The Reality Game: A Guide to Humanistic Counselling and Psychotherapy

In the years since it was first published, The Reality Game has become a classic text. For all those training and practising in humanistic and integrative psychotherapy it is an essential guide to good practice, and an excellent introduction to the skills used in individual and group therapy. This new edition has been updated to take into account changes in the field and John Rowan's own work, while still providing guidance on establishing and developing the relationship between counsellor and client, and covering: assessment; the initial interview; the opening session; aims; transference; resistance and supervision. With the student’s needs always at the forefront, this extensively revised new edition responds to the questions most often asked by trainees in these disciplines, and includes discussions of ethics and new chapters on transpersonal psychology, and on dialogical self-theory. It will be a must read for psychotherapists and counsellors in practice and training especially those involved in humanistic and integrative psychotherapy.

Table of Contents:
Introduction. 1. Psychotherapy, Counselling, Coaching and Personal Growth. 2. Assessment or Not. 3. The Initial Interview. 4. The Opening Sessions. 5. Aims. 6. Ways and Means. 7. The Dialogical Self and Transference. 8. Resistance. 9. The Process of Development. 10. Listening with the Fourth Ear. 11. Research. 12. Supervision. 13. Ethics. 14. The Transpersonal. Appendices.

About the Author :
John Rowan is a counsellor and psychotherapist, working with both individuals and couples, in private practice in north-east London. He is a Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and has an Honorary Fellowship from the UKCP. He is also a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a founder member of the UK Association of Humanistic Psychology Practitioners. He has written a number of books including Ordinary Ecstasy, Healing the Male Psyche and Personification.

Review :
"This incitement to work from the heart is much more than merely a newly packaged edition of Rowan’s seminal work. What you have here is a comprehensive and comprehensible integration of many of the most important lines in today’s psychotherapy and counselling: the humanistic, the existential, the authentic, the relational and the transpersonal. It will captivate students and trainees as well as more experienced therapists – and, I really think this time, will send out ripples way beyond the humanistic/existential communities, reaching psychodynamic psychotherapists and counsellors, psychoanalysts and Jungians in many countries."- Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology, University of Essex This erudite work, by one of the most senior veterans of the British therapy world, is a must-read for all students and practitioners of counselling and psychotherapy. John Rowan presents complex ideas and debates in a straightforward, no-nonsense way that is sophisticated yet accessible. This book will help get new practitioners started on their professional journey and will be a useful refresher for those with many years of experience. Although many of the sometimes problematic issues that Rowan discusses have been around for a couple of generations, he has managed to update much of his thinking, based on a long lifetime of teaching and practice, to give this latest edition a contemporary and vital feel. - Keith Silvester, psychosynthesis psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer based in London, currently Chair of Training Standards of the Humanistic & Integrative College of UKCP. "This incitement to work from the heart is much more than merely a newly packaged edition of Rowan’s seminal work. What you have here is a comprehensive and comprehensible integration of many of the most important lines in today’s psychotherapy and counselling: the humanistic, the existential, the authentic, the relational and the transpersonal. It will captivate students and trainees as well as more experienced therapists – and, I really think this time, will send out ripples way beyond the humanistic/existential communities, reaching psychodynamic psychotherapists and counsellors, psychoanalysts and Jungians in many countries."- Andrew Samuels, Professor of Analytical Psychology, University of Essex This erudite work, by one of the most senior veterans of the British therapy world, is a must-read for all students and practitioners of counselling and psychotherapy. John Rowan presents complex ideas and debates in a straightforward, no-nonsense way that is sophisticated yet accessible. This book will help get new practitioners started on their professional journey and will be a useful refresher for those with many years of experience. Although many of the sometimes problematic issues that Rowan discusses have been around for a couple of generations, he has managed to update much of his thinking, based on a long lifetime of teaching and practice, to give this latest edition a contemporary and vital feel. - Keith Silvester, psychosynthesis psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer based in London, currently Chair of Training Standards of the Humanistic & Integrative College of UKCP.