Reality Therapy and Choice Theory: Glasser's Approach

Introduction to Reality Therapy

It was during the 1960s that Dr. William Glasser developed the new approach to counseling known as Reality Therapy. According to this therapy, the various choices that an individual makes are based on the present life he is leading, and it does not matter what the person has undergone in the past or what has happened in his past life. All choices are based on the situation he is in at the present time, and his reactions and behavior are based on the "here and now" of any given situation. The theory also states that the existence of an unsatisfactory relationship — or the complete absence of a relationship with others — is the primary cause of psychological problems among individuals.

Definition of Reality Therapy

According to Reality Therapy, the focus must be on the creation, development, and maintenance of interpersonal relationships with others, based on the choices the individual makes depending on his present life and experiences in the "now." This inevitably means that the individual must take on personal responsibility for the different choices he has made, based on his own experiences. The past is treated as the source of his needs, but all discussions during therapy sessions are based on the present — and the relationships the person is currently in form the key to the problems he faces in the present time.

It is a fact that all human beings "behave" at all times, and all behavior is grouped under the term Total Behavior, which is composed of four components: acting, thinking, feeling, and physiology. The basic categories of human needs are grouped under power, love and belonging, freedom, fun, and survival. Human beings are always seeking ways and means to satisfy these needs.

Reality Therapy helps a person see the various maladaptive strategies he uses in order to get his needs met, and corrective methods are taught so that he can change his behavioral patterns. The individual's thoughts and actions are taken as the best material with which to work — not, as in traditional therapy, feelings and symptoms alone. When therapy focuses on the person's thoughts, the issues of blame and externalizing problems can be avoided entirely. Blame is, in fact, one of the main causative factors for tension in any interpersonal relationship.

However, in order to understand this type of therapy more fully, one must also understand what "reality" is. Reality is made up of quite a few facets, some of them being: the actual reality in which the individual lives (which can be either physical or spiritual or both); the individual's experience of physical reality; the person's experiences of super-reality (that is, any experience connected to the mystic, including God and the Spirit); the individual's perception of reality; all of that person's beliefs and ideals based on perception and experience of physical reality; and also beliefs based on super-reality. The problem generally arises when an individual's beliefs do not match the experiences he recognizes or perceives. A person discovers the world around him through the processes of perception, the interpretation of that perception, and the formation of reason based on that perception. Expectations are generally built up and these become the individual's model of the real world. When a person adheres strictly to his own perceptions, he will not make any mistakes — according to his own viewpoint — but he will not be able to learn very much by this reasoning either.

On the other hand, if he is able to reason openly, then the information derived will be useful, though it may or may not prove correct. This is the dilemma in which all human beings find themselves: in order to live, they are forced to make decisions based on assumptions, and those assumptions may at times be wrong. When a decision is based on a spiritual model, the person may be faced with spiritual problems because it will not meet his expectations on the subject. A similar dilemma faces those persons whose physical world does not match their experiences, and this mismatch may result in psychological problems. Reality Therapy ensures that a person bases all his choices on his present experiences and, in this way, serves as a powerful aid in repairing and cementing broken interpersonal relationships.

The History of Reality Therapy

William Glasser, an American psychiatrist, created the concept of Reality Therapy during the 1960s. It has been acknowledged as one of the few therapies that actually began in an adolescent setting; the fact that Glasser was initially employed at a school for adolescent delinquent girls explains why he was particularly interested in developing this approach. By the late 1980s, the William Glasser Institute had been founded in Ireland, and it soon gained popularity around the world, with institutes established in many countries. Ireland hosted the first International Convention of this Institute in 1995, and the approach has continued to grow in popularity worldwide. Reality Therapy is now an acknowledged form of therapy and all Institutes maintain a specialized faculty trained in its methods.

In the UK, Reality Therapy has been growing steadily through the years for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that it is widely applicable and highly practical at the same time. Its method of interactive therapy has led to its adoption in the areas of counseling, coaching, and training, as well as in the management and support of people. Reality Therapy has also been used for the purpose of addictions counseling and is generally an extremely useful supplement in such treatment programs.

The creator of Reality Therapy, William Glasser, was not only trained in psychoanalytic theories — including those developed by Freud — but was also a student of chemical engineering as well as clinical psychology. Glasser eventually rejected Freudian theories and began formulating his own. He wrote his first book, Reality Therapy, in 1965, having earlier written Mental Health or Mental Illness in 1960. The language of psychotherapy did not seem fully suitable to him, which is why he remained primarily a behavioral technician. In 1969, Glasser wrote Schools Without Failure, in which he described an educational system in which many students were considered failures. In Identity Society, he identified and explained most of his creative ideas and described the practical applications of Reality Therapy for ordinary people in their daily lives.

Positive Addiction was the next step, and in this book Glasser explains that it is the individual who makes his own life miserable — not anyone else. This brought forward the theory of personal responsibility. Stations of the Mind was written in 1981, and this led to the writing of Control Theory almost two decades later. Glasser has always maintained the opinion that a person behaving in an inappropriate manner does not need help in defending that behavior. Instead of defense, therefore, the treatment focuses on teaching the person how to identify that his behavior is wrong or inappropriate, and then on teaching him the various means by which he can act more appropriately and productively. The individual learns to acknowledge that it is his own behavior that is at fault and that he must be ready to change it, since the world is filled with other human beings and the individual must learn to live among them in a manner that satisfies his own wishes without encroaching on the wishes of others.

In essence, it is Choice Theory that drives Reality Therapy. Taken as an internal control psychology, it demonstrates that all individuals are governed by basic needs within themselves — not by external reality — and that in order to meet those needs, the individual must make certain choices. All behavior patterns are based on these choices. Perceptions are generally grounded in the present, and therefore the need to explore the past in great detail becomes unnecessary. Glasser felt that even if a person exhibited bizarre or unusual behavior at a particular time, it was due to an innate attempt to find the best solution to meet his needs at that moment in his life, and was therefore logical and rational to him, even if others might label it as strange or irrational. A delinquent, for example, would make choices based on the best way to meet his basic needs at that time and should therefore not simply be criticized. This, in essence, formed the theory of Reality Therapy as William Glasser conceived it, with the concept of Choice Theory emphasized to a large extent — one of the reasons why the theory attained such widespread popularity, not only in America but around the world.