Reality Theory

Reality therapy is a cognitive therapy that was developed based on William Glasser’s Choice Theory in America and that shortly after became well established world wide. In order to understand the principles of reality therapy, a first contact with Glasser’s philosophy that stands behind this therapeutic approach is necessary. An interesting overview on Glasser’s work and ideas is offered by Bassin, Bratter and Rachin (1976):

Glasser’s philosophy

According to Glasser, people don’t develop mental disorders unless they have a prior physical injury (brain damage, neurological dysfunctions etc). All the other psychological and psychiatric problems (depression, anxiety, obsessions, mania etc) are just ineffective ways of coping with a certain problem that provokes a great suffering in their life.

Usually, these great sufferings have their roots in relationships or in a lack of them. In Glasser’s psychology, relations between people are very important and their satisfactory functioning depends on the individual’s capacity to fight against “the 7 deadly habits of external control” and to adopt “the 7 caring habits of choice theory” (Glasser, 1998).

What does this mean? That people often have their locus of control in the external environment, which causes them a great deal of suffering and makes them addicted to the external environment and to social relations (because they want to control others out of a fear of not being controlled themselves) in an unhealthy manner. Thus, Glasser proposes that people change certain behaviors such as: criticizing, blaming, complaining, threatening, punishing and bribing. Instead, they should develop behaviors that include respect, support, listening, acceptance, trust and negotiation of differences in relationships (for a win-win situation instead of an eternal fight for control).

Glasser also speaks about 5 basic needs of individuals in order to assure life’s equilibrium. If these needs don’t give out similar levels of satisfaction, the individual’s life will be as off-balance as a three legged chair. The five needs are: survival (including needs such as basic survival, security, reproduction, longevity etc), love/belonging (both to offer and to receive), power (includes feelings of accomplishment, success, social and professional recognition etc), freedom (to choose, to express ourselves, to be creative) and fun (includes pleasant feelings usually expressed through laughter; usually related to learning experiences).

When people have problems with one of these functions (let’s say someone wants too much power and tends to exert extreme control over others) might develop problems in other sectors of their life (such as in love/belonging and social relationships, for example). Glasser has introduced a new idea in his psychology and called it quality world. By this term he means that every human being has a certain representation over the world he/she lives in. There is no perfect objectivity, life is subjective and people develop a quality world based on their experiences, relationships and beliefs that they use for satisfying their basic needs. In this quality world, people can have wishes or desires that may conflict with each other or with the desires and wishes of other individuals. Reality therapy is a wise choice for correctly understanding reality of for successfully negotiating relations with other individuals.

Reality therapy based on responsibility and on an authentic contact with the present. People are responsible for themselves, for their decisions and behaviors. According to Glasser & Zunin (1973), individual responsibility is the purpose of the treatment while unhappiness is a result, and not the cause of a lack of responsibility. Thus, no apologies are accepted in this kind of therapy and it is consider that all that we do, think or experience belongs to us alone: we choose to be happy or to suffer, and making the right choices and becoming responsible are things that can be learned through reality therapy.

Reality therapy: principles and application

Glasser considers that therapy should have other purposes than encouraging the patient’s “condition”, behavoiurs and feelings by looking for causes in one’s life history. The client is sad because he chooses to be depressed, it’s not the condition that is making him/her sad. Why one chooses to be depressed and what responsibilities one might be running away from are things that can be unveiled together with the right therapist. The basic principles of reality therapy, according to Glasser & Zunin (1973) are:

1)      Personal involvement: the therapeutic environment is a warm, open one in which the therapist and the client interact in an almost informal manner, addressing one another by name and without official formalities; it has the role of building the client’s confidence and of serving as a model for an authentic, open relationship.

2)      Focusing on behavior, not feelings: feelings are difficult to change without intervening over someone’s behavior. Teaching a client to change his/her defective behaviors has as a resulting effect the change of one’s unpleasant life emotions and feelings and implicitly the overcoming of the “condition”;

3)      Value judgement: the client learns to judge his/her behavior and life relations in a responsible manner;

4)      Planning a responsible behavior: it is not enough for someone to understand that he/she has an irresponsible behavior in order to change it; one needs help and a therapist can help the client, without being too directive or demanding, in creating a strategy for switching from the defective behavior to a successful one;

5)      Commitment: the client has to make a decision to follow the plan over which he/she and the therapist agreed on and needs to start implementing in his/her life the changes that they decided upon.

6)      No excuses or irresponsibility: The way in which the plan is being applied in reality is followed and where the client fails there is no place for excuses, but rather the reason for failing in the first place is investigated, with the client being encouraged to once again go through the steps that proved difficulties in the first place. In the case of multiple errors, points 3) and 4) are to be recalculated.

7)      Eliminating punishment: punishment only fortifies the client’s position as victim, which is why reality therapy does not encourage it. In its place, the therapist encourages the client to reevaluate the situation in which he/she failed.

8)      Never give up: Even if certain steps of the plan have not been successfully realized, the client has to insist until he/she will manage to change their behavior and life-style in a responsible and healthy manner.

This therapy is useful in situations such as “teaching, coaching, mentoring, managing, supervising, relationships and self-development (most notably in the areas of stress management, anger management and self-esteem programs)” (realitiytherapy.org.uk). Reality therapy can be used as a self-standing approach as well as in combination with other therapeutic approaches.

References:

Bassin, A., Bratter, T. E., & Rachin, R. L. (Eds.). (1976). The reality therapy reader: A survey of the work of William Glasser, New York: Harper & Row.
Glasser, W. (1998). Choice theory: a new psychology of personal freedom. New York: HarperCollins.
Glasser, W., & Zunin, L. M. (1973). Reality therapy. In R Corsini (Ed.), Current psychotherapies. Itasca. IL: Peacock
Reality therapy. Retrieved from  www.realitytherapy.org.uk on 21^st of July, 2011.