Introduction

This paper is an exploration of William Glassers Choice Theory. Firstly I will briefly look at definitions of counselling and how counselling has evolved. I will then look at his background, the philosophy and theory behind his therapy and how it is applied. Finally I will discuss what I feel are some of its strengths and weaknesses before finishing with my conclusion.

Definitions of Counselling.

There are many definitions of counselling, but most share the same idea: it is when one person helps another. To me counselling represents one word more than any other: CHANGE. One person is unhappy with some area of their life and wants it to change while the other person helps to facilitate that change. Just as there are many definitions of counselling there are many types of counselling with different philosophies. In fact “Karasu (1986) reported having come across more than 400 distinct models of counselling and psychotherapy “(McLeod, 2008, p.10).
There is evidence of unhappy people in every society in history and the treatments were as varied in the past as they are today. As far back as the fourteenth century asylums were used to house the mentally ill, which also included people with speech disorders, epilepsy and depression. Up until the 19th century these places were more interested in removing them from the general public and locking them up than helping or curing them. Thankfully we have come a long way from this to a more accepting way of dealing with people who are unhappy. From Freud to Rogers and everything in between, it is now the unhappy person that has the choice of what therapy best suits their needs.

Background of Glasser

William Glasser was born 1925 and raised in Cleveland Ohio. Little has been written about his childhood and maybe this is a reflection of the importance he puts on childhood experiences but he does mention his parents a few times in his book “Choice Theory – a new psychology of personal freedom”. He speaks of his father very lovingly and respectfully especially when he says “no son ever had a better father, and I owe much of what has been a good life to how he chose to relate to me “. (Glasser, 1999, p.191). Of his mother, the picture is not as complementary: “my mother was unpredictable. I never felt free really to trust her” (Glasser, 1999, p.192). Glasser himself qualified as a chemical engineer but went on to medical school in Cleveland and did his psychiatric training in Los Angeles. He went onto private practice from 1957 to 1986, he wrote his first book Reality Therapy in 1965 and in 1967 he founded the Institute for Reality Therapy. From this he developed what was to become Choice Theory and when his book with the same name was released in 1998 it cause much controversy as it seemed he was breaking ranks with his psychiatric background.

Philosophy and theoretical framework.

Glassers felt that the psychology of the time used within counselling and psychiatry was not reaching its goals of reducing misery. He provides us with a progress graph citing huge technological advances versus very little advances in human relationships. Reality Therapy/Choice Theory are Glassers answer to moving towards a happier life. In fact he puts forward the belief that the main reason there are so many unhappy people in the world is because we have unhappy relationships. He says that “all unhappy people have the same problem: they are unable to get along with the people they want to get along with” (Glasser, 1999, p.5). He claims that it is the close relationships we have in life that is the cause of so much misery and if we don’t improve them then “we will have little success in reducing” violence, crime, child abuse, addiction (Glasser, 1999, p.ix).
He introduces what he says is the reason people cant get along with people and it is called External Control Psychology: “it destroys our happiness, our health, our marriages, our families, our ability to get an education, our willingness to do higher quality work” (Glasser 1999, p.7). This External Control Psychology is the belief that we can control other people and we can be controlled by others. It relates to notion of “knowing what’s best” for someone else and how damaging this is for relationships. He goes further and says that “no human being should ever evaluate another human being” (Glasser, 1999, p.302).
He introduces the 5 basic needs which are survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun and how we have all created a picture in our heads, a Quality World where all these needs are satisfied and finally, the idea of total behaviour. This total behaviour is seen as having four components, acting, thinking, feeling and physiology and when we are not in effective control over our lives and relationships then it is our behaviour that causes us pain. When there is a huge difference between our Quality world and our real world then our behaviour is used to bridge that gap. “We create an inner world that satisfies our needs…this inner world does not reflect the way the real world exists but…the way we perceive it to exist. Behaviour is our attempt to control our external world to fit this internal needs satisfying world” (Corey, 1991, p.371).

Application

To apply Choice Theory, Glasser encourages people to take back their power and accept the idea that we are much more in control of our own lives than we realise. To counteract the destructible external control he provides us with Internal Control Psychology which is simply the only person we can ever control is ourselves. He says that if you are blaming someone else for how you are feeling then you are stuck in an external control world and although you may not realise it, you are choosing your reactions, your thoughts, your feelings and your physiology. This includes choosing to depress, to abuse alcohol or drugs, to phobic, to obsess. The underlying premise of Choice theory is self responsibility and Glasser put forward three questions to ask yourself: What do I want? What am I doing to get what I want? Is it working?
He puts it another way by asking “will what I am about to do bring me closer to these people or move us further apart” (Glasser, 1999, p.7)
He encourages us to stop blaming and criticizing which he describes as deadly habits and instead support, encourage and negotiate, part of his 7 caring habits. “If everyone” he says “could learn that what is right for me does not make it right for anyone else, the world would be a much happier place” (Glasser, 1999, p.53).
The idea then, is once you have accepted that the only person you can control is yourself, you accept that you have chosen your behaviour and you have answered the above three questions, then it is time to make a plan of action. This will almost always involve an “evaluation of their behaviour and if it does not meet their needs, they acquire more effective behaviour” (Corey, 1991, p.371). This then eventually will lead the client to a happier life, with more effective relationships and a working knowledge of how to use choice theory in the future.

Strengths and weaknesses:

One of the strengths I think is that choice theory offers something new in counselling. Discarding victimology, it’s an empowering, positive and active response to an ineffective life. Naomi Glasser states “we need not be victims of our past or our present unless we chose to be so”. (Glasser, N. 1989, p.3).
It takes away blaming others for our unhappy situation which is a process that for a long time enabled people to get stuck in their misery. One of its strengths has to be that at the heart of Reality Therapy is self responsibility and this opens up a world of choice for a client who, up to now has thought bad things keep “happening” to them: “no matter what the client is complaining of, if he wants to make the effort, he can choose to steer his life in a better direction than he is steering it now” (Glasser, N. 1989, p.10).
Another strength lies in his ideas relating to mental illness. This could be a way to improve life for so many people who have been diagnosed with an “illness”: “mental illness is the way in which huge numbers of people choose to deal with the pain of their loneliness or disconnection” (Glasser, 2001, p. 2).

How Choice Theory differs from traditional therapies could be seen as a weakness. Some people believe in the importance of previous relationships, childhood experiences, past trauma, getting closure, the idea of transference and how we have to deal with the past before we think about the future. Choice Theory focuses more importance on the present and this can be seen as too radical.
Also the idea that people choose their own behaviours and therefore can control their situation can be too confronting for a lot of people who have chosen misery for so long. I think a lot of people would prefer a therapy that confirms that life has been particularly though on them and they can do very little about it.

Conclusion

I believe that Glassers graph regarding progress of technology verses human progress is one of his most important pieces of research. It could be the advance in technology has contributed greatly to our misery. With technology now offering more ways to have less face to face communication, it looks like we are being given even more opportunities to become disconnected from each other. Facebook, twitter, texts, online shopping are all new ways we can avoid each other. You have to ask yourself “Can society really handle more disconnected people?” Is Choice Theory the answer?

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Bibliography

➢ Corey, Gerald. Theory and Practice of Counselling and Psychotherapy. Brooks/Cole Publishers. 1991. ➢ Glasser, Naomi. Control Theory in the practice of Reality Therapy. Harper and Row Publishers. 1989. ➢ Glasser, William. Counselling with Choice Theory: The New Reality Therapy. HarperCollins Publishers. 2000 ➢ McLeod, John. An Introduction to Counselling. Open University Press. 2008. ➢ Glasser, William. Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom. HarperCollins Publishers. 1999.