receded and it has been replaced by a dread of getting old.

While our definition of 'old' is dependent on the age we have reached - in out 20's we worry about turning 30, in out 30's we worry about turning 40 , in our 50's we worry about turning 60 and becoming an old age pensioner or 'senior citizen' - we all share a horror of becoming one of those forgetful, incapacitated, ludicrous figures which our parents, aunts, uncles, once so young and vigorous, may have become. What is more we let our fear of aging spoil our present life.

Dorothy Rowe has talked to people aged from five to ninety five about how they view aging, time and death. She has listened to people from societies where the old are revered and respected as well as people from societies like our own, where they are not., She finds that our fear of ageing far outweighs the real difficulties, most of which could be ameliorated if we were more sensible.

But because of mistreatment of children and the legacy of misunderstandings that we create, the young hate and fear the old and the old fear and envy the young. Moreover, as we advance through our life, we find that the mistakes that made in our youth return to haunt us.

However, we can change and, in this warm, important and much needed book, Dorothy Rowe points us towards a new and positive, welcoming of the future.

A Reader writes...
re: Dorothy Rowe - Time On Our Side

I have just read your book "Time on our side" and I am writing to say that of the many thousands of books that I have read over the last forty-odd years, I have gained more insight into so many things from this one work. It has covered so many areas of concern, thought, contemplation and wonder that have troubled me as a thinking individual, and I am grateful to you for making me aware of so much of both myself and the rest of humankind. In 1992 I wrote a poem, and while written from the heart, I feel that it belongs to you.

Time? What is time? But a moment lived and gone
Which, swiftly passing, leaves but open sores
That time, still running, heals as it moves on
Yet leaves fine scars which lay, as unlocked doors
'til time, in time, doth open them again.
Thus, in so doing, time will take you back
For, tho' passed, it lets you feel the pain
That time is said to heal. Then, like a rack,
It stretches taut those feelings kept alive,
And so in torment leaves your life stripped bare.
Quickly now, with all intent you strive
To bury deep those thought you cannot share,
Lest time alone should give one second's grace,
And let you touch a hand, or see a face.

Tim Riding - September 2005

It is possible to be truly successful as a person? Or must we, as most of us do, continue to live our lives feeling in some way trapped and oppressed, frustrated, irritable, haunted by worries and regrets, creating misery for ourselves and others?

In the Successful Self Dorothy Rowe shows us how to live more comfortably and creatively within ourselves by achieving a fuller understanding how how we experience our existence and how we perceive its annihilation.

She demonstrates how to develop the social and personal skills we lack, retaining the uniqueness of our individuality while becoming an integral part of the life around us and learning how to value and accept ourselves.

With characteristic originalty, clarity and unfailing wisdom, Dorothy Rowe enables us to revolutionise our own lives and the lives of others in the process of becoming a Successful Self.

No one, anywhere, escapes the power and effects of money.

How we feel about money is central to how we live our lives. It is inextricably involved in the way in which we construct our world - the way we think, the way we interact, the way we order our priorities, the way we maintain our sense of identity.

Understanding money is a matter of understanding ourselves.

Yet financiers, politicians and most economists present their theories about the economy and all that hinges on it as being entirely objective, uninfluenced by their personal attitudes, opinions, beliefs, fears and needs.

The Real Meaning of Money psychologist Dorothy Rowe unravels the vastly complex network of paradoxes making up our daily lives to show how the individual meanings of money are a fundamental part of the social, economic and political world we all live in. She examines private interpretations of money, public meanings about money, its value, its morals, and how the world of money works, reconciling these elements in an understanding of the real meaning of money. In doing so, she helps us look behind our assumptions and judgements to reveal the nature of our thinking for what it is - sets of ideas that help us create certainty in an uncertain world.

Dorothy Rowe's acutely insightful, thoroughly thought provoking, almost revolutionary analysis of money's place in our lives is extraordinary in its breadth and wisdom.

All of us yearn for a better society. Only when we recognize how we make sense of the world around us will we truly be able to reach towards it.

"Dorothy Rowe is full of robust good sense, rare intuitive wisdom and unhurried sensitivity. She pursues meaning, self knowledge and understanding with patient ferocity. She is a giver of courage."
Nigella Lawson

"Dorothy Rowe's books are so exceptional. Rowe has not just common sense but wisdom and real writing gifts. Its pleasurable to read her blend of quoted poetry, proper and powerful prose and good jokes."
The Observer (UK)

1998 - Now available in paperback

Can we live without enemies?

The human species is facing extinction, not merely from nuclear war but also, and perhaps more likely, from the destruction of the resources of the planet. Is it possible for us to change? To organize a peaceful, sharing society? To live in a world without enemies - and so avoid extinction as a species. Dorothy Rowe outlines the painful process of change which all of us, all nationals, races and creeds, will have to undertake to establish the forgiveness and reconciliation necessary to secure the continuation of the human race.

Many people know about the peril facing us - but many deny it. Dorothy Rowe describes the forms this denial takes and the effects such denial has on those defending themselves in this way. She shows how certain basic beliefs about human nature and the purpose of life, beliefs held by many people undermine our determination to protect ourselves.

She argues that to become and remain a person we must be a member of a group and that we create ourselves and our world out of structures which, when threatened, we defend with aggression. We perceive and define only in terms of contrast and the contrast to our group, the Stranger, becomes The Dangerous Stranger as a necessary repository for aspects of our selves we have been taught to reject and deny.

Dorothy Rowe's books render the self-help industry redundant. If you want to know the secret of life, including how to make your life rich and fulfilling, read Dorothy Rowe

The central theme of all Dorothy Rowe's work is that, while the world might seem to be solid and real, physically constituted as we are, we can never know reality directly but only the meanings we have created about reality.

Many people do not understand this and instead think that they, the world and the moral rules they live by are an absolute and accurate representation of reality. Thus when they are beset by life's problems, they make mistakes, feel trapped and often despair. They do not understand that they are free to change.

In each of her books Dr Rowe has examined the important aspects of our lives - suffering, fear, depression and unhappiness, emotion, mental illness, religious belief, power, greed, selfishness, responsibility, revenge, education, sex, time, ageing - in the light of her central theme.

Dorothy Rowe has shown how, by understanding our nature, we can end suffering. Her "Guide to Life" is a summation of of this wisdom but with more besides, for there is no end to self understanding. Like all all her books it is clear and compassionate, witty and wise.