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Subpersonalities: The People Inside Us
We all have had the experience of being divided, of being in two minds' about something - one part of us wants to do this, another wants to do that. Subpersonalities is the first book to do justice to the phenomenon as a normal feature of our psychological life. John Rowan argues that we all have a number of personalities that express themselves in different situations and that by recognising them we can come to understand ourselves better and improve our relationships with others. Anyone reading this book will run the risk of making quite new discoveries about themselves. In looking at where subpersonalities come from, John Rowan explores the work of psychologists and psychotherapists, from Jung and Freud onwards, and adds insights gained from his own work as a therapist and counsellor. He relates the journey of discovery that he himself undertook in search of his own subpersonalities. The result is a fascinating book that challenges our accepted view of ourselves and provides an intriguing picture of how human beings work and why communication between them so often goes wrong. Subpersonalties is a book for anyone interested in their own personality and how it helps or hinders their everyday life.
256 pages, Paperback
First published December 7, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 31, 2023
This is not a very good review, just a brain dump really. Hope it’s of use to someone.
He’s got quite a modern readable style about him. In terms of content I’m not sure it was that useful to me. His angle is sub ps seem to be useful therapeutically but not much thorough, rigorous research has gone into it (this was written in 1990).
So he trys to build a case that there is historical precedence about sub ps even if not named as such, and across different schools (Freud, jung, gestalt, Rogers etc).
He spends a lot of time looking at how different schools do or don’t support the theory and then urging them to unify the theory.
The last section is quite interesting although a bit short, where he looks at Ken Wilbur’s map of the trans personal and where sub ps fit into it. Wilbur is good because he maps out trans personal stages in much more detail than say Psychosynthesis’ Assagioli (from what I can see, I’ve not read everything of Assagioli yet). Rowan concludes from Wilbur that sub ps can be useful at some stages but then in advanced stages less so.
So in summary it starts off looking at the history (reasonably interesting), then some basic ground rules of sub ps(fine but not especially detailed), then a look at different schools (useful as a launch pad I guess or if writing an thesis) and then finally at Wilbur, asking what use sub ps have on the later stages of the spiritual journey.
He’s got quite a modern readable style about him. In terms of content I’m not sure it was that useful to me. His angle is sub ps seem to be useful therapeutically but not much thorough, rigorous research has gone into it (this was written in 1990).
So he trys to build a case that there is historical precedence about sub ps even if not named as such, and across different schools (Freud, jung, gestalt, Rogers etc).
He spends a lot of time looking at how different schools do or don’t support the theory and then urging them to unify the theory.
The last section is quite interesting although a bit short, where he looks at Ken Wilbur’s map of the trans personal and where sub ps fit into it. Wilbur is good because he maps out trans personal stages in much more detail than say Psychosynthesis’ Assagioli (from what I can see, I’ve not read everything of Assagioli yet). Rowan concludes from Wilbur that sub ps can be useful at some stages but then in advanced stages less so.
So in summary it starts off looking at the history (reasonably interesting), then some basic ground rules of sub ps(fine but not especially detailed), then a look at different schools (useful as a launch pad I guess or if writing an thesis) and then finally at Wilbur, asking what use sub ps have on the later stages of the spiritual journey.
November 6, 2025
This clearly says you shouldn't read it if you have dissociative disorders wtf
January 10, 2022
Psychologist John Rowan promotes a fascinating idea in his 1990 book ‘Subpersonalities.’ Specifically, he proposes that the idea of a self is a lie, and that our minds our made up of various subpersonalities that exist within us. These subpersonalities can be destructive, constructive, or ambivalent, and in effect hijack our action and/or thought processes according to context or general mental state. Again, whilst the notion of our ‘self’ is intuitive, Rowan argues that upon further introspection his thesis is also an intuitive one, since we all experience disparate aspects of ourselves or the feeling of different, competing factions within our head when we hesitate over a decision. Thus, the basis of his idea is compelling. However, whilst he covers the history of such an idea seriously, both this historical analysis and particularly the theoretical analysis are very surface level, with the former suffering from poor descriptions, and the latter suffering from serious deficiencies. Given the alternative treatments to the same subject elsewhere (both before and since), I can only recommend this book as a guide to seek out other thinkers who have grasped with the notion of ‘subpersonalities’ more thoroughly than Rowan has here.
Regarding the sweep through history, one must commend Rowan for taking fringe ideas seriously. Notions of subpersonalities derived from hypnosis or even astrology are treated with the same seriousness as those derived from cognitive psychology. Given the notorious inadequacies of cognitive psychology (worth another essay), this is a positive. It also means that one is introduced to serious thinkers and ideas that a more official education would disregard. However, these remain introductions. I found Rowan to only scratch the surface of, or even woefully misrepresent thinkers I am very familiar with. It is impossible to condense Jung’s idea of archetypes and the body of literature (both good and bad) on the subject that followed into two pages. It is more egregious, however, that Rowan’s writing on Jung bears little resemblance to Jung’s own writings. For example, Rowan erroneously describes the shadow (from Jungian psychology) as being “that part of ourselves that we like the least.” This is deeply wrong. The shadow is better understood as being formed by those psychological desires that oppose our conscious desires. Jung described the notion of a “psychic equilibrium” in which all “psychic energy” expended for one thing is necessarily compensated for in the unconscious. Thus, integrating the shadow is a key aspect of maturity – one comes to terms with the ‘other side’ of oneself and such desires are given healthy outlets rather than turn into destructive tendencies. Someone with a poorly integrated shadow is notable for not practicing what they preach – for example someone protesting for peace before punching a political rival (watching politics in 2021 is actually a good primer for understanding the shadow, but I digress). It goes far beyond merely what one likes and dislikes about what oneself, but relates to one’s own philosophy, behaviour, desires, fantasies, etc. Rowan trivialises a monumental concept by forcing Jung’s ideas to conform to his basic and surface-level humanistic point of view.
A similarly egregious error regards his all-too-brief summary of Michael Gazzaniga’s work. Whilst I find appeals to authority to be non-arguments, I must state that I have worked in a cognitive neuroscience lab before and am familiar with this literature. Rowan’s treatment of it is disastrously poor, even without knowing of the plethora of cognitive neuroscience papers and brain imaging studies that have been conducted since ‘Subpersonalities’ was published (which frankly add little at all to what is being discussed here other than specificity of alleged brain modules). What Gazzaniga proposed is not a multitude of subpersonalities located in different brain modules that independently influence action, but a multitude of independent behaviour-directing modules in the brain that can propose conflicting behaviours. If anything, Gazzaniga’s interest in confabulation and modularity suggests that there is a unified self that has to synthesise a disparate array of behaviours into one coherent narrative, rather than there being a set of subpersonalities all vying to take control of the human host they all inhabit. Yet Rowan portrays this as being definitive anatomical evidence in favour of his ‘subpersonalities’ thesis. Whilst the modularity hypothesis remains the dominant paradigm in cognitive neuroscience, many in the field are still grappling to overcome the ideas of Karl Lashley (who’s relevant research was conducted in the 1930s). Lashley’s proposals of mass action and equipotentiality are totally absent from ‘Subpersonalities,’ despite posing serious challenges to the modularity hypothesis that never seem to go away. An honest consideration of neuroscientific evidence would consider this work seriously, rather than seemingly pretend it does not exist as many psychologists, including Rowan here, seem to. These are just two major gripes I have with Rowan’s treatment of thinkers or disciplines I am familiar with. One must wonder whether Rowan’s summaries of less familiar thinkers are similarly poor.
Additionally, with regards to his explanation on how subpersonalities come about, the lack of examples from real people is a notable loss. Similarly, many terms (e.g. patripsych) are used as if they are a given, despite having an explanation that bears only a resemblance to reality that is anecdotal at best. Apparently, everyone grew up utterly subordinate to authority in the stereotypical Wall Street culture, and one assumes that doubting the truth of this claim is not a weakness in the theory of patripsych (at least the theory portrayed here) but in fact a sign that one has internalised the patripsych or some other such unfalsifiable nonsense. This feeds into Rowan’s strange idea of objectivity. One is fully mature only when one wholly embraces the subjectivity of one’s multiple selves, according to his thesis. Yet I cannot help but feel he has placed the therapist (i.e. himself) as the ultimate, absolute judge of maturity, as if he has replaced God on Judgement Day. This is hardly the embrace of the subjective outlined by such thinkers as Kierkegaard. This is the embrace of the objective morally superior self as outlined by Rowan and his humanistic psychology. The use of the words ‘rationality’ and ‘truth’ with regards to what is allegedly a wholly subjective multitude of selves within ‘ourselves’ only add to the confusion. Similarly, in what is a critique of taste more than content, the way in which Rowan personalises ‘subpersonalities’ by giving them all (often bizarre and overly dramatic) names, coupled with how he describes them as effectively vying for possession of one’s body, made me think that his thesis is nothing more than a post-Christian daemonology, in which he and other enlightened humanistic psychotherapists are the self-appointed exorcists.
Finally, Rowan on many occasions appears a confused thinker, and on others appears desperate to find evidence in his favour when there is simply is none. Regarding the former point, Rowan is one of those humanists intent on decrying hierarchy. Thus, he repeatedly points out that whilst many who have tackled subpersonalities before him have formulated a structure in which they operate, this is not necessary as the realities of subpersonalities appear to be very individual. Whilst this is not even a comprehensive rebuttal (since what may appear separate subpersonalities on face value may in fact be different manifestations of the same ‘subpersonality’ upon further examination), Rowan ends the book with a confusing admission that there is likely to be some structure to subpersonalities after all, due to the common themes across people, and that this is worth exploring. Regarding the latter point above, throughout the book, but particularly in the more theoretical and explanatory sections, the flow appears to be very much one of “a thinker I agree with wrote something once that can be construed as backing up my argument, therefore my argument has a definitive grounding and substantial backing to it.” This occurs in the above example of Gazzaniga, but also for a few British Idealist philosophers whose only contribution to this field happen to be the two pages of a book they wrote that can be tenuously used as offering theoretical grounding for Rowan’s ideas. It is not only unconvincing, but off-putting.
To conclude what has become a rather rambling review, ‘Subpersonalities’ sees John Rowan take a fascinating idea and utterly fail to do it justice. The history is an interesting primer, but enough of it is bad that I do wonder whether the supposed ideas of some people really are as Rowan describes them. The theory is a groundless mess bizarrely deprived of examples from therapy that could give it a more concrete grounding. Again, it is not a rigorous academic text. There is no philosophical substance. There is little practical examination of the idea. There is merely half-baked, half-understood psychoanalytic conjecture clouded in humanist nonsense about overcoming hierarchy, in which personal enlightenment can only be reached once the demons within everyone sing in harmony with the help of such humanist psychologists. Overall, it is not essential reading on the topic at all, and any salvation for Rowan’s ideas here requires serious thought and a more systematic approach to his apparent findings. Or perhaps this is just me perpetuating the ‘patripsych’ I have internalised within my selves…
Regarding the sweep through history, one must commend Rowan for taking fringe ideas seriously. Notions of subpersonalities derived from hypnosis or even astrology are treated with the same seriousness as those derived from cognitive psychology. Given the notorious inadequacies of cognitive psychology (worth another essay), this is a positive. It also means that one is introduced to serious thinkers and ideas that a more official education would disregard. However, these remain introductions. I found Rowan to only scratch the surface of, or even woefully misrepresent thinkers I am very familiar with. It is impossible to condense Jung’s idea of archetypes and the body of literature (both good and bad) on the subject that followed into two pages. It is more egregious, however, that Rowan’s writing on Jung bears little resemblance to Jung’s own writings. For example, Rowan erroneously describes the shadow (from Jungian psychology) as being “that part of ourselves that we like the least.” This is deeply wrong. The shadow is better understood as being formed by those psychological desires that oppose our conscious desires. Jung described the notion of a “psychic equilibrium” in which all “psychic energy” expended for one thing is necessarily compensated for in the unconscious. Thus, integrating the shadow is a key aspect of maturity – one comes to terms with the ‘other side’ of oneself and such desires are given healthy outlets rather than turn into destructive tendencies. Someone with a poorly integrated shadow is notable for not practicing what they preach – for example someone protesting for peace before punching a political rival (watching politics in 2021 is actually a good primer for understanding the shadow, but I digress). It goes far beyond merely what one likes and dislikes about what oneself, but relates to one’s own philosophy, behaviour, desires, fantasies, etc. Rowan trivialises a monumental concept by forcing Jung’s ideas to conform to his basic and surface-level humanistic point of view.
A similarly egregious error regards his all-too-brief summary of Michael Gazzaniga’s work. Whilst I find appeals to authority to be non-arguments, I must state that I have worked in a cognitive neuroscience lab before and am familiar with this literature. Rowan’s treatment of it is disastrously poor, even without knowing of the plethora of cognitive neuroscience papers and brain imaging studies that have been conducted since ‘Subpersonalities’ was published (which frankly add little at all to what is being discussed here other than specificity of alleged brain modules). What Gazzaniga proposed is not a multitude of subpersonalities located in different brain modules that independently influence action, but a multitude of independent behaviour-directing modules in the brain that can propose conflicting behaviours. If anything, Gazzaniga’s interest in confabulation and modularity suggests that there is a unified self that has to synthesise a disparate array of behaviours into one coherent narrative, rather than there being a set of subpersonalities all vying to take control of the human host they all inhabit. Yet Rowan portrays this as being definitive anatomical evidence in favour of his ‘subpersonalities’ thesis. Whilst the modularity hypothesis remains the dominant paradigm in cognitive neuroscience, many in the field are still grappling to overcome the ideas of Karl Lashley (who’s relevant research was conducted in the 1930s). Lashley’s proposals of mass action and equipotentiality are totally absent from ‘Subpersonalities,’ despite posing serious challenges to the modularity hypothesis that never seem to go away. An honest consideration of neuroscientific evidence would consider this work seriously, rather than seemingly pretend it does not exist as many psychologists, including Rowan here, seem to. These are just two major gripes I have with Rowan’s treatment of thinkers or disciplines I am familiar with. One must wonder whether Rowan’s summaries of less familiar thinkers are similarly poor.
Additionally, with regards to his explanation on how subpersonalities come about, the lack of examples from real people is a notable loss. Similarly, many terms (e.g. patripsych) are used as if they are a given, despite having an explanation that bears only a resemblance to reality that is anecdotal at best. Apparently, everyone grew up utterly subordinate to authority in the stereotypical Wall Street culture, and one assumes that doubting the truth of this claim is not a weakness in the theory of patripsych (at least the theory portrayed here) but in fact a sign that one has internalised the patripsych or some other such unfalsifiable nonsense. This feeds into Rowan’s strange idea of objectivity. One is fully mature only when one wholly embraces the subjectivity of one’s multiple selves, according to his thesis. Yet I cannot help but feel he has placed the therapist (i.e. himself) as the ultimate, absolute judge of maturity, as if he has replaced God on Judgement Day. This is hardly the embrace of the subjective outlined by such thinkers as Kierkegaard. This is the embrace of the objective morally superior self as outlined by Rowan and his humanistic psychology. The use of the words ‘rationality’ and ‘truth’ with regards to what is allegedly a wholly subjective multitude of selves within ‘ourselves’ only add to the confusion. Similarly, in what is a critique of taste more than content, the way in which Rowan personalises ‘subpersonalities’ by giving them all (often bizarre and overly dramatic) names, coupled with how he describes them as effectively vying for possession of one’s body, made me think that his thesis is nothing more than a post-Christian daemonology, in which he and other enlightened humanistic psychotherapists are the self-appointed exorcists.
Finally, Rowan on many occasions appears a confused thinker, and on others appears desperate to find evidence in his favour when there is simply is none. Regarding the former point, Rowan is one of those humanists intent on decrying hierarchy. Thus, he repeatedly points out that whilst many who have tackled subpersonalities before him have formulated a structure in which they operate, this is not necessary as the realities of subpersonalities appear to be very individual. Whilst this is not even a comprehensive rebuttal (since what may appear separate subpersonalities on face value may in fact be different manifestations of the same ‘subpersonality’ upon further examination), Rowan ends the book with a confusing admission that there is likely to be some structure to subpersonalities after all, due to the common themes across people, and that this is worth exploring. Regarding the latter point above, throughout the book, but particularly in the more theoretical and explanatory sections, the flow appears to be very much one of “a thinker I agree with wrote something once that can be construed as backing up my argument, therefore my argument has a definitive grounding and substantial backing to it.” This occurs in the above example of Gazzaniga, but also for a few British Idealist philosophers whose only contribution to this field happen to be the two pages of a book they wrote that can be tenuously used as offering theoretical grounding for Rowan’s ideas. It is not only unconvincing, but off-putting.
To conclude what has become a rather rambling review, ‘Subpersonalities’ sees John Rowan take a fascinating idea and utterly fail to do it justice. The history is an interesting primer, but enough of it is bad that I do wonder whether the supposed ideas of some people really are as Rowan describes them. The theory is a groundless mess bizarrely deprived of examples from therapy that could give it a more concrete grounding. Again, it is not a rigorous academic text. There is no philosophical substance. There is little practical examination of the idea. There is merely half-baked, half-understood psychoanalytic conjecture clouded in humanist nonsense about overcoming hierarchy, in which personal enlightenment can only be reached once the demons within everyone sing in harmony with the help of such humanist psychologists. Overall, it is not essential reading on the topic at all, and any salvation for Rowan’s ideas here requires serious thought and a more systematic approach to his apparent findings. Or perhaps this is just me perpetuating the ‘patripsych’ I have internalised within my selves…
May 31, 2022
I found this book far more philosophical and very largely Western Developed world in its treatment of the subject. While I can see that labelling aspects of personality "subpersonalities" and treating them as though they were autonomous, independent entities has a place in clinical settings, Rowan utterly failed to persuade me that they actually exist any more than fairies do.
At times his arguments smack of desperation as he clutches at straws by labelling anything and everything a subpersonality - I'm surprised he didn't include his grandmother's washing line!
Admittedly, I'm not a clinician, but Rowan failed to convince me that subpersonalities actually exist outwith a pathological context (but then I've noticed in some therapist, who use a disease model of psychology, that there is no such thing as a psychologically healthy person) and I'm not even convinced that they are anything other than projections called forth by the therapist, let lone that they are a global phenomenon across all cultures and times.
At times his arguments smack of desperation as he clutches at straws by labelling anything and everything a subpersonality - I'm surprised he didn't include his grandmother's washing line!
Admittedly, I'm not a clinician, but Rowan failed to convince me that subpersonalities actually exist outwith a pathological context (but then I've noticed in some therapist, who use a disease model of psychology, that there is no such thing as a psychologically healthy person) and I'm not even convinced that they are anything other than projections called forth by the therapist, let lone that they are a global phenomenon across all cultures and times.
August 18, 2025
This book is more of a synthesis of a lot of other people’s ideas than the author’s ideas. It’s unfortunate because it seems that Rowan is very thoughtful, and I often appreciate his style of explanation much more than the people he quotes.
It’s a great read if you want a comprehensive overview of the psychological schools that argue that the psyche has many distinct components. If you’re into Internal Family Systems and want a more comprehensive, academic foundation for those ideas, this is perfect.
Rowan also makes the last chapter specifically about the question of transcending the sub personalities, but all it is is a summarized re-telling of Ken Wilber’s work. It felt thrown in as a way to have some kind of profound conclusion, but it didn’t land that way for me as someone who isn’t familiar with Wilber’s psychology work.
Overall, I learned a lot. What I will take away from this book are all of the strategies and exercises for identifying, communicating, and harmonizing with sub personalities. I’ve already started deploying them.
It’s a great read if you want a comprehensive overview of the psychological schools that argue that the psyche has many distinct components. If you’re into Internal Family Systems and want a more comprehensive, academic foundation for those ideas, this is perfect.
Rowan also makes the last chapter specifically about the question of transcending the sub personalities, but all it is is a summarized re-telling of Ken Wilber’s work. It felt thrown in as a way to have some kind of profound conclusion, but it didn’t land that way for me as someone who isn’t familiar with Wilber’s psychology work.
Overall, I learned a lot. What I will take away from this book are all of the strategies and exercises for identifying, communicating, and harmonizing with sub personalities. I’ve already started deploying them.
June 4, 2019
An absolutely fascinating and essential text for anyone interested in deeper self-awareness, spiritual development and maturation, and understanding of self and society. Each of us is a multiplicity and simultaneously a unity - a multiplicity within a unity and a unity of multiple selves. This book pulls together many different strands of research and thought - philosophy, psychology, sociology, psychoanalysis, various psychotherapeutic approaches, as well as some spiritual teachings - to make the case for the existence of inner families of subpersonalities. Their process of development is described, with the corresponding clarification of how the various concepts from different traditions differ (e.g. “transpersonal self”, “superego” and “soul”, or “subpersonality”, “archetype” and “schematic”, etc.). Very relevant and, I must say, therapeutic and illuminating text.
May 18, 2017
Fundamental to psychosynthesis theory and practice.
February 16, 2009
A comprehensive summary of the many roots of the idea of subpersonalities-- individual constructs of attitude, behavior and perception within a divided Self-- in literature, society, and psychology. Also draws from many different authors, psychoanalysists, psychosynthesists for an engaging overview of common subpersonalities, theories of formation (or perhaps "division"), and ways to recover a centered self without killing off aspects of ourselves.
January 3, 2017
Totally academic with little practical use. Only relevant to people studying psychology for academic purposes.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews