c

Constructing Your Future

One choice at a time
RT( History)
- developed by Dr. William
Glasser in 1965, is founded
on the principles of choice
theory and has developed
into a widely recognized form
of therapy. Parents as well as
many professionals in the
fields of education, mental
health, and social services
have embraced the
fundamentals of this therapy.
By the 1970’s, the concepts were
extended into what Glasser then called
“ Control Therapy”
Reality therapy is a form of therapy that
aims to help people with unmet needs,
set goals, problem solve, and create
more meaningful connections with
others.
It maintains that the individual is
suffering from a socially universal
human condition rather than a mental
illness.
Reality Therapy approach to counseling
and problem solving focuses on the here
and now actions of the client and the
ability to create and choose a better
future.
Glasser believed that when someone
chooses to change their own behavior
rather than attempting to change
someone else's, they will be more
successful at attaining their own goals
and desires.
These needs are:
 Love and belonging: To family, to a community, or to
other loved ones.
 Power: A sense of winning, achieving, or a sense of
self-worth.
 Freedom: To be independent, maintain personal
space, autonomy.
 Fun: To achieve satisfaction, enjoyment, and a sense of
pleasure.
 One of the core principles of reality therapy is that,
whether people are aware of it or not, they are always
trying to meet these essential human needs. These
needs must all be balanced and met for a person to
function most effectively. However, people don't
necessarily act effectively at achieving these goals.
Socializing with others is one effective way of meeting
the need to belong. But how a person chooses to
interact with and gain attention and love from others
is most often at the root of their psychological dismay.
 Reality therapy stresses one major point—
people are in control of what they are
currently doing in their lives whether or not
it is working in their favor toward meeting
their basic psychological needs for power,
belonging, fun and freedom. And it is
through an individual's choices that he or
she makes change happen for the better or
worse.
 Reality therapy seeks to treat patients who face
difficulty in working out a relationship with
others. So, the formation of a connection of the
patient with the therapist is regarded as an
important milestone at the start of the therapy.
 According to the therapists, bonding of the
patients with their therapists is the most crucial
dynamic that would facilitate the healing process.
As soon as this bonding is stable, it can help to
form a fulfilling connection outside the
therapeutic environment.
 Patients receiving this kind of therapeutic treatment
will learn various ways to strengthen relationships in
the most suitable manner possible and that too in the
absence of their therapists' safe relationship.
Moreover, they will be able to use their newfound skills
in their personal lives.
 Reality therapists say that when patients are able to use
the skills, behaviors, actions, and methods learned
through the therapy in their personal lives, then they
will be able to successfully work out external
relationships as well. This will provide them with the
satisfaction of leading a more fulfilling life.
 Action
- Reality therapy maintains that the core problem of
psychological distress is that one or more of the
client's essential needs are not being met thereby
causing the client to act irresponsibly.
-The therapist then addresses this issue and asserts that
the client assume responsibility for their behavior.
Reality therapy holds that we learn responsibility
through involvement with other responsible people.
 The therapist helps the client create a workable plan to
reach a goal. It must be the client's plan, not the
counselor's. The essence of a workable plan is that the
client can implement it—it is based on factor under
the client's control. Reality therapy strives to empower
people by emphasizing the power of doing what is
under their control. Doing is at the heart of reality
therapy.
Behavior
- Behavior, in the real world is an immediate and alive
source of information about how we are doing and
whether we are happy with what is going on in our
lives. However, it is very hard to choose and to change
our emotions directly. It is easier to change our
thinking—to decide, for example, that we will no
longer think of ourselves as victims or to decide that in
our thoughts we will concentrate on what we can do
rather than what we think everybody else ought to do.
Reality therapists approach changing "what we do" as a
key to changing how we feel and how we will work to
obtain what we want.
 Control
 Control is a key issue in reality therapy. Human beings
need control to meet their needs: one person seeks control
through position and money, and another wants to control
their physical space.
 Control gets a client into trouble in two primary ways:
when he or she tries to control other people, and when he
or she uses drugs and alcohol to give him or her a false
sense of control.
 At the very heart of choice theory is the core belief that the
only person the client can really control is him or herself. If
the client thinks he or she can control others, then he or
she is moving in the direction of frustration.
 If the client thinks others can control him or her and follows
up by blaming them for all that goes on in his or her life, then
he or she tends to do nothing and heads for frustration.
 There may be events that happen to the client which is out of
his or her control, but ultimately, it is up to the client to
choose how to respond to these events.
 Trying to control other people is a vain naive hope, from the
point of view of reality therapy.
 It is a never-ending battle which alienates the client from
others and causes endless pain and frustration.
 This is why it is vital for the client to stick to what is in his or
her own control and to respect the rights of other people to
meet their needs. The client can, of course, get an instant
sense of control from alcohol and some other drugs.
 This method of control, however, is false, and skews the true
level of control the client has over him or herself. This creates
an inconsistent level of control which creates even more
dissonance and frustration.
 While traditional psycho-analysis and counseling often
focus on past events, reality therapy and choice theory
solutions lay in the present and the future. Practitioners
of reality therapy may visit the past but never dwell on it.
 A client's 'Quality World' is examined as to what this
person wants in his life and is it realistic. Supposedly
each person from birth has taken pictures or stored
mental images that he wants in his Quality World.
 Also, each person strives to attain these things that have
given pleasure in the past. Everyone's quality world is
different, so naturally when people enter into a
relationship their quality world most likely will not
match up with their new partner.
 Reality therapy looks different from the most common forms
of therapy today.
Modern therapy largely embraces the practice of
unconditional positive regard, meaning that the therapist is
expected to accept the client as he or she is and show them
respect and understanding at all times, no matter what they
have done.
 Reality therapy shuns the idea of unconditional positive
regard, although therapists are still expected to provide a safe
and respectful environment for the client (Lane, n.d.).
Instead, the therapist acts as a kind of “reality guide” for the
client, pointing the client toward the behavior that is not
helping them achieve their goals and identifying the kinds of
choices that are available to them.
 The therapist’s role in reality therapy is to help clients focus
on what they can do, and steer them away from focusing on
their past instead of the present or their symptoms instead
of the cause (William Glasser Institute, 2010).
A client in reality therapy will likely be encouraged to do the
following:
 1. Focus on the present, not the past
 2. Avoid discussing symptoms
 3. Focus their energy on changing their thoughts and
behavior
 4. Avoid criticizing, blaming, and/or comparing themselves
to others
 5. Avoid relying on excuses for their behavior, whether they
are legitimate or not
 6. Make specific plans and smart goals (William Glasser
Institute, 2010).
 Reality therapy is considered an effective therapeutic
strategy for addressing many issues, but it can be especially
valuable in treating difficulties faced by children and young
adults at school and in their communities.
 Research has shown improvements in overall classroom
functioning, cooperation, and a decrease in challenging
behaviors when teachers and school counselors are
adequately trained in reality therapy. Studies have also
indicated that reality therapy is useful when applied to
certain issues with behavioral components, including teen
pregnancy. Reality therapy works from the perspective that
people must assume responsibility for their behavior if they
wish to change it.
 Reality therapy has also been effective in the broader
community, such as when integrated into athletic
coaching and in work with juvenile offenders, to
facilitate behavioral change. This form of therapy can
help bridge the gap between intolerance and
ignorance through education and equality, often
resulting in a more unified group.
 Clients may be encouraged to make “SAMIC3” plans,
plans that are:
 S – Simple
 A – Attainable
 M – Measurable
 I – Immediate
 C – Consistent
 C – Client-centered
 C – Committed to (Wubbolding, 1991)
 Reality therapy (RT) is an approach
to psychotherapy and counseling.
 Developed by William Glasser in the 1960s, RT differs from
conventional psychiatry, psychoanalysis and medical model
schools of psychotherapy in that it focuses on what Glasser
calls psychiatry's three Rs: realism, responsibility, and right-
and-wrong, rather than symptoms of mental disorders.
 Reality therapy maintains that the individual is suffering
from a socially universal human condition rather than a
mental illness.
 It is in the unsuccessful attainment of basic needs that a
person's behavior moves away from the norm. Since fulfilling
essential needs is part of a person's present life, reality
therapy does not concern itself with a client's past. Neither
does this type of therapy deal with unconscious mental
processes.[2]
 The reality therapy approach to counseling and
problem-solving focuses on the here-and-now actions
of the client and the ability to create and choose a
better future. Typically, clients seek to discover what
they really want and how they are currently choosing
to behave in order to achieve these goals. According to
Glasser, the social component of psychological
disorders has been highly overlooked in the rush to
label the population as sick or mentally ill. If a social
problem causes distress to a person, it is not always
because of a labelled sickness, it may sometimes just
be the inability of the satisfaction of one’s
psychological needs. Reality therapy attempts to
separate the client from the behavior.
 History
 Reality therapy was developed at the Veterans
Administration hospital in Los Angeles in the early 1960s
by William Glasser and his mentor and teacher,
psychiatrist G. L. Harrington. In 1965, Glasser published
the book Reality Therapy in the United States. The term
refers to a process that is people-friendly and people-
centered and has nothing to do with giving people a dose of
reality (as a threat or punishment), but rather helps people
to recognize how fantasy can distract them from their
choices they control in life. Glasser posits that the past is
not something to be dwelled upon but rather to be resolved
and moved past in order to live a more fulfilling and
rewarding olife.
 By the 1970s, the concepts were extended into what Glasser
then called "control theory", a term used in the title of
several of his books. By the mid-1990s, the still evolving
concepts were described as "choice theory", a term
conceived and proposed by the Irish reality therapy
practitioner Christine O'Brien Shanahan at the 1995 IRTI
Conference in Waterford, Ireland and subsequently
adopted by Glasser. The practice of reality therapy remains
a cornerstone of the larger body of his work. Choice theory
asserts that each of us is a self-determining being who can
choose (many of our) future behaviors and hold ourselves
consciously responsible for how we are acting, thinking,
feeling, and also for our physiological states. Choice theory
attempts to explain, or give an account f, how each of us
attempts to control our world and those within that world.
 According to Glasser, human beings have four basic
psychological needs after survival:[6] the most
important need being to love and be loved by another
person or group for a feeling of belonging; the need for
power, through learning, achieving, feeling
worthwhile, winning and through being competent;
the need for freedom, including independence and
autonomy while simultaneously exercising personal
responsibility; the need for fun, pleasure seeking
enjoyment and relaxation is also a very important need
for good psychological health.
 One of the core principles of reality therapy is that,
whether people are aware of it or not, they are always trying
to meet these essential human needs. These needs must all
be balanced and met for a person to function most
effectively. However, people don't necessarily act effectively
at achieving these goals. Socializing with others is one
effective way of meeting the need to belong. But how a
person chooses to interact with and gain attention and love
from others is most often at the root of their psychological
dismay. Reality therapy stresses one major point—people
are in control of what they are currently doing in their lives
whether or not it is working in their favor toward meeting
their basic psychological needs for power, belonging, fun
and freedom. And it is through an individual's choices that
he or she makes change happen for the better or worse.[6]
 In our current society, the survival need is normally being met—
it is then in how people meet the remaining four psychological
needs that they typically run into trouble. Reality therapy holds
that the key to behavior is to remain aware of what an individual
presently wants and make choices that will ensure that goal.
Reality therapy maintains that what really drives human beings
is their need to belong and to be loved. What also drives humans
is their yearnings to be free, and with that freedom comes great
responsibility (one cannot exist without the other). Reality
therapy is very much a therapy of decision (or choice) and
change, based upon the conviction that, even though human
persons often have let themselves become products of their
past's powerful influences, they need not be held forever hostage
by those earlier influences.
 Reality therapy seeks to treat patients who face
difficulty in working out a relationship with others. So,
the formation of a connection of the patient with the
therapist is regarded as an important milestone at the
start of the therapy. According to the therapists,
bonding of the patients with their therapists is the
most crucial dynamic that would facilitate the healing
process. As soon as this bonding is stable, it can help
to form a fulfilling connection outside the therapeutic
environment.
 Patients receiving this kind of therapeutic treatment will
learn various ways to strengthen relationships in the
most suitable manner possible and that too in the
absence of their therapists' safe relationship. Moreover,
they will be able to use their newfound skills in their
personal lives.
 Reality therapists say that when patients are able to use
the skills, behaviors, actions, and methods learned
through the therapy in their personal lives, then they will
be able to successfully work out external relationships as
well. This will provide them with the satisfaction of
leading a more fulfilling life.[7]
 Action
 Glasser believes that there are five basic needs of all human
beings: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom or
independence, and fun. Reality therapy maintains that the
biggest reason a person is in pain and acting out is because
he/she lacks that one important 'other being' to connect
with. Glasser believes the need for love and belonging is
the primary need because we need other people in order to
satisfy all the other needs.[3] Therefore, in a cooperative
therapeutic relationship, the therapist must create an
environment where it is possible for the client to feel
connected to another 'responsible' person (the therapist)
that they actually like and would actually choose as a friend
in their real life.
 Reality therapy maintains that the core problem of
psychological distress is that one or more of the
client's essential needs are not being met thereby
causing the client to act irresponsibly. The therapist
then addresses this issue and asserts that the client
assume responsibility for their behavior. Reality
therapy holds that we learn responsibility through
involvement with other responsible people. We can
learn and re-learn responsibility at any time in life".
 The therapist then focuses on realistic goals in order to
remedy the real life issues that are causing discomfort.
 William Glasser's choice theory is composed of four
aspects; thinking, acting, feeling, and physiology. We can
directly choose our thoughts and our actions; we have great
difficulty in directly choosing our feelings and our
physiology (sweaty palms, headaches, nervous tics, racing
pulse, etc.).[6]
 Emotions (feelings) are the client's self-evaluation is a
critical and crucial first step. A self-realization that
something must change, realization and acceptance that
change is, in fact, possible, leads to a plan for making
better choices—plans that are at the heart of successful
reality therapy. The therapist helps the client create a
workable plan to reach a goal. It must be the client's plan,
not the counselor's. The essence of a workable plan is that
the client can implement it—it is based on factor under the
client's control. Reality therapy strives to empower people
by emphasizing the power of doing what is under their
control. Doing is at the heart of reality therapy.
 Behavior
 Behavior, in the real world is an immediate and alive source
of information about how we are doing and whether we are
happy with what is going on in our lives. However, it is very
hard to choose and to change our emotions directly. It is
easier to change our thinking—to decide, for example, that
we will no longer think of ourselves as victims or to decide
that in our thoughts we will concentrate on what we can do
rather than what we think everybody else ought to do.
Reality therapists approach changing "what we do" as a key
to changing how we feel and how we will work to obtain
what we want. These ideas are similar to those in other
therapy movements such as Re-evaluation Counseling
and person-centered psychotherapy , although the former
emphasizes emotional release as a method of clearing
emotional hurt.
 Control
 Control is a key issue in reality therapy. Human beings need control to
meet their needs: one person seeks control through position and money,
and another wants to control their physical space.Control gets a client into
trouble in two primary ways: when he or she tries to control other people,
and when he or she uses drugs and alcohol to give him or her a false sense
of control. At the very heart of choice theory is the core belief that the only
person the client can really control is him or herself. If the client thinks he
or she can control others, then he or she is moving in the direction of
frustration. If the client thinks others can control him or her and follows up
by blaming them for all that goes on in his or her life, then he or she tends
to do nothing and heads for frustration. There may be events that happen
to the client which is out of his or her control, but ultimately, it is up to the
client to choose how to respond to these events. Trying to control other
people is a vain naive hope, from the point of view of reality therapy. It is a
never-ending battle which alienates the client from others and causes
endless pain and frustration. This is why it is vital for the client to stick to
what is in his or her own control and to respect the rights of other people to
meet their needs. The client can, of course, get an instant sense of control
from alcohol and some other drugs. This method of control, however, is
false, and skews the true level of control the client has over him or herself.
This creates an inconsistent level of control which creates even more
dissonance and frustration.
 Focus on the present
 While traditional psycho-analysis and counseling often
focus on past events, reality therapy and choice theory
solutions lay in the present and the future. Practitioners
of reality therapy may visit the past but never dwell on it.
In reality therapy, the past is seen as the source of the
client's wants and his or her ways of behaving, not as a
cause. A client's 'Quality World' is examined as to what
this person wants in his life and is it realistic. Supposedly
each person from birth has taken pictures or stored
mental images that he wants in his Quality World. Also,
each person strives to attain these things that have given
pleasure in the past. Everyone's quality world is different,
so naturally when people enter into a relationship their
quality world most likely will not match up with their
new partner.[2]
 Involvement
 Establishing a relationship with the client is believed to be
the most important factor in all types of therapy. Without
this relationship, the other steps will not be effective. This
is also known as developing a good rapport with the client.
In extreme cases, the therapist may be the only person in
the client's life who is willing to put up with the client's
behavior long enough to establish a relationship, which can
require a great deal of patience from the therapist. In other
cases, the client is a part of many relationships, but just
needs a relationship with a more consistently positive
emphasis. According to Glasser, the client needs to feel that
the therapist is someone that he would want in his "Quality
World".[5]
 The therapist must emphasize the here and now with
the client, focusing on the current behaviors and
attitudes. The therapist asks the client to make a value
judgment about his or her current behavior (which
presumably is not beneficial, otherwise the client may
not have negative consequences from behavior
motivating enough to seek therapy). In many cases the
therapist must press the client to examine the effects
of his or her behavior, but it is important that the
judgment be made by the client and not the therapist.
According to Glasser, it is important for the client to
feel that he is in control of his own life.
 Plan some behavior that is likely to work better. The client is
likely to need some suggestions and prompting from the
therapist, but it helps if the plan itself comes from the client. It is
important that the initial steps be small enough that the client is
almost certain to succeed, in order to build confidence. In many
cases, the client's problem is the result of a bad relationship with
someone, and since the client cannot change anyone else's
behavior, the therapist will focus on things the client can do
unilaterally. The client may be concerned that the other person
will take advantage of this and not reciprocate, but in most cases
a change in behavior will ease the tension enough that the other
person also backs off. If this does not happen, the therapist will
also encourage the client to build more positive relationships
with other people. The relationship with the therapist sustains
the client long enough for them to establish these other
relationships.[8]
 The participant must make a commitment to carry out
the plan. This is important because many clients will
do things for the therapist that they would not do just
for themselves. In some cases it can be helpful to make
the commitment in writing
Five Universal Needs
1. Survival (food, water, shelter, sexual fulfillment)
2. Power and achievement – ( sense of
accomplishment, self confidence, self-esteem)
3. Freedom – (independence, sufficient personal space,
autonomy)
4. Love & Belonging- ( via family, friendships,
community, etc.)
5. Fun – ( satisfaction, pleasure, and enjoyment)
Health is a reflection of our ability to effective meet
those needs through appropriate strategies

- Reality therapy is intended to help clients identify

their unmet needs and guide them through making
plans and setting goals to fulfill these unmet needs.
- It aims to anchor clients in the reality of their world
and help them navigate that world through making
responsible decisions that bring them closer to their
goals ( Arnold,n,d).
Reality therapy was developed in 1965 by psychiatrist
William Glasser (Good Therapy,2015a). Dr. Glasser found
that many of his clients and people around him seemed
profoundly unhappy, despite having their basic needs
met. He theorized that there were more human needs
than were currently recognized by the psychological
community.
 In particular, Dr. Glasser noticed that many of the
unhappy people struggled with forming and maintaining
close relationships with others (Good Therapy, 2015b).
He concluded that this was an important human need
that had been overlooked in the field of therapy.
 In addition to meaningful relationships, Glasser
identified the other needs (listed above) that reality
therapy recognizes as essential for human survival and
flourishing.
 This may seem fairly straightforward so far, which
might make you wonder why you aren’t more familiar
with this type of therapy.
 The reason reality therapy is not more common lies in
the theory that it was built on: choice theory.
 Choice theory, also developed by Dr. Glasser, holds
that all human behavior is driven by the pursuit of
fulfilling the five basic needs. According to this theory,
all human behavior is the result of choices, and that
these choices are the sole responsibility of the chooser.
 In this theory, the emphasis is placed on the
individual. An underlying assumption of the theory is
that we cannot change other people and that the only
thing we can control is ourselves.
 Again, you may be thinking that this sounds obvious –
of course, we can’t change other people!
 The controversy surrounding choice theory and reality
therapy comes not from the idea that we can’t control
other people; rather, it comes from the idea that we are
in total control of our selves.
 Choice theory is based on the idea that our lives are
the product of the choices we make and nothing more.
While no one (in the mainstream) denies that our
choices impact our lives, most of the prevailing
theories place great importance on other factors as
well, such as upbringing, social environment, culture,
and biology.
 Where most mainstream psychologists refer to addiction as a
disease and believe that genetics play a significant role in
mental illness, choice theory denies the idea that our
problems are based on anything other than our choices.
 This controversy over choice theory and its resulting
application in reality therapy is likely the reason why reality
therapy is not a more common form of treatment today.
However, that’s not to say that it is without its merits.
 Much of our outcomes are based on our choices, and while
you may believe that there are other important factors
influencing our choices and the outcomes, you will likely
agree that the effort to make better choices is a worthwhile
one.
 In this vein, let’s dive a little deeper into reality therapy.
 Reality Therapy Process and
Characteristics
 Reality therapy looks different from the most common forms
of therapy today.
 Modern therapy largely embraces the practice of unconditional
positive regard, meaning that the therapist is expected to
accept the client as he or she is and show them respect and
understanding at all times, no matter what they have done.
 Reality therapy shuns the idea of unconditional positive
regard, although therapists are still expected to provide a safe
and respectful environment for the client (Lane, n.d.). Instead,
the therapist acts as a kind of “reality guide” for the client,
pointing the client toward the behavior that is not helping
them achieve their goals and identifying the kinds of choices
that are available to them.

 The therapist’s role in reality therapy is to help clients focus
on what they can do, and steer them away from focusing on
their past instead of the present or their symptoms instead
of the cause (William Glasser Institute, 2010).
 A client in reality therapy will likely be encouraged to do
the following:
 Focus on the present, not the past
 Avoid discussing symptoms
 Focus their energy on changing their thoughts and
behavior
 Avoid criticizing, blaming, and/or comparing themselves to
others
 Avoid relying on excuses for their behavior, whether they
are legitimate or not
 Make specific plans and smart goals (William Glasser
Institute, 2010).
 Clients may be encouraged to make “SAMIC3” plans,
plans that are:
 S – Simple
 A – Attainable
 M – Measurable
 I – Immediate
 C – Consistent
 C – Client-centered
 C – Committed to (Wubbolding, 1991)
 Once clients have made plans and set goals with the
guidance of the therapist, the therapist will help the
client recognize the behavior that is irresponsible or
unlikely to help them meet their goals and encourage
the clients to engage in behavior that will move them
closer to achieving their goals (Lane, n.d.).
 With such an emphasis placed on the therapist
pointing out problematic behavior, it is extremely vital
for the success of this therapy that the therapist and
client have a positive and trusting relationship.
 Quality World
 The collection of people, activities and other elements
we would like to ideally involve in meeting our to
universal needs.
 Jot down who and what you want in your quality world
The sum of our strategies to meet our needs and realie
our quality world
Involves our choices in four areas
-Actions
-Thoughts
- Feeling
- Physiology
Client concerns: unhealthy, unsuccessful use of total
behavior to achieve our quality world
 Lack of satisfying relationships is key
Client change requires better use of total behavior
 Responsibility & choices – moving toward quality
world
 Wants
 understand quality world, prioritize needs
 Doing
 Understand total behavior
 Evaluation
 Consider results of total behavior- gentle
 Plan
 What will client do differently
Plans in WDEP need to be
1. Simple
2. Attainable
3. Measurable
4. Immediate
5. Consistent
6. Controlled by client
7. Committed to
 Relationship is important
 Coach/Teacher role
 Accept client as is (trust)
 Supportive/encouraging ( hope)
 Focus on present, near future
 Kindly(but relentlessly) persistent with WDEP
 Enthusiastic
 Focus on sphere of control
How Summarize in one sentence?
Explain / direct action

How to apply Opey

What’s causing his concerns
What does he need in order to change?