Intimacy and Solitude
Finding New Closeness And Self-Trust In A Distanced World
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
'I love this book. It's full of exactly the kind of soulful wisdom the world is crying out for right now.' - Magda Szubanski
'Compassionate, honest, fearless . . . Stephanie Dowrick's writing amazes me.' - The Hon Kristina Keneally
The quality of your personal relationships has never mattered more. It isn't enough to have lots of friends on social media. Or to give 'everything' to work hoping that will validate your existence.
When familiar certainties are dissolving, we need to give and receive closeness and understanding to feel fully alive. But how do we open to others in a world that can seem harsh, indifferent - and unpredictable in the extreme?
Intimacy and Solitude starts with the most fundamental relationship of all: how you understand and care for your own self - knowing this will inevitably be reflected in your most essential relationships.
Using her exceptional gifts as a storyteller, as well as decades of work with people of all ages, orientations and cultures, Dr Stephanie Dowrick brings to life profound and persuasive insights to transform self-trust - and your life with others. This edition includes a new introduction to bring the book up to date.
'This is a book that can save your emotional life.' - Subhana Barzaghi, psychotherapist and Zen Roshi
'So needed at any time, and especially today.' - David Leser, Women, Men & the Whole Damn Thing
'Since I was a teenager, Stephanie Dowrick's work has been absolutely central to my understanding of the possibility of happiness.' - Clare Bowditch, musician and author
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dowrick, a British psychotherapist (and co-founder of the Women's Press in England), examines the complementary roles of intimacy and solitude in this informed and accessible analysis. Basing her theories on the work of such therapists as Alfred Adler, Carl Jung and Roberto Assagioli, she argues that the way in which people experience their sense of self will mirror the way they develop intimate relationships. Through interviews and her own life story, Dowrick discusses how early childhood experiences--experiences that are often different for men and women--determine one's sense of self and eventually one's handling of sexual relationships. In both heterosexual and gay relationships, Dowrick posits, it is important to stop viewing the other as an extension of oneself in order to succeed at intimacy. True solitude, she notes, can develop self-knowledge, which is the key to closeness with others.
