COMMENTS FROM READERS
You will learn from John Rowan, the most recognized, most gifted, most brilliant, most respected teacher of humanistic psychology in the world! Formally, this is the 3rd edition, but that gives you the wrong picture. Think of this volume as the next "evolution" of Ordinary Ecstasy. Thank you, John Rowan, for a spendid piece of creatively thoughtful work that appreciates the power and the beauty of humanistic psychology.
Alvin R. Mahrer, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
University of Ottawa, Canada
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I love this book. Comprehensive, informative, and scintillating, Ordinary Ecstasy is a brilliant contribution to the Renaissance of humanistic psychology. A valuable resource for professionals and the lay public, it explores humanistic psychology from the historical and global perspective. Because it approaches humanistic psychology from the spirit of its paradoxes, it embraces the entire field of humanistic psychology-its principles and practices-in ways that make it more understandable and useable than ever before. The humanistic message will be very important in the third millennium.
Eleanor Criswell, Ed.D.
Professor of Psychology, Sonoma State University, California
and author of Biofeedback and Somatics: Toward Personal Evolution.
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John Rowan identifies the many threads of humanistic psychology, and then gets below the content to essential structures of humanistic thinking and clinical process: paradox and dialectics. The clarity of his theoretical contribution can help humanistic psychology develop needed advances in rigorous thinking about humanistic theory and practice.
Ilene Serlin, Ph.D
Professor of Psychology, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center
Past President, Division 32 of the Americal Psychological Association
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It has been said that John Rowan's *Ordinary Ecstasy* is a unique resource in the field. It is especially so some twenty-five years later, for we are in a time when "positive psychology" and other developments have seemed to diminish Humanistic Psychology's once unique stance.
For a brief period of time in the 1970s, there were a handful of texts about Humanistic Psychology, Rowan's being one of them. There are not many more now, and this one is still unique in its range and depth. It is also very up to date with the current controversies in the field.
Here are some of the features of his text that has made it useful for me as a teaching tool. First, it has the advantage that a single text has over assembling a group of readings: a coherent voice surveys the entire field. Secondly, the book is full of references, which offers the students an entry into their own scholarship and further exploration into the field.
Thirdly, Rowan frequently "editorializes" with his own strong opinions on the subject matter. Such opinions stimulate the student to think about viewpoints, to realize that he is not merely reading a set of facts, but there are opinions, different ways to look at the facts, different ways to study the material.
Reading Rowan's text helps the student to realize that there is something at stake, something to care about, and it makes it easier for me to engage the students in a dialogue about what difference it all makes. Not many texts can do that.
Henry Reed
Creative Spirit Studios
Flying Goat Ranch
3777 Fox Creek Road
Mouth of Wilson, VA 24363
1-800-398-1370 voice and fax
web: www.creativespirit.net
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