REALITY CHOICE THERAPYDaniel John Arboleda, Ramer Pimping, Armia Camille Domingo

A. AUTHOR William Glasser was initially a chemical engineer, he turned to psychology and then to

psychiatry with the intention of becoming a psychiatrist. In 1962, he began to present public lectures on “reality psychiatry” but few psychiatrists in the audience. Most attended were educators, social workers, counselors, so he changed the name of his system into “reality therapy”. Glasser rejected the Freudian model due to his observation of psychoanalytically trained therapists who did not seem to be implementing Freudian principles. Rather, they tended to hold people responsible for their behavior. Glasser learned about control theory from William Powers and believed that the theory had a great potential. Glasser changed the theory that it was misleading to continue it control theory to the new name choice theory.

Robert Wubbolding is a member of several professional organizations and has licenses as a counselor as a psychologist. He is now the director of Center for Reality Therapy in Cincinnati and professor emeritus of Xavier University. Wubbolding extended the practice of reality theory with his conceptualization of the WDEP system.

Glasser’s approach is anti-deterministic, because at any point in life, a person can evaluate his or her total behaviors and adopt internal control language and make new choices that better match one’s need-strength profile and quality world. Glasser believes that needs can only be satisfied in the “here and now”, the approach is focused mostly on the present.

Quality world – we store information inside or minds and build a file of wants, which is at the core of our life. It consists of specific images of people, activities, events, beliefs, possessions, and situations that fulfill our needs. Picture album – precise ways we satisfy our wants.

B. BASIC ASSUMPTIONS 1. Human are not born blank slates waiting to be externally motivated by forces in the world

around us. Man are born with five genetically encoded needs; survival or self-preservation; love and belonging – the primary need; power, or inner control; freedom, or independence; and fun or enjoyment.

2. Man needs to satisfy needs especially the love and belonging needs.

C. ORIGIN AND MAINTENANCE OF THE PROBLEM - Failure to satisfy any or all of the genetic needs create pain.- Difficulty in adjusting/ prioritizing content of quality world as he/she grows.- Conflict among the wants in the Quality World.- Conflict of wants with other people’s wants.- Unachievable wants.

Reality therapists believe that the underlying problem is the involvement in a present unsatisfying relationship or lack what even called a relationship. The problems caused by the clients’ inability to connect, to get close to others, or to have a satisfying relationship with at

least one significant person in their lives. Unhappiness results from the way they are choosing to behave.

D. BASIC PREMISE AND GOALS OF COUNSELING

The primary goal of psychotherapy is to help clients get connected or reconnected with the people they have chosen to put in their Quality world. In addition to fulfill this need for love and belonging, a basic goal of reality therapy is to help clients learn better ways of fulfilling all their needs, including achievement, power or inner control, freedom or independence and fun. - Help client make Quality world more realistic by helping to eliminate the unattainable and

to prioritize wants.- Avoid deadly habits of external control which block connection with and satisfaction of

client like; criticizing, blaming, complaining, nagging, and threatening.- Manifest caring habits to restore the client’s happiness and mental health like; supporting,

encouraging, listening, accepting, trusting, and respecting.- Ability to use self disclosure to deepen relationship without stealing focus from client.- Skill to listen to themes and recognize them as part of client’s control system: needs, wants,

perception.- Capacity to listen and respond to metaphors to help client laugh at self and take better

control of behaviour.

E. ROLE & SKILLS NEEDED BY THE COUNSELOR1. Teacher. Therapy is often considered as a mentoring process. Reality therapy teach clients to

engage in self-evaluation – to challenge clients to examine what they are doing. 2. Give assistance. Reality therapists assists clients in evaluating their own behavioral direction,

specific actions, wants, perceptions, level of commitment, possibilities for new directions, and action plans.

3. Advocate. Therapist functions as someone who is on the client’s side. Also, instilling a sense of hope when the clients are no longer alone and change is possible.

F. WHAT STRATEGY WILL BE USED? The WDEP System of reality therapy can be described as “effective, practical, usable,

theory-based cross-cultural, and founded on universal human principles”. It can help the clients explore their wants, possible things they can do, opportunities for self-evaluation, and design plans for improvement. 1. Wants (Exploring wants, needs and perception). Reality therapists assists clients in discovering

their wants and hopes. All wants are related to the five basic needs. 2. Direction and Doing. Reality therapy focuses more on gaining awareness of and changing

current total behavior. The therapist asks, “what are you doing”?. Even though problems related in the past, clients need to learn how to deal with them in the present by learning better ways of getting what they want. P

3. Self-Evaluation. Self-evaluation is the cornerstone of reality therapy procedures. Evaluation involves the client examining behavioral direction, specific actions, wants, perceptions, new directions and plans.

4. Planning and action. “What is your plan?”. The process of creating and carrying out plans enables the people to gain effective control over their lives. Wubbolding discusses the central role of planning and commitment. Although planning is important, it is effective only when the client has made a self-evaluation and determined that he wants to change a behavior. Wubbolding uses the acronym SAMIC of a good plan : simple, attainable, measurable, immediate, involved, control by the planner, committed to, and consistently done. - Grab bag therapy- determining what one wants to happen in a particular dilemma, what

client is already doing to make it happen, brainstorming on what else could be done, selecting and trying out tone suggestion.

- Changing verbs to emphasize personal choice: example, “my depression is making me sleep all the time”, it should be “I am depressing myself and choosing to sleep much of the time”.

G. LIMITATIONS OF REALITY – CHOICE THERAPY1. It does not give adequate emphasis to the role of insight, the unconscious, power of the past

and the effect of traumatic experiences in early childhood, therapeutic value of dreams and place of transference.

2. Dreams as not used in the therapy. Dreams are powerful tools in helping people recognize their internal conflicts. Recalling the client’s dreams can help unblock them and can pave the way for clients to take a different course of action.

3. Glasser’s view of transference. Clients are able to learn that significant people in their lives have a present influence on how they perceive and react to others.