Counseling and Psychotherapy

Theory and Practice

Chapter 10
Reality Therapy

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Objectives
• At the end of the session, you will be able to
answer the following questions:
• What is the view of human nature of Reality Therapy?
• What is the therapeutic process of Reality Therapy?
• What are therapeutic applications and techniques of
Reality Therapy?

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Choice theory posts that we are not born blank
slates waiting to be externally motivated by forces
around us.
• We are born with five genetically encoded needs
that drive us all our lives:
• Survival or self-preservation
• Love and belonging
• Power or inner control
• Freedom or independence
• Fun or enjoyment

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Our brain functions as a control system. It
continually monitors our feelings to determine how
well we are doing in our lifelong effort to satisfy our
needs.
• Whenever we feel bad, one or more of these five
needs is unsatisfied.
• Choice theory teaches that we do not satisfy our
needs directly. What we do, beginning shortly after
birth and continuing all our lives, is to keep close
track of anything we do that feels very good.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Everything that feels good are stored as information
in a file of wants called quality world, which is at
the core of our life. It’s like a picture album.
• People are the most important component of our
quality world, and these are the people that we
most want to connect with.
• For therapy to have a chance of success, a therapist
must be the kind of person that clients would
consider putting in their quality world. Getting into
clients’ quality world is the art of therapy.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Choice Theory Explanation of Behavior
• Every total behavior is our best attempt to get what we
want to satisfy our needs.
• Total behavior teaches that all behavior is made up of
four inseparable but distinct components – acting,
thinking, feeling, and physiology that necessarily
accompany all our actions, thoughts, and feelings.
• Choice theory emphasizes thinking and acting, which
makes this a general form of cognitive behavior therapy.
• Behavior is purposeful because it is designed to close
the gap between what we want and what we perceive
we are getting.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Choice Theory Explanation of Behavior
• Glasser thinks that is it more accurate to think of people
depressing or angering themselves rather than being
depressed or being angry.
• When people choose misery by developing a range of
“paining” behaviors, it is because these are the best
behaviors that they are able to devise at the time, and these
behaviors often get them what they want.
• As painful as depressing is, the therapist explains that
people do no choose pain and suffering directly; rather, it is
an unchosen part of their total behavior. The behavior of the
person is the best effort, ineffective as it is, to satisfy needs.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Characteristics of Reality Therapy
• It focuses quickly on the unsatisfying relationship or the
lack of relationship, which is often the cause of client’s
problems.
• Reality therapists ask clients to consider how effective
their choices are, especially as these choices affect their
relationships with significant people in their lives.
• The basic axiom of choice theory is: “The only person
you can control is yourself.”

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Characteristics of Reality Therapy
• It focuses quickly on the unsatisfying relationship or the
lack of relationship, which is often the cause of client’s
problems.
• Reality therapists ask clients to consider how effective
their choices are, especially as these choices affect their
relationships with significant people in their lives.
• The basic axiom of choice theory is: “The only person
you can control is yourself.”
• Reality therapists do no listen very long to complaining,
blaming, and criticizing, for these are the most
ineffective behaviors in our behavioral repertoire.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Emphasize choice and responsibility
• If we choose all we do, we must be responsible for what we
choose. Choice therapy change the focus of responsibility to
choice and choosing.
• Reality therapists deal with people “as if” they have choices.
They focus on those areas where clients have choice, for doing
so gets them closer to the people they need.
• Reject transference
• Glasser contends that transference is a way that both therapist
and client avoid being who they are and owning what they are
doing right now.
• It is unrealistic for the therapists to go along with the idea that
they are anyone but themselves.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Keep the therapy in the present.
• An axiom of choice theory is that the past may have
contributed to a current problem but that the past is
never the problem. We can only satisfy our needs in the
present.
• Avoid focusing on symptoms
• Glasser contends that people who have symptoms believe
that if they could only be symptom-free they would find
happiness.
• Their symptoms can be viewed as the body’s way of
warning them that the behavior they are choosing is not
satisfying their basic needs.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• Challenge traditional views of mental illness
• Choice theory rejects the traditional notion that people
with problematic physical and psychological symptoms
are mentally ill.
• Reality therapy incorporates the Ericksonian principle
that “people don’t have problems; they have solutions
that have not worked.”
• By reframing diagnostic categories and negative
behaviors, the counselor helps the client perceive the
behaviors in a very different light.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• The 10 Axioms of Choice Theory
1. The only person whose behavior we can control is our
own.
2. All we can give another person is information.
3. All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship
problems
4. The problem relationship is always part of our present
life.
5. What happened in the past has everything to do with
what we are today, but we can only satisfy our basic
needs right now and plan to continue satisfying them in
the future.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 View of Human Nature
• The 10 Axioms of Choice Theory
6. We can only satisfy our needs by satisfying the pictures
or specific wants in our quality world.
7. All we do is behave.
8. All behavior is total behavior and is made up of four
components: acting, thinking, feeling, and physiology.
9. All total behavior is chosen, but we only have direct
control over the acting and thinking components. We
can only control our feeling and physiology indirectly
through how we can choose to act and think.
10. All total behavior is designated by verbs and named by
the part that is most recognizable.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 The Therapeutic Process
• Therapeutic Goals
• A primary goal of contemporary reality therapy is to
help clients get connected or reconnected with the
people they have chosen to put in their quality world.
• A basic goal of reality therapy is to help clients learn
better ways of fulfilling all of their needs.
• Reality therapists assist clients in making more effective
and responsible choices related to their wants and
needs.
• If clients are involuntary participants in the therapy, the
goal of the counselor should first be to create a
connection.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 The Therapeutic Process
• Therapeutic Function and Role
• Therapy is considered as a mentoring process in which
the therapist is the teacher, and the client is the student
• Reality therapists teach clients to engage in self
evaluation by asking significant 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 to do now to make the changes happen?
• The role of the reality therapist is not to make the
evaluation for clients but to challenges clients to
examine what they are doing.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 The Therapeutic Process
• Client’s experience in Therapy
• Clients are not expected to backtrack to the past or get
sidetracked by symptom talk. The emphasis is on
actions.
• When clients change what they are doing, they often
change how they are feeling or thinking.
• “Is what you are choosing to do bringing you closer to
the people you want to be closer to right now?”
• “Is what you are doing getting you closer to a new
person if you are presently disconnected from
everyone?”

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 The Therapeutic Process
• Relationship between Therapist and Client
• Reality therapy emphasizes an understanding and
supporting relationship, or therapeutic alliance, which is
the foundation for effective outcomes
• While a trusting relationship is critical, it is also
important that the client perceive the therapist as being
skilled and knowledgeable
• The basis for therapeutic interventions to work
effectively rests on a fair, firm, friendly, and trusting
environment.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Techniques and Procedures
• The Practice of Reality Therapy
• Cycles of counseling: (1) creating the counseling
environment, and (2) implementing specific procedures
that lead to changes in behavior.
a. Creating a working relationship with the client
b. Exploring clients wants, needs, and perceptions
c. Exploring their total behavior and making their own
evaluations
d. Making plans that will lead to change and committing to
those
e. Evaluating how the clients are doing and offering further
consultation.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Techniques and Procedures
• The Counseling Environment
• The practice of reality therapy rests on the assumption
that a supportive and challenging environment allows
clients to begin making life changes
• Counselors who hope to create a therapeutic alliance
strive to avoid behaviors such as arguing, attacking,
accusing, demeaning, bossing, criticizing, finding fault,
coercing, encouraging excuses, holding grudges,
instilling fear, and giving up easily

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Techniques and Procedures
• Procedures that Lead to Change
• Reality therapists operate on the assumption that we
are motivated to change
• When we are convinced that our present behavior is not
meeting our needs and
• When we believe we can choose other behaviors that will get
us closer to what we want
• A skilled therapist looks for and defines (1) the wants of
the client and a (2) key unsatisfying relationship.
• When clients can begin to realize that they can control
only their own behavior, therapy is under way.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Techniques and Procedures
• The WDEP System
• The WDEP system of reality therapy can be described as
effective, practical, usable, theory-based, cross-cultural,
and founded on universal human principles.
• The WDEP system assists people in satisfying their basic
needs: W = wants, needs, and perceptions, D = direction
and doing; E = self-evaluation, and P = planning.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Techniques and Procedures
• WANTS (exploring wants, needs, and perceptions)
• All wants are related to the basic needs. Through the
therapist’s skillful questioning, clients are assisted in
defining what they want from the counseling process
and from the world around them
• If you were the person that you wish you were, what kind of
person would you be?
• What would your family be like if your wants and their wants
were matched?
• What would you be doing if you were living as you want to?
• Do you really want to change your life?
• What is it you want that don’t seem to be getting from life?

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Techniques and Procedures
• DIRECTION AND DOING
• The focus on the present is characterized by the key
question asked by the reality therapist: “what are you
doing?”
• Early in the counseling, the therapist explores what the
client is doing and what kind of future are their behaviors
leading to.
• What are you doing now?
• What did you actually do yesterday?
• What did you do differently this past week?
• What stopped you from doing what you said you wanted to do?
• What will you do tomorrow?

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Techniques and Procedures
• SELF-EVALUATION
• Self-evaluation is the cornerstone of reality therapy
procedures. “Does your present behavior have a
reasonable change of getting you what you want now,
and will it take you in the direction you want to go?”
• Is what you are doing helping or hurting you?
• Is what you are doing now what you want to be doing?
• Is your behavior working for you?
• Is there a healthy congruence between what you are doing and
what you believe?
• Is what you want realistic and attainable?

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Techniques and Procedures
• PLANNING AND ACTION
• Once clients determine what they want to change, they are
generally ready to explore other possible behaviors and
formulate an action plan.
• Wubbolding uses the acronym SAMICCC to outline the
essential ingredients of an effective plan:
• Simple.
• Attainable
• Measurable
• Immediate
• Controlled
• Committed
• Continuous

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

 Techniques and Procedures

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.

2020 © Department of Psychology, Kidapawan Doctors College, Inc.