chapter 11

Chapter Overview

• Focuses on Choice Theory and Reality Therapy.

Key Figures

• William Glasser (1925 – 2013)

  • Developed Reality Therapy in the 1960s.

• Robert E. Wubbolding (1936)

  • Creator of the WDEP System which stands for:

    • Wants

    • Direction & Doing

    • Evaluation of Self

    • Planning

Basic Human Needs

• All behavior is motivated to meet basic genetically encoded needs such as:

  1. Survival

  2. Love and Belonging

     • Primary need, according to Glasser.

  3. Power

  4. Freedom

  5. Fun

Our Quality World

• Defined as the visions of specific people, activities, and situations that fulfill our needs.

• Functions like a picture album of wants and ways to satisfy them.

• Engaging with the client's quality world is a key aspect of therapy.

Total Behavior

• Represents our efforts to satisfy needs and acts as a form of communication.

• Consists of four components:

  1. Doing/Acting – Represents active behaviors.

  2. Thinking – Encompasses thoughts and self-statements.

  3. Feelings – Includes emotions such as anger, joy, pain, and anxiety.

  4. Physiology – Covers bodily reactions.

Characteristics of Reality Therapy

• Emphasizes:

  • The importance of meaningful relationships in mental health.

  • Choice and Responsibility.

  • Rejection of Transference.

  • A present-focus in therapy.

  • Avoids solely focusing on symptoms.

  • Questions traditional views of mental illness.

The Therapeutic Process

• Main goal: Help clients meet their need for love and belonging.

• Importance of connection with clients.

• A trusting therapeutic relationship is essential but not the only factor for change.

Key Therapeutic Questions

• How would you most like to change your life?

• What do you want in your life that you are not getting?

• What would you have in your life if you were to change?

• What do you have now to facilitate changes?

• Is your current behavior bringing you closer to your desired relationships?

Cycle of Counseling

• Comprises two major components:

  1. Creating the Counseling Environment

     • Must be supportive, challenging, and noncoercive.

  2. Implementing Specific Procedures

     • Use of the WDEP system to facilitate behavioral change.

WDEP System

• Wants: Identify what you want to be and do.

• Doing and Direction: Recognize current actions and desired goals.

• Evaluation: Assess if current behaviors can help achieve your wants.

• Planning: Develop a plan based on identified wants, actions, and evaluations (utilizing SAMIC3).

Planning for Change - SAMIC

• Simple

• Attainable

• Measurable

• Immediate and involved

• Controlled by the planner, committed, and consistently acted upon.

Group Counseling

• Group dynamics involve leaders and members co-creating goals and actionable plans.

• Members learn to explore new behaviors that bring them closer to their desires.

• Leaders encourage members to self-evaluate the effectiveness of their current behaviors.

Limitations of Reality Therapy

• Perceived issues:

  • Insufficient attention to insights, unconscious processes, dreams, and transference.

  • Clinicians may struggle with categorizing psychological disorders as behavioral choices.

  • A need for more empirical support for Reality Therapy.

  • Potential for therapists to impose their personal beliefs about responsible behavior.

  • Misconception of Reality Therapy as simple, though it requires substantial training.

Contributions of Reality Therapy

• Focus on relatively short-term interventions for conscious behavioral problems.

• Strong emphasis on the existential aspects of choice theory, promoting responsibility.

• Enhances self-direction and empowerment in clients.

• Effective with clients displaying resistance or reluctance toward therapy.