The Book of Evan: The work and life of Evan McAra Sherrard

In many ways Evan McAra Sherrard was a Renaissance man: a master of not one but several trades - agriculture, education, ministry, and psychotherapy - and he liked the fact that he had several strings to his bow. He described his "basic sense of identity" as "a healing minister of religion" and that "my personal competence is as a psychotherapist". To many - family, friends, colleagues, trainees, supervises, and clients - he was compassionate, open hearted, thoughtful, and generous. Evan was instrumental in setting up the Cameron Centre in Dunedin in the 1960s, the Human Development Team within Presbyterian Support Services in Auckland in the late 1970s, and the Psychotherapy Programme at Auckland Institute (now University) of Technology in the late 1980s. More broadly, he was hugely influential in the practice, professions and organisation of transactional analysis, psychodrama, psychotherapy, and counselling in New Zealand. This book brings together Evan's mostly unpublished writings in these various fields of interest, together with contributions from some 40 people, including his family, who represent the breadth and depth of influence that Evan's work and life had - and continues to have today.