Choice Theory William Glasser Pdf Download
This article delivers an overview of William Glasser's concepts of choice theory and reality therapy. Glasser's ideas are compared to those of Alfred Adler's Individual Psychology. Similarities are discussed, including the belief in social interest and belonging, the view of mental health, the purpose of behavior, the belief in behavior as a choice, and the therapeutic procedures that lead to change. The authors conclude that these approaches have dissimilarities, yet embrace similar skills that in practice are justified by their respective theories.
choice theory william glasser pdf download
I also show how and why we make these painful, even crazy, choices and how we can make better ones. Choice theory teaches that we are much more in control of our lives than we realize. Unfortunately, much of that control is not effective. For example, you choose to feel upset with your child, then you choose to yell and threaten, and things get worse, not better. Taking more effective control means making better choices as you relate to your children and everyone else. You can learn through choice theory how people actually function: how we combine what is written in our genes with what we learn as we live our lives.
The best way to learn choice theory is to focus on why we choose the common miseries that we believe just happen to us. When we are depressed, we believe that we have no control over our suffering, that we are victims of an imbalance in our neurochemistry and hence that we need brain drugs, such as Prozac, to get our chemistry back into balance. Little of this belief is true. We have a lot of control over our suffering. We are rarely the victims of what happened to us in the past, and, as will be explained in chapter 4, our brain chemistry is normal for what we are choosing to do. Brain drugs may make us feel better, but they do not solve the problems that led us to choose to feel miserable.
This book is all about this human toll and how it can be reduced by both learning why external control is so harmful and how a new, pro-relationship theory can replace it. Choice theory is an internal control psychology; it explains why and how we make the choices that determine the course of our lives. Choice theory is a complete change from what has been common sense to what I hope will become, in time, a new common sense. This change is not easy. It can happen only through learning what is wrong with external control psychology and the overwhelming reasons to replace it with choice theory as we deal with the people in our lives. As we attempt to do this, we will continually ask ourselves: Will what I am about to do bring me closer to these people or move us further apart? How we use this basic question and what would be possible if we did are the heart and soul of this book.
In almost all attempts to improve human progress, for example, to improve marriages, families, schools, or work, there has been no operational change in theory. External control is so firmly in the saddle that even when we make a little progress, we are blind to the fact that we have given up external control psychology and are starting to use what is, in essence, choice theory. What I am addressing is our need to become aware that there is another psychology.
Although more students in poverty areas refuse to make the effort to learn than do students in affluent areas, this failure is related much more to how teachers and students get along with each other than to the fortunes of those who attend. Students from prosperous families, in which education is the main reason for the prosperity, are usually more motivated to learn than are students from families who have not been helped by education. Teachers appreciate this motivation and tend to make a greater effort to get along with the former students, which is another reason they learn more. But if teachers were offered choice theory and found how useful it was in their marriages and families, they could also begin to use it to get along better with students who seem to be unmotivated. This effort could go a long way to make up for the lack of support for education at home, and the previously unmotivated students would learn a lot more than they do now.
So far only a tiny fraction of the money spent to reduce misery has been spent on prevention, on teaching people how to get along better with each other before they get into the hard-core, adversarial relationships that are the result of too many attempts to control or manipulate. If we want to move the flat line of human progress up, prevention, which means changing from an external control to a choice theory system, is a way we can do so. Once any human problem occurs, for example, when marriages begin to fail, the couples rarely get back together. No matter how skilled the counselor, it is often impossible to save a marriage or a failing student. The answer lies in preventing these failures, not in looking for better ways to fix the people who are failing.
One of the most puzzling exceptions to this widespread use of external control psychology is that we rarely use it with our best friends, people who have been with us through thick and thin for many years. With them, even though few of us are aware of it, we use choice theory. But whether or not we know the theory, most of us are well aware that we often treat our good friends differently from our mates, children, students, and employees.
If the criminal had been a dedicated practitioner of external control psychology, my friend might not have lived to tell the story. A gun in the hands of a man who will use it is about as strong an external control as there is. At a crucial moment, just after my friend made the choice not to give the criminal the wallet, the criminal switched to choice theory and chose not to shoot him. Choices, even what may seem to be unusual choices, are what this book is all about. If even a dedicated criminal can give up external control when it seems better to do so, it should not be that hard for most of us.
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.
Based on universal principles, reality therapy is practiced and taught in many cultures and countries. The underlying theoretical basis, choice theory, states that all human beings are motivated by five current genetic instructions: survival or self-preservation, belonging, power or achievement, freedom or independence, fun or enjoyment. The effective reality therapist learns to adapt the methodology to individuals and groups from many cultures. The delivery system employs specific tools for helping clients identify and clarify their wants and desires, their hopes and their dreams. Clients are led to examine specific actions, cognition, and feelings which are seen in reality therapy as behaviors chosen to impact the external world of clients for the purpose of satisfying their needs. The cornerstone in the practice of reality therapy is the self-evaluation by clients. Counselors ask clients to examine the effectiveness of their choices especially as they impact their relationships with people important to them. Clients also examine the attainability of their wants, as well as their degree of commitment in attaining their wants. Included in the process is realistic planning for need satisfaction especially for enhancing the clients' interpersonal relationships. Multiethnic research has shown the multicultural efficacy of reality therapy.
Choice theory posits behaviors we choose are central to our existence. Our behavior (choices) are driven by six genetically driven needs in hierarchical order: survival and love, power, freedom, and fun.
Starting from birth and continuing throughout our lives, each person places significant role models, significant possessions and significant systems of belief (religion, cultural values, and icons, etc.) into a mostly unconscious framework Glasser called our "Quality World". Glasser mostly ignores the issues of negative role models and stereotypes in choice theory.
Choice theory posits most mental illness is, in fact, an expression of unhappiness. Glasser champions how we are able to learn and choose alternate behaviors resulting in greater personal satisfaction. Reality therapy is the choice theory-based counseling process focused on helping clients to learn to make those self-optimizing choices.
William Glasser's choice theory begins: behavior is not separate from choice; we all choose how to behave at any time. Second, we cannot control anyone's behavior but our own. Glasser also believed in the vitality of classroom meetings for the purpose of improving communication and solving real classroom problems. In the classroom, it is important for teachers to "help students envision a quality existence in school and plan the choices that lead to it".[2]
Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy\n \n \n \n \n "," \n \n \n \n \n \n Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy\n \n \n \n \n "," \n \n \n \n \n \n Alfred Adler INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY. 2 Alfred Adler 1902Joined Freud's discussion group on neurotics 1910Co-founder with Freud Journal of Psychoanalyses.\n \n \n \n \n "," \n \n \n \n \n \n WILLIAM GLASSER Choice (Control) Theory and Reality Therapy "If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behaviour."\n \n \n \n \n "," \n \n \n \n \n \n \u00a9 2011 Brooks\/Cole, A Div