ABSTRACT
I used to say (Rowan 1990) that the basic definition of a subpersonality was: ‘A semi-permanent and semi-autonomous region of the personality capable of acting as a person.’ This fitted with most of the ideas about subpersonalities which were around at the end of the 1980s when my book on the subject was written. But experiences in transpersonal workshops which I started to run in January 2003 led me to revise that definition as too narrow. I now think that the better definition is: ‘Any aspect of the whole person which can be personified.’ And by ‘whole person’ I explicitly include the real self as described in humanistic psychology, the soul as described in Jungian studies (e.g. Hillman 1975), and the spirit as described in mysticism worldwide.
