Reality Therapy

Great Essays
Over view of Reality Therapy
Reality therapy was developed by Dr, William Glasser in 1965 and founded on the principles of choice theory. Reality therapy focuses on issues affecting the person in the present and what they are currently doing rather than on their past experiences; reality therapy is goal directed and focuses on aspects that the client is capable of changing. Glasser proposes five basic needs that people strive to meet throughout their lives: Survival, love & belonging, power, freedom, and fun (Pg 28). Glasser suggests that the need for love & belonging is paramount and that through the development of positive and healthy relationships one can effectively meet their other needs and experience happiness ( pg 13). Reality therapy
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An individual’s quality world is comprised of specific pictures that indicate the best way to satisfy one’s basic needs and includes representations of 1) “people we want to be with, 2) things we want to own and experience, 3) ideas and belief systems that govern one’s behavior” (pg.45). As an individual experiences life, they are continuously comparing what they want which is represented in a person’s quality world, with their reality. When the two views are in alignment, one feels good and experiences happiness; however, if the pictures are incongruent, one experiences frustration and is compelled to act in a way in which they believe will help them attain what they want. Glasser suggests that representations in an individual’s quality world should exist as long as they work; however, indicates that many people maintain pictures for too long because it is difficult to give up something that had assisted in satisfying one’s needs in the past. Glasser posits that suffering is caused by the maintenance of ideal representations in one’s quality world for an extended period long after they are no longer able to satisfy their needs to their desired extent. In alignment with his assumption that relationships are the most important of the aforementioned five basic needs , Glasser asserts that “happy” people have representations of people in their quality world such as …show more content…
In the case of Anna, it is clear that she would benefit from working on building positive and healthy relationships first in order to begin effectively meeting all of her other needs. The first goal in working with Anna would be for the therapist to begin to build positive rapport and create an atmosphere of trust and understanding. This is essential since, according to Glasser, all people who enter therapy have at least one unsatisfying relationship. It is important for the therapist to covey to the client that they are an ally in order to gain the trust necessary in order to facilitate change within the client (132). Next, an assessment would be performed which would include finding out what Anna truly wants for her future in order to determine the specific goals of therapy. The next goal would be to educate Anna about choice theory in order to promote awareness regarding her personal power in influencing her “total behavior”. I would teach her that she is indirectly choosing how she feels, even her depression, through the thoughts and actions that she is directly engaging in. Once educated about how she is influencing her “total behavior” and choosing to depress, Anna will be empowered to make the changes necessary in order to increase her happiness through the fulfillment to her basic needs. Anna would be encouraged to evaluate her behavior and determine if her

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