Reality Therapy based on Choice Theory (RT/CT) was proposed by Dr. William Glasser MD. He was an American psychiatrist. He viewed almost all human behaviour as chosen, including those "phenomena" that are called "mental disorders". He emphasized human responsibility and personal transformation and focused on the state of "Mental Health" rather than "Mental Disorders".
Glasser was against psychiatrists' mainstream, which is prescribing psychotropic medications, he believed that psychotropic medications are overprescribed and can be harmful, except in some cases.
He developed a new counselling method and called it "Reality Therapy".
It is a comprehensive theory, presented to be applied to most aspects of life, such as mental health, education, leadership, relationships, workplace environment, addiction recovery, parenting and management.
Human Basic Needs:
According to Choice Theory, humans have five basic needs that are genetically determined, which are as follows:
1- Survival, such as the need for eating, sleeping, keeping warm, sex, shelter, etc.
2- Love and Belonging: indicates all forms of love and desire to belong to others.
3- Power and Control.
4- Freedom and,
5- Fun and Joy
He differentiated between "External Control Psychology" and "Internal Control Psychology".
According to Glasser, External Control Psychology is the belief that our experiences and behaviour are due to or determined by other people, luck, circumstances or surroundings. While Internal Control Psychology is the belief in our responsibility for our lives and behaviours.
Seven Caring Habits (in relationships) :
Supporting
Encouraging
Listening
Accepting
Trusting
Respecting
Negotiating differences
The seven deadly habits are:
Criticizing
Blaming
Complaining
Nagging
Threatening
Punishing
Bribing or rewarding to control
Relationships will always be present in our lives. But we control the way that we act and think in those relationships. Through our actions, which are entirely up to us, we can strengthen our relationships and create a world that is closer to our Quality World. The seven caring habits dictate how we can begin to strengthen our relationships. By engaging in these habits, and eliminating his seven deadly habits, we can vastly improve our lives and relationships.
Ten Axioms of Choice Theory:
1- The only person whose behaviour you can control is our own.
2- All we can give or get from other people is information.
3- All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship problems.
4- The problem relationship is always part of our present lives.
5- What happened in the painful past has a great deal to do with what we are today, but revisiting this painful past can contribute little or nothing to what we need to do now: improve an important, present relationship.
6- We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun.
7- We can satisfy these needs only by satisfying a picture or pictures in our Quality Worlds.
8- All we can do from birth to death is behave. All behaviour is Total Behavior and is made up of four inseparable components: acting, thinking, feeling and physiology.
9- All Total Behavior is designated by verbs, usually infinitives and gerunds, and named by the most recognizable component.
10- All Total Behavior is chosen, but we have direct control over only the acting and thinking components.
Perceived World:
Through our perceptual system. Information about the real world comes to us first through our sensory system: our eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin. Next, these sensations pass through our perceptual system, beginning with what Glasser calls our total knowledge filter, which represents everything we know or have experienced.
Then, when the information passes through our knowledge filter, one of the following happens:
1- We decide it is not meaningful.
2- We do not immediately recognize it, but think that it may be meaningful to us and then decide to expand our information.
3- We decided it is meaningful and then we pass through the valuing filter.
Quality World:
It exists in your memory. It is personal. It contains all ideas, people you most want in your life, things you most want to own, places that are meaningful to you or you want to visit, and ideals that govern your behaviour. All that serves to satisfy your basic needs.
Some liken Glasser's concept of Quality World to Carl Gustav Jung's concept of Collective Unconscious.
Total Behaviour:
Glasser suggested that behaviour consists of four components:
1- Acting
2- Thinking
3- Feeling and
4- Physiology
Each component is affected and affected by the other.
Neuropsychology and human's five basic needs:
Recent research in Neuropsychology has demonstrated the relationship between the brain system's structure and function and the behaviours and psychological processes, which supports the five basic needs as explained by Glasser.
Basic needs are strongly supported by systems of the brain stress hormones, which play an essential role in fight or flight response. As well as the brain Reward System, which consists of the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA) which is the main source of Dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for pleasure, and its pathways.
There are other brain structures importantly involved in basic needs such as the Limbic System.
Again, all of our needs are genetically determined.
According to Glasser (1998), “fun is the genetic reward for learning”
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References:
Glasser Institute for a Choice Theory: Little Book of Choice Theory
International Journal of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy. Fall 2014
Studying Together, a Control Theory Guide to a Lasting Marriage, William Glasser, MD
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