Carolyn Cowan

In 2019, she was named among the top 16 yoga teachers in London.

She has contributed her expertise to a variety of magazines and digital outlets including The Guardian, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Glamour Magazine, Psychologies, Women’s Health, The Sun (United Kingdom), i news, Natural Health Magazine, and Woman’s Own. She has also has written feature articles in Planet Mindful and Yoga magazines about Kundalini yoga and menopause. She teaches body painting at the University of the Arts London.

During a 2011 interview, Cowan said that people sometimes need to reach a point of no return to grow and change. "Unless you hit something like depression, illness, death or addition there is no change. The moment you jump off that metaphorical cliff into the darkness you can always recognize other people who have done the same."

During that period, John Cowan leased his studio at 39 Princes Place to Michelangelo Antonioni for interior and exterior filming of the film Blowup. His photographic murals are featured in the film. He also shot the title stills for 2001 A Space Odyssey..

By the time Cowan was 28, her life of excess was taking a toll. She was addicted to drugs and alcohol. During the summer of 1991, while in Dublin to do David Bowie's makeup for a video, Cowan said her life changed dramatically. "David Bowie took one look at me, hung-over, red-eyed and incoherent, and told me I was in trouble. Cowan said Bowie encouraged her to stay sober and attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. By 31 July 1991, she had given up smoking, drugs and alcohol and changed her line of work and focused on photography.

During the early 1990s, Cowan began a career as a photographer. Among her first jobs was an Ilford Photo-sponsored trip to India to photograph nomads. While there, she was exposed to Hindu spirituality and Sikhism, which would later fuel her passion for yoga and meditation. "I preferred this idea of choosing your experiences and transformation, that you can have all your past and drama and that could be your mountain on which you stand. Like the root of a tree that you become."

She returned to England and worked in the pop music video industry. She would eventually work with such personalities as Bryan Ferry, David Bowie and Freddie Mercury, who were part of the booming 1980s video music industry. She also worked with singer Steve Strange. Among her achievements during that time was helping Duran Duran "perfect their decadent, glamorous look" for the music video of their hit song "Rio" and travelling to the South of France to film Elton John's video for "I'm Still Standing", where "everyone was flying around in their own private helicopters, including me."

Cowan is one of a growing number of sex therapists who do not believe in the traditional concept of sexual addiction. Going against current assumptions and trends, she debunks the idea that sex addiction is real. Instead, she says, the current concept of "sex addiction" is a belief system, supported by faith, moral conviction and religious principles, that represents an attack on sexuality and its expression. It was originally devised, as a system, in the 1980s during the AIDS crisis, and does not support recovery from trauma, an abusive background, mental illness, etc. in its concepts and applications, she says. Cowan believes that labelling behaviours as sex addiction asserts a false, dangerous myth that undermines personal responsibility.

While in her early 20s, Cowan met members of the Italian group Krisma, a new wave band formed in 1976 with Maurizio Arcieri and Christina Moser. The lead singer of the band, Moser, allowed Cowan to paint her face for shows. Soon Cowan was doing body painting and wanted to become a makeup artist.

Carolyn Cowan (born 1960) is a London-based psychosexual and relationship therapist. Prior to her career as a therapist, she was a fashion designer and photographer. During the 1980s, she earned acclaim as a makeup artist in the pop music video industry.

Cowan was born in 1960, the eldest of three children of fashion photographer John Cowan and Syddy Cooper. She grew up in Chelsea, London and was exposed to fashion at a young age, often posing as a child model for her father. In 1964, her parents divorced and her mother eventually married a broker at Lloyd's who took care of the family financially. Cowan has said that the loss of her father led to depression and eventually contributed to substance abuse.