Dorothy Rowe

First published as The Construction of Life and Death

The way in which we perceive death shapes the fundamental patten of our lives, the very core of our existence.

Fear death and we live pessimistically in its shadow; learn to accept it and life's possibilities open up as splendidly varied, infinitely exciting, precious beyond price.

Drawing on personal interviews and her deep insight into the practices of psychotherapy today, eminent psychologist Dorothy Rowe reveals how we structure our lives - how, out of the formless chaos of reality we give meaning and purpose to our existence through the influences of different cultures, languages and beliefs.

With true warmth and humour, Dorothy Rowe challenges us to find out own ways of living with the uncertainty of death, encouraging is to embrace the freedom of a life without fear.

Also available: The Construction of Life and Death, Fontana, ISBN 0-00-637384

First published as The Experience of Depression

"I remember feeling very isolated. For a while I became convinced that I was set apart. Everyone seemed so well and confident. I marvelled that they were able to get through the day."

Joan had a happy family and a nice home but saw no point in living and further; mary feared that no one would notice if she died; John desperately need someone to talk to about the death of a close friend; Joe tried to murder the girl he loved; Dave's aggression went either against himself or the world.

Depression is the greatest isolation that we can experience, a prison which we build for ourselves. Just as we build it, so we can chose to unlock the door and let ourselves out. In Choosing not Losing Dorothy Rowe draws on her experiences with a number of patients who were referred to her for treatment. Their stories show that the lives of even those in the depths of depression can change.

A sympathetic and immensely valuable book, full of insight into the often strange and moving world of suffering inhabited by the depressed, Choosing not Losing will give hope to all who read it.

To be human is to suffer. We enter this world expecting that we can have everything, but we learn very quickly that we can't always get what we want. The accompanying and constant feelings of loss, anger, aggression, resentment and sadness can dominate us for the rest of our lives.

The strategies that we evolve to cope with these feelings - greed for possessions or power, a propensity for assuming responsibility for everything, saddling ourselves with guilt for the world, martyrdom, envy or utter selfishness - do not lead to happiness.

But Dorothy Rowe shows us how, once we understand the nature of our longing and the conditions that prevent its fulfillment, we can arrive at a state of wanting which does hold the possibility of fulfillment, and which does lead to happiness.

"Wanting everything is such a startling book, so eloquent in its intelligence and its compassion, in its requirement that we pay attention and reform - and in doing so, remake not just ourselves, but also society - as to have the force of a modern day bible.".
Fay Weldon

Depression: the imprisoning experience of isolation and fear which comes when we realize that there is a serious discrepancy between what we thought our life is and what it actually is.

From birth onwards we create our own worlds of meaning. Challenged seriously enough, these worlds can crumble, leaving us despairing, frightened, isolated, helpless. But we are not helpless. We can resolve to save ourselves by embarking on a journey of understanding and self-acceptance, and, finally, forever, break free of the bonds of depression.

"Wise and witty, factual and poetic, and a luminous path to self-understanding for all of us."
Jill Tweedie

"This splendid book is a vastly readable, greatly enjoyable lifeline. Use it if you're depressed, to help yourself. Read it if you're not, so that you can help others. Either way, read it."
Claire Rayner

"Wisdom, says Rowe, is knowing your worst fear and why you have it. Breaking the Bonds takes us to it and, if we're smart, into the nirvana of beginning to know what we want . . this is a smashing book."
New Statesman

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

In the modern world, fear is the great unmentionable. We fear loss, bereavement, old age, death, rejection and failure - but most of all the annihilation of the self. Yet all of this we keep to ourselves, wary of being seen to be weak.

But, as the renowned psychologist Dorothy Rowe argues, it is only by having the courage to acknowledge and face our fears that we can find sustaining happiness. In Beyond Fear, a book that has changed the lives of thousands of people, Dorothy Rowe explains how to recognize the need for change and how to bring it about.

Listen to Dorothy discuss Beyond Fear with Kate Hyde, and depression with the poet Gwyneth Lewis on http://www.fifthestate.co.uk/

Third edition (The e-Book version)

'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.

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

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

The e-Book version is available from bookshops and it can also be ordered direct from the Taylor & Francis e-Bookstore

Why Has Public Opinion Turned against the McCanns?

17/9/07

The disappearance of Madeleine McCann raises again that most painful question, 'Why do bad things happen to good people?' As Kate McCann went on her pilgrimage from one holy place to another she was the living epitome of the saintly, suffering mother. Like Joseph, husband of Mary, Gerry McCann played a supporting role. In a society which no longer see angels and cherubim as part of the heavenly pageant, being real and imbued with the Holy Spirit but rather as sentimental fantasy figures, the McCann story could not end with little Madeleine becoming a cherub in the care of God and His angels. The only possible happy ending to this story was the restoration of Madeleine to her parents.

Time went by and the question of why good people suffer became more pressing. If good people suffer undeserved disasters, the belief in the Just World is thrown into doubt. In a Just World good people are rewarded and bad people punished. All religions teach the belief in a Just World, though they differ in how they define 'good' and 'bad', and 'reward' and 'punishment'. Many people who would describe themselves as not being at all religious will say that, if they could not believe that, in the end, goodness is rewarded and badness punished, they would find life unendurable.

Rather than abandon their belief in the Just World when good people are seen to suffer, many believers turn to the second part of their belief and argue, that, if bad people suffer, then that suffering is proof that the person is bad. Hence rumours from Portugal that that the McCann's played a part in their daughter's disappearance are eagerly seized upon by those who want to preserve their belief in the Just World. The popular media, who maintain their popularity by telling most of their stories in the framework of the Just World belief, now began doubting the truthfulness of the McCann's story.

How the McCanns are dealing with the massive threat to the Catholic version of the Just World belief I do not know, but I do know that this kind of issue is faced by untold numbers of people, and that the prevalence of the belief in the Just World goes a long way in explaining the incidence of depression.

In a Just World nothing happens by chance. Thus, when believers in the Just World suffer a significant personal disaster, they have a choice of blaming someone else for the disaster, or blaming themselves. This is, in effect, a choice between paranoia, or depression. Of course there is another choice and that is to see that we live in world where things happen by chance. But that means accepting that we cannot always absolve ourselves of all responsibility, nor can we keep ourselves safe by being good.

On May 8, 2007, Jane Wheatley, a journalist at the Times, phoned me with the request to talk to her about Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness. That very day Paisley and McGuinness, sworn enemies for thirty years, were to take their places at the Northern Ireland Assembly as First and Deputy Minister. Jane had been given the task of writnig an article about these two men. Another journalist at the Times had told Jane that I knew a good deal about Northern Ireland. So I talked to Jane and the next day, when her article was published, I found that she had reported me at some length. I feel it is appropriate to put Jane's article under 'I was thinking . . .'

From

May 9, 2007

Ulster: the tension behind the laughter

They are like two siblings redirecting an endless quarrel at

mummy

In the weeks leading up to yesterday's historic Northern Ireland Asssembly, observers have marvelled at thespectacle of a love-in between Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley, calling it "the most unlikely pairing ever" and "a scarcely believable coalition" as the two - enemies over 40 years - prepare to run the province together.

Old enmities were fore gone - though not forgiven or forgotten - as the barracking, bellowing Unionist and theformer IRA terrorist conducted a news conference together "joking, joshing and exuding large amounts oftwinkling geniality".

While most of us shake our heads in amazement, the psychologist Dorothy Rowe has a simple explanation:McGuinness and Paisley are behaving like two quarrelling siblings who have suddenly decided to gang up together against their parents - in this case the British Government embodied by Gordon Brown and the Northern Ireland Secretary, Peter Hain.

"In adult relationships we're often still using ideas we developed in dealing with our siblings," she says. "And if you look at the terrible conflicts in the world, the ones that are the bitterest and hardest to reconcile are between tribes or nations that are siblings in a genetic sense. The Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland share the same DNA - they've intermingled for hundreds of years - just as the Israelis and Palestinians are genetically indistinguishable."

In the Dorothy Rowe paradigm - one she has expounded over the years in her books, Friends and Enemies and My Dearest Enemy, My Dangerous Friend - Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists have for decades reenacted the sibling scenario in which there is a good child and a bad child. "All of us are familiar with that one," she says. "In the case of Northern Ireland, the Catholic is the bad child, the Protestant the good child and Great Britain is the parent. Ian Paisley, of course, has always played the good child - 'Daddy really approves of me' - or Mummy when Margaret Thatcher was in power, while McGuinness has been corralled in the role of bad child, and we all know how difficult it is to escape these roles, however much we might like to."

But, says Rowe, most of us also remember the thrill of briefly setting aside our differences to gang up on our parents which, she claims, is exactly what the two combatants are doing now - "And what a pity they didn't think about this a long time ago." It's an old scenario, she says. " 'If Daddy won't do what we want him to do, then we won't do what he wants.' That gives them a lot of power." Thus Paisley and McGuinness join forces to put pressure on the British Government to come up with more money for the new Assembly, threatening to boycott yesterday's celebrations if they didn't. "Have your little pantomime on Tuesday," mocked Paisley. "But we'll not be there." Ian Paisley, the scowling, lip-jutting naysayer, has consistently spurned compromise. "I'll not be changing - I'll go to my grave with the convictions I have" is typical of his rhetoric. Asked if he could reasonably ignore Sinn Fein, he said: "I am entitled to ignore murderers." So why change now?

"Paisley is 80," says Rowe. "Those people who make it through their seventies have learnt to become calmer.You see very clearly the things that matter and are worth working for, but you can't be bothered with all the angst that goes with it. I would guess that Paisley has got to this stage. He's smiling now. You never saw that in the past."

And McGuinness? What brought the violent street fighter, scourge of the British Army in Belfast, to a seat at thetop table? "People change," says Rowe. "Israeli terrorists became government ministers; Mandela wasconsidered a terrorist, now he's a saint." McGuinness is an extrovert, says Rowe. "He's a people person, unlike Gerry Adams. They both knew that if anyone could charm Paisley - the introvert Presbyterian who is always so sure he is right - then it had to be McGuinness."

Steven King, of the Policy Exchange think-tank and a former adviser to David Trimble, agrees. "McGuinness ismuch easier to deal with than Adams. He's more of a real person. It must be very disturbing for the grassroots

DUP to see pictures of him and Paisley laughing together."

Has Paisley been seduced by McGuinness? "Paisley, for all his rhetoric, has always been able to connect with the human side," says King. "He is respected for that. And, anyway, he feels he has the upper hand because he is the First Minister and McGuinness is his deputy - even though in reality they are joined at the hip. Nothing can come out of that office unless both men put their names to it." King believes that it is in McGuinness's interest to show Sinn Fein's "most reasonable face" while the party is fighting an election in the Irish Republic. "They want to be seen as a party that is mature and responsible enough to be in power. It remains to be seen how McGuinness plays it once the election is over."

To return to Rowe's image of warring siblings, it should be noted that when children want to make up, they agree pax. But sometimes one person has their fingers crossed.

Jane Wheatley

Siblings Are For Life

I've been giving interviews about my new book, My Dearest Enemy, My Dangerous Friend, which concerns siblings of all ages. One question which these youthful interviewers often ask me is, 'When do people give up caring about their siblings?' This seems to imply that at some date, perhaps in early middle age, we cease to care whether our siblings are alive or dead, or whether they love, hate, infuriate or amuse us.

As I struggle to find a short, witty answer different images come to my mind. There's the photograph of Deborah, the Duchess of Devonshire, standing amongst her chickens, taken to accompany in interview by Lynne Barber shortly after the death of the duchess's sister, Lady Diana Mosley. When Lynne asked her about her sister's death the duchess said that she never needed to keep a diary because she and Diana used to write to one another several times a week, sometimes even twice a day. 'She was amazing you know, unbelievable, serene and beautiful until she died. She was ill for ten days, I suppose she had a very small stroke and sort of faded. Nevertheless, the loss is indescribable because I mean I'm eighty three and she's been there all my life.'

My friend Una at 82 regularly undertakes the long drive from Sydney to Cooma in the Snowy Mountains of southern N.S.W. to visit her sister who, now totally incapacitated by arthritis, is sunk in despair. Una told me how hurt she is that her sister will not speak to her. 'She's the most important person in my life,' she said, and added wistfully, 'I don't know whether that's how she feels about me.'

Then there's my friend Nan who, at 81, who is often engaged on a long conversation, usually on the phone, with her sister Bette. Bette is virtually blind. Always a passionate reader, she now depends on audio books. Nan and Bette talk about books, their children and grandchildren, and their past, their childhood and adolescence in a country town, and their parents, long dead but still alive to them as they speculate about what their parents' thoughts and feelings, their wishes and disappointments were in the years when the sisters were completely wrapped in the self-centredness of the young. They talk about their five siblings who are dead and show a certain patience and tolerance which, as I well remember, they did not always show when their siblings were alive. These conversations are a kind of making peace within the family.

If the interviewer grants me the time I'll tell the story of my Auntie Doff. She was the youngest of my mother's family. Mother was the fourth of six children. After her came Jack and then, an unwanted afterthought on her parents' part, came Doff. Doff spent her final years in a nursing home. In her nineties her past slipped away from her and she took up residence in a time when she was a young woman and her mother was old and ill. When I visited her she would say to me, 'Mother's not well. Nurse Nelson's been to see her,' and then she would urge me to leave because, 'Ella will be waiting for you.' I hoped not because Ella was my mother and ten years dead. On one visit I tried to turn our conversation to other things. I asked her if she remembered what her mother, my grandmother, was like when Doff was a little girl. My aunt smiled sweetly, a little apologetically, and shook her head. We sat in silence and then, suddenly, she said, 'Mother always favoured Jack.'

When do we stop caring about our siblings? Not in our lifetime. Never.

Dorothy Rowe My Dearest Enemy, My Dangerous Friend: The Making and Breaking of Sibling Bonds Routledge.

March 2007

Sledging to Win

It had long been the tradition of Australian politicians to spend as much time hurling verbal abuse at one another as they do explaining their policies. There is also a long tradition in Australia generally of engaging in an abusive banter which many be affectionate teasing or deadly abuse. A foreigner has to listen hard to distinguish the affectionate use of 'bastard' from an intended insult. So it was not a break with tradition when the Australian cricket team adopted the tactic of sledging where on the field the Australian team either hurls insults at their opponents or engages in loud conversation with one another about the inadequacies of their opponents' bowler or batsman. So much time and effort is put into novel forms of abuse that sledging has become an integral part of the cricket team's game. I am left wondering whether the Australian cricket team wins because its members are extremely skilled cricketers or because they are so effective in demoralising the opposing team by constantly criticising and insulting them?

My father was a cricketer. When I was a child he would take me to cricket matches where I would see the game being played in almost complete silence. A batsman's well-place shot would receive a quiet round of clapping by members of both teams, while the watching crowd limited themselves to modest groans or cheers when a ball was dropped or caught. Dad was incensed when the English captain Jardine used body-line bowling where the bowler aimed the ball close to the batsman's body. Endangering the batsman simply was not cricket. Dad wanted to know that a team's win was a result of their cricketing skills.

In the 1970s there was a big change in the way sportspeople were trained. Flower Power had created a great interest in the Eastern philosophies. Some sportspeople read Eugen Herrigel's Zen and the Art of Archery and applied the knowledge therein to tennis. Zen teaches that, where the aim is to hit an approaching ball, we should not be constantly instructing ourselves how to stand and move. Instead we should be intensely focused on the present moment so that the flight of the ball and our own self in movement become one. All this was very new in the 1970s but now it is an essential part of what a trainer or life coach uses. In the March 2007 issue of Virgin Blue's in-flight magazine, professional corporate speaker and trainer Darren Baguley said, 'One of the most common characteristics of high performers is a deep ability to focus. When you're in flow [sic] you're truly present, absorbed in what you're doing and you're not aware of anything else.'

At the same time as Zen was changing how we play sport, therapists were taking up the cause of high self-esteem. Modesty and self-deprecation were out: self-confidence was in. Nowadays aspiring young sportspeople are taught to face the camera and tell us how good they are and how much better they intend to become. Darren Baguley said, 'We're constantly talking to ourselves and only one percent of our thoughts are positive, beneficial ones, the rest are negative. High performers are ruthless about not letting negative stuff in.'

Whenever we learn something we also learn its opposite. If the key to cricketing success is concentration and self-confidence, then one way of dealing with your opponent is to destroy his concentration and convince him that he is useless. Many of us as small children learned how to do this to our siblings, and at school we had the chance to hone our skills on our class-mates. Now it seems that these skills in destroying an opponent may be more important than learning to play cricket to the highest level.

A series of simple experiments could prove me wrong. Experiments have to be repeated to show that a single result was not just a one-off. There would need to be a series of cricket matches where there was absolutely no sledging. An appropriate clap or two for an outstanding stroke or catch would be allowed but there would be no derogatory comments of any kind at all. Perhaps from such experiments the Australian team would realise that sledging undermines their reputation for being the finest of cricketers.

Or it may be that the new leader of the opposition in the Federal Parliament will change the fashion for abusing one's opponents. Sitting in parliament, when the Prime Minister John Howard or other cabinet members subject him to invective, Kevin Rudd studies the papers on his desk or swivels in his chair to chat quietly to his colleagues. When he does rise to speak he does not return the abuse his opponents but instead he comments on current parliamentary business. Perhaps he knows that to resort to personal abuse is to show that you've lost the argument.