John Rowan obituary

My colleague John Rowan, who has died aged 93, was known as the father of British humanistic psychology – a field to which he made vital literary and theoretical contributions.

Humanistic psychology, which emphasises human existential values and radical therapy approaches, reached Britain from the US during the countercultural years of the 1950s and 60s. John joined the Association for Humanistic Psychology (AHP) in 1969 and soon became its chair.

In 1976 he published Ordinary Ecstasy, which explained the aims of humanistic psychology. The following year he initiated the New Paradigm Research Group, with Peter Reason of Bath University, and in 1981 published Human Inquiry, which advocated a collaborative experimental approach focused on subjects’ experience of their own lives.

John helped found, with Giora Doron, the Institute of Psychotherapy and Social Studies as a training centre. He also helped set up the Association for Humanistic Psychology Practitioners in 1980. His book The Reality Game, published in 1983, with a third edition in 2016, offers useful insights into the work of a humanistic therapist.

From 1982 John embraced spirituality and meditation. His work with sexual politics, informed by his study of paganism and feminism, led him to publish The Horned God (1987), advocating a return to the “great goddess”, “the image of female power which is necessary to turn us round completely”.

With Jocelyn Chaplin he founded the Serpent Institute in London in 1988, training therapists in nature-based spiritualities and radical politics. His 1997 book Healing the Male Psyche: Therapy as Initiation articulated his interests in feminism, spirituality and psychotherapy.

From 1977 John worked on “subpersonalities” – personality modes that people have within them and are often expressed in social situations. In 2006 he was awarded his PhD from Middlesex University for integrating subpersonalities with the transpersonal dimension. His book Personification, investigating the notion of the “dialogical self”, appeared in 2010.

In 2015, John received a festschrift from AHP on his 90th birthday and was made its honorary life president. He was also a fellow of the UK Council for Psychotherapy, the British Psychological Society and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.

Born in Old Sarum, Wiltshire, he was the son of Coleen (nee McCutcheon) and Arthur Rowan. Arthur was an RAF officer and John attended schools in the UK, Egypt and Cyprus. His main education came at King’s school, Chester. It was joining the Socialist party of Great Britain that sparked an interest in psychology and social issues, and he gained a social psychology degree from the University of London.

He was passionate about the natural world, travelled extensively and read voraciously. With a mischievous sense of humour, he loved good food and wine, music, the theatre, art exhibitions and crosswords.

John met Sue Mickleburgh in 1976 when she joined his psychology evening class, and they began a relationship the following year, marrying in 1997.

She survives him, along with their four children, Ross, Peri, Nicky and Shaun, and four grandchildren.

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