NZ writer wants her books in the let's-save-the-world section

By CATHRIN SCHAER

After all these years writing analyses of human nature and interpersonal relationships, you'd think that author Stephanie Dowrick would have found the secret of true happiness.

Her books indicate she knows a fair bit about it. In past publications, the New Zealand-raised Australian resident has written about self-knowledge, the interdependence of intimacy and being alone, and how to achieve happiness in your life by concentrating on being virtuous.

In her latest release, The Universal Heart: Golden Rules for Golden Relationships, she tells readers how to achieve love and be loved, even going so far as to add a convenient checklist of "things to do" at the end of each instructive chapter.

"While the focus has been different in each book, maybe the fundamental message of all of them is not that different," she says. "It is of self-awareness and self-responsibility. Simple as that sounds, it's extremely difficult and challenging to live out."

As for the secret of true happiness, she's not sure she's figured that one out yet.

"I've discovered many, many aspects of it. But if I had to generalise I'd say happiness is a byproduct of altruism, which in this new book I am also referring to as generosity - a generosity of spirit.

"You know, it's funny, I've been asked these questions a lot recently - 'Do you really live this out? Are you a better person now?"'

Dowrick, who has just returned to her Sydney home after a three-week promotional tour around Australia, contemplates herself. "While I've learned a lot from writing these books, and I do make an effort to live it out, most of the time I am actually living a very ordinary life.

"I spend time with my children, I see friends, I read a lot and I sing in a gospel choir, which is my passion.

"Maybe the difference is that when I think about serious issues I think about them very deeply.

"But, no," she laughs, "I'm not continually in a higher state of consciousness. I still find it hard to get to the gym. I definitely don't have a deeper level of consciousness about exercise."

Despite such personal failings, Dowrick's books are far better than most in the same genre. They go way beyond the simplistic stories offered by bestsellers such as Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus or the last relationship quiz you did in Cleo magazine.

There are no easy or obvious answers here. Every line in her books is well written and requires thoughtful consideration.

As one reviewer said: "She offers penetrating insights into some of the most basic paradoxes of human relationships."

According to another, her work is "learned, sensitive and compassionate: self-help fare at its best."

Her press releases can make her sound like a crazed idealist, but Dowrick is an intelligent, learned and practical mother-of-two who fills her books with material from all kinds of interesting sources, including her own personal traumas.

And that may well be the secret of her success.

As a trained psychotherapist, her work is based on various, generally acceptable, psychological therapies and counselling techniques she has used. She also quotes from a wide range of religious and spiritual traditions, both Eastern and Western, contemporary and traditional.

Dowrick is an inactive member of the Quakers, in that she believes God is in everyone, but says she is "uneasy" with dogmatism of any kind.

Back when her own journey of self-discovery started, there was no such thing as a self-help book. She left New Zealand, aged 20, and in 1968, having travelled through Asia and the Middle East, settled in London.

She says of this era: "The world was turning upside down as women's issues, civil rights issues, peace and environmental issues changed the way great numbers of people were thinking. I was entranced by the excitement of that - and by beginning to see how those crucial issues interconnect to shape our lives."

And then she credits her "energetic sense of curiosity" with making her want to investigate further how people interrelate, what makes them happy, sad or angry. This desire for knowledge would eventually lead her to learn about the practice of psychotherapy.

"I'm very curious and my area of interest happens to be human nature, how it affects not just personal lives but also social and ethical issues."

After more than 10 years working in the publishing industry, which included founding the Women's Press in London, Dowrick had an idea for a book of her own.

She moved to Australia and finished her first novel, Running Backwards Over Sand, in 1984, a few days before the birth of her first child.

After that came Intimacy and Solitude, the first of several very successful "self-help" style tomes she would write. Each book takes her several years to complete - the latest, Universal Heart, took three.

"You'd think writing would get easier," she says, after seven fiction and non-fiction books. "But it just seems to get harder. It can be exhausting, and I think that's because of the sheer breadth of the material.

"In the Universal Heart I go from the most banal moments - like talking about people going off to work in the morning - to the most sublime. I wanted to bring the inspirational down to earth, to have a real meeting between the practical and the spiritual."

Dowrick says she still gets irritated when her books are classified as self-help, even if it's local booksellers who choose to put them in that section.

What she writes about, she insists, goes way beyond self-help.

"Sure, it's about personal relationships, but it's also about social relationships."

What she means is that if the various wisdoms she writes about were applied not just to personal relationships but to society in general, then the world would be a better place for everyone. It's not just about the "self."

For Dowrick, the biggest reward is not the glowing reviews or the sales figures. It's the reaction she gets from readers she meets.

"Some of the responses are just so heartfelt and so encouraging," she says. "That's when all those hundreds of thousands of hours I have spent in the office writing, and fighting with my own sense of insecurity, to reach this point, all become worthwhile."

Which makes perfect sense really - what was that she said about altruism being one of the prime sources of true happiness?

* The Universal Heart: Golden Rules for Golden Relationships (Penguin, $24.95) is out now.

Further information is available at: www.stephanie dowrick.com