Personification

This book updates and extends John's 1990 volume on subpersonalities, demonstrating the importance of multiplicity within the person and its relevance to therapists and coaches. It questions the idea of an exclusive truth or correct belief, preferring instead multiple and provisional understandings, pragmatically acting as if the outlook was true. More absolute positions ignore other positions and traditions, insisting on the validity of their own. Instead of the idea of subpersonalities, John proposes the notion of 'I-positions' and shows how one can profitably work with these, using the dialogical self. He explains the theoretical basis of this new idea, recognising it as a social construction but nevertheless not reifying it in the process. The second part discusses the use of multiplicity in therapy, criticising around 20 approaches in a real tour de force of analysis. He then explains how to work with this new technique and situates it within the overall transpersonal field. He provides a fascinating analysis of causal and non-dual contrasts in approach, and an extensive table of different levels of the self and schools or thinkers associated with these. It is an impressive work informed by wide reading and long practice, and will be of great interest to readers involved in psychotherapy, counselling and indeed coaching.