This week I am hoping to finish chapter 5 of my thesis, which is discussing the work of bestselling self-help author Stephanie Dowrick. And so I have been immersed in her books, most of which I have read before. I am using her 1992 book Intimacy and Solitude as my anchor text, though I will be drawing extensively on all of her other books - perhaps even her novels. As always, my task is to find patterns, repetitions and echoes of former writers in the books, as well as teasing out the influences and the traditions to which they belong.
Dowrick's work is especialy helpful on this front (representing rich pickings for me) because she clearly cites her influences, and there are many other writers and thinkers quoted in her work. As a theme for the chapter, and the filter through which I am interpreting Dowrick's work, I am taking "the return of the sacred" - a theme which is, helpfully, the subject of her most recent book Seeking the Sacred.
As with every chapter, I take a four-tiered approach to reading and collecting my research: First I read the primary texts of the author being discussed. I will also include here relevant, connected, material by other Australian writers. Secondly I read critical and historical material relevant to the particular chapter, including similarly-themed books published in America and the UK. Thirdly I hunt down journal articles relevant to the author and her themes. I have been greatly aided in this process by comments by Dowrick herself in her books - she is a clear sign-poster of the sources of her ideas and inspiration. In particular there is a passage in her 2004 book Free Thinking where she cites her influences as: "Alfred Adler...Martin Seligman, Carol Travis, Robin Skynner and Thich Nhat Hanh." A neat little reading list, to which I would probably add Rumi, Roberto Assagioli and Rainer Maria Rilke.
1 comment:
Lovely to find this thoughtful blog from Walter and - yes - I think it v important to trace the lineage of ideas. However, Seligman & Travis are not such important influences for me. I would see my primary theoretical influences as being the "Object Relations" theorists( Winnicott etc), especially in the writing of Intimacy and Solitude; Alfred Adler, Carl Jung, Roberto Assagioli (very significantly), Viktor Frankl; in the last 15 years or so, also writers like Bede Griffiths, James Hillman, Thomas Merton, William Johnston - and Rainer Maria Rilke. More on my website http://www.stephaniedowrick.com
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