Dorothy Rowe

¿Resulta posible triunfar como persona? ¿O tenemos que vivir toda la vida sintiéndonos atrapados y oprimidos, frustrados, irritables, consumidos por las preocupaciones y los remordimientos, siendo desgraciados nosotros mismos y haciendo sentir desgraciados a los demas? La psicologa Dorothy Rowe nos enseña en este libro a vivir de una manera mas relajada y creativa mediante un metodo muy sencillo: formar parte de la vida que nos rodea sin renunciar por ello a nuestra individualidad, lo cual nos ayudara -y esto es lo mas importante- a valorarnos y aceptarnos a nosotros mismos. Con un estilo original, claro y terriblemente sincero, la autora desarrolla tecnicas concretas, tanto sociales como personales, con el fin de revolucionar nuestras vidas, es decir, de servir de apoyo para que podamos activar con exito un proceso irreversible que conduzca al triunfo de nuestro propio yo, a vivir una vida plena y absolutamente satisfactoria.

El mensaje central de toda la obra de Dorothy Rowe es que los seres humanos nunca podremos conocer directamente la realidad, sino sólo los significados que hemos creado sobre ella. Hay mucha gente, sin embargo, que no lo entiende asi y, por el contrario, piensa que el mundo y las reglas morales segun las que viven forman una absoluta y depurada representacion de la realidad. Asi, cuando les acosan los problemas de la vida, se equivocan y se sienten atrapados y, a menudo, desesperados. No comprenden que son libres para cambiar. Esta es, asi, la materia que examina la doctora Rowe en cada uno de sus libros: el sufrimiento, el miedo, los trastornos mentales, las creencias religiosas, el poder, la codicia, el egoismo, la responsabilidad, la venganza, la educacion, el sexo, el tiempo, el envejecimiento... Y en esta su ultima obra nos muestra como acabar con nuestro sufrimiento a traves de la comprension de nuestra propia naturaleza. Un libro diafano y generoso, inteligente e intuitivo, que es a la vez un compendio de la sabiduria de la autora y la demostracion de que el conocimiento humano puede llegar a ser -si asi lo deseamos- un pozo sin fondo.

From the moment of conception we are in the business of surviving. We come into the world expecting that we can have everything and seeing no reason why we should not have it. But we learn fast, learning that we cant always get what we want. The accompanying feelings of loss, frustration, anger, aggression, resentment and sadness can dominate the rest of our lives. This book is all about the frustration endemic in our experience of life. It is about the strategies we evolve to cope with that frustration and convince ourselves that we can, after all, have everything. One strategy might be unlimited greed for possessions and power, and absolute determination to achieve the required goal without heeding any impediment. Another strategy might be to assume responsibility for everything, to saddle oneself with guilt for the world. Then there is the strategy of martyrdom, of "having everything" by publicly denouncing ones needs for anything. This book shows how the reader can free themself from the pain of loss, mourning, resentment, envy and greed to learn to live in the present, enjoying what they have.

Why do we lie? Because we are frightened of being humiliated, being treated like an object, being rejected, losing control of things, and, most of all, we are frightened of uncertainty. Often we get our lies in before any of these things can happen. We lie to maintain our vanity. We lie when we call our fantasies the truth. Lying is much easier than searching for the truth and accepting it, no matter how inconvenient it is. We lie to others, and, even worse, we lie to ourselves. In both private and public life, we damage ourselves with our lies, and we damage other people. Lies destroy mutual trust, and fragment our sense of who we are. Lies have played a major part in climate change and the global economic crisis. Fearing to change how they live, many people prefer to continue lying rather than acknowledge that we are facing a very uncertain but undoubtedly unpleasant future unless we learn how to prefer the truths of the real world in which we live rather than the comforting lies that ultimately betray us. We are capable of changing, but will we choose to do this?

Depression: the imprisoning experience of isolation and fear which comes when we realise that there is a serious discrepancy between what we thought our life to be and what it actually is. From birth onwards we create our own secure 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 and for ever break free of the bonds of depression. Dorothy Rowe, the internationally renowned psychologist and expert on depression, brings together in this book what twenty-five years of research have shown her about depression, and shows us how every one of us can take charge of our life and find the way to happiness, hope and freedom.

A very important book about one of the last social taboos with fascinating implications for us all Helena Kennedy, QC A groundbreaking book in which Dorothy Rowe brings her insight and wisdom to the fascinating subject of money and its place in our lives. No one escapes the power and effects of money:We work for it, we think about it, we worry about it, we dream about it, we want more of it. We spend it, we hoard it, we give it away. We scheme, lie, even kill for it. How we feel about money is central to how we live our lives. We recognize money but we dont know what it means. We, alone of all animal species, use money, but we dont understand it. How could we when it has so many different meanings? In The Real Meaning of Money, eminent psychologist Dorothy Rowe unravels the complex network of paradoxes making up our daily lives to show how the individual meanings we create, particularly those concerning money, are a fundamental part of the social, economic and political world we live in. An acutely insightful, thoroughly thought-provoking analysis, extraordinary in its breadth and wisdom.

A superb distillation of the wisdom of one of Britains most admired writers on the human condition. Dorothy Rowe gives insights and comfort on some of the most difficult aspects of life-including: identity and self-esteem, fear, depression and unhappiness, coping with people, power, agreed, guilt and selfishness and getting older.

Dorothy Rowe shows us how to have the courage to acknowledge and face our fears only through courage can we find a sustaining happiness.Beyond Fear, first published in 1987, has changed the lives of thousands of people. In this 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.We 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.

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. At the end of each of her books Dorothy Rowe describes how happiness and satisfaction come not just from achievements but from enjoying good relationships with other people. To date, however, she has not explored what constitutes a rewarding friendship, and in Friends and Enemies she sets out to do just that. But 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. At every level both people and nations seek out hate-figures, whether they are children at school or the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. By delving into what it is that makes us hate as well as what makes us love and need each other, 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.

Is it 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, leading psychologist Dorothy Rowe shows us how to live more comfortably and creatively within ourselves by achieving a fuller understanding of how we experience our existence and how we perceive the threat of 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 the originality, clarity and unfailing wisdom she has become famous for, Dorothy Rowe enables us to revolutionise our own lives and the lives of others in the process of becoming a Successful Self.

La experiencia de la depresión consiste en un terrible aislamiento: sentirse solo, como encerrado en un túnel. Sin embargo, si alguna vez llegamos a comprender cómo se construye ese túnel, quizá podamos desmantelarlo para siempre. En este libro, Dorothy Rowe se propone precisamente eso, y para ello nos proporciona varias vias con el fin de llegar a comprender la depresion, es decir, para que podamos asumir el control de nuestras propias vidas. Por ejemplo, nos demuestra que no se trata de una enfermedad que haga necesaria una medicacion, como se ha dicho hasta la saciedad, sino de un mecanismo de defensa que solemos emplear para mantenernos a flote cuando nuestras vidas se desmoronan. Y ese nuevo enfoque, entre otras muchas cosas, consigue que nos enfrentemos a ella con menos miedos y temores, con el convencimiento de que podremos vencerla siempre que queramos, porque, en el fondo, es nuestra propia criatura. Un libro revolucionario, pues, que ha suscitado las mas entusiastas reacciones en todo el mundo: "Ya no podemos asistir a ninguna fiesta --ha dicho Linda Grant, de THE GUARDIAN-- sin conocer por lo menos a dos personas cuyas vidas hayan experimentado grandes cambios gracias a Dorothy Rowe".