FINAL BLOG

REALITY APPROACH AND CHOICE THERAPY
WILLIAM GLASSER

 

THE ONLY PERSON YOU CAN CONTROL IS YOURSELF!

  I have chosen William Glasser for my final blog because I enjoy his way of thinking. He believes that the need to love and to belong is the primary need because we all need people, everyone is in a relationship of some kind. I like the way he coded genetic needs (survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun) all of these play a role in our everyday life. He avoided focusing on the symptoms and worked toward fixing the reality of life. Although we are human and we make mistakes, we are responsible for our own choices. Part of the process of reality therapy is assisting in prioritizing wants and uncovering what is most important.

William Glasser chose to develop this theory because he worked with delinquent girls, his life long interests are in therapy and education. Glasser felt that students should take responsibility for their own actions, encourage students devise their own goals, plan and solution with minimal direction from the teacher, and he would prefer students to set their own rewards. Glasser, developed 7 caring habits that should be applied in the classroom to help students. Always focus on actions of the now and how together they would fix the problem and create a contract to sign and agree on the solution. Glasser found that school-aged children needed to feel love and belonging through these actions, in return he developed the reality and choice theory.

Through all of the research I have done, I found that Glasser developed more than just these two theory's, he has set the temperament for classrooms all over the world. Great idea on this project, I loved it and learned ALOT.

FAMILY SYSTEMS THERAPY

KEY CONCEPTS

• Focus is on communication patterns within a family, both verbal and non-verbal.
• Problems in relationships are likely to be passed on from generation to generation.
• The present is more important than exploring the past. (Corey,2009)

GOALS OF THERAPY

• To help family members gain awareness of patterns of relationships that are not working well and to create new ways of interacting. (Corey,2009)

TECHNIQUES

• Genograms, teaching, asking questions, joining the family, tracking sequences, issuing directives, use of countertransference, family mapping, reframing, restructing, enactments, and setting boundaries.
• May be experiential, cognitive, or behavioral in nature.
• Most are designed to bring about change in a short time.   (Corey,2009) 

FOUNDERS

• Alfred Alder
• Murray Bowen
• Virginia Satir
• Carl Whitaker
• Salvador Minuchin
• Jay Haley
• Cloe Madanes

Corey, G. (2009). Theory and practice of counseling and psycotherapy. Fullerton: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.

POSTMODERN APPROACHES

KEY CONCEPTS

• Therapy tends to be brief and addresses the present and the future
• The person is not the problem; the problem is the problem
• Externalize the problem and look for exceptions to the problem
• Therapist and client co-create solutions
• Identify when problem did not exist   
• Client can create new meanings for themselves and fashion a new life story (Corey,2009)

GOALS OF THERAPY

• To change the way clients view problems and what they can do about these concerns.
• To collaboratively establish specific, clear, concrete, realistic, and observable goals leading to increase positive change.
• To help clients create a self-identity grounded on competence and resourcefulness so they can resolve present and future concerns.
• To assist clients in viewing their lives in positive ways, rather than being problem saturated. (Corey,2009)

 TECHNIQUES

• Main technique is change talk, with emphasis on times in client's lives when a problem was not a problem.
• Creative use of questioning, the miracle question, and scaling question, which assist clients into developing alternative stories.
• In narritive therapy, specific techniques include listening to a client's problems and saturated story without getting stuck, eternalizing and naming the problem, externalizing coversations, and discovering clues to competence.
• Narrative therapists often write letters to clients and assist them in finding an audience that will support their changes and new stories. (Corey,2009)

FOUNDERS

• Insoo Kim Berg
• Steve de Shazer
• Michael White
• David Epston  (Corey,2009)

 

Corey, G. (2009). Theory and practice of counseling and psycotherapy. Fullerton: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.

FEMINIST THERAPY

KEY CONCEPTS

• Personal is political
• Therapist's have commitment to social change
•  Women's voice and ways of knowing are valued and honored
• Counseling relationship is egalitarian
• Therapy focuses on strengths and a reformulated definition of psychological distress
• All types of oppression is recognized (Corey,2009)

GOALS OF THERAPY

• To bring about transformation both in the individual client and in society.
• Assist clients in recognizing, claiming, and using their personal power to free themselves from the limitations of gender-role socialization.
• To confront all forms of institutional policies that discriminate or oppress on any basis. (Corey,2009) 

TECHNIQUES

• Feminist practitioners tend to employ consciousness-raising techniques aimed to helping clients recognize the impacts of gender-role socialization on their lives.
• Gender-role analysis and intervention,Power anaylsis and intervention, demystifying therapy, bibliographer, journal writing, therapist self-disclosure, assertiveness training, reframing and relabeling, challenging untested beliefs, role playing, psychodynamic methods, group work, and social action. (Corey,2009)

FOUNDERS

• Jean Baker Miller
• Carol Enns
• Olivia Espin
• Laura Brown  (Corey,2009)

 

Corey, G. (2009). Theory and practice of counseling and psycotherapy. Fullerton: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.

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REALITY THERAPY

KEY CONCEPTS

• Main focus is on what clients are doing and how to get them to evaluate whether their present actions are working for them. 
• People are mainly motivated to satisfy their needs, especially the need for significant relationships.
• Rejects the medical model, the notion of transference, the unconscious, and dwelling one's past. (Corey,2009)

GOALS OF THERAPY

• To help people become more effective in meeting all of their psychological needs.
• To enable clients to get reconnected with the people they have chosen to put into their quality worlds and teach clients choice theory. (Corey,2009)

TECHNIQUES

• This is an active, directive, and didactic therapy.
•  Skillful questioning is a central technique used for the duration of the therapy process.
• Various techniques may be used to get clients to evaluate what they are presently doing to see if they are willing to change.
• If clients decide that their present behavior is not effective, they develop a specific plan for change and make a commitment to follow through. (Corey,2009)

FOUNDERS

• William Glasser (1952)
• Robert Wubbolding (1936) (Corey,2009)

 

Corey, G. (2009). Theory and practice of counseling and psycotherapy. Fullerton: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.

 

COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY
 Albert Ellis (1913-2007)

 KEY CONCEPTS

• Psychological problems may be rooted into childhood, they are reinforced by present ways of thinking.
• Person's belief system is the primary cause of the disorder.
• Internal dialogue plays a central role in one's behavior.
• Clients focus on examining faulty assumptions and misconceptions and on replacing these effective beliefs. (Corey,2009)

GOALS OF THERAPY

• To teach clients to confront faulty beliefs with contradictory evidence that the gather and evaluate.
• To help clients seek out their faulty beliefs and minimize them.
• To become aware of automatic thoughts and to change them. (Corey,2009)

TECHNIQUES

Therapist use a variety of cognitive, emotive, and behavioral techniques: 

• diverse methods are tailored to suit individual clients, an active, directive, time-limited, present-centered, psychoeducational, and structured therapy.
• engaging in Socratic dialogue, collaborative empiricism, debating irrational beliefs, carrying out homework assignments, gathering data on assumptions one has made, keeping a record of activities, learning new coping skills, changing one's language and thinking patterns, role playing, imagery, confronting faulty beliefs, self-instructional training, and stress inoculation training. (Corey,2009)

FOUNDERS

• Albert Ellis (1913-2007)
• Aaron Beck (1921-       )
• Judith Beck (1954-       )
• Donald Meichenbaum (1940-     ) (Corey,2009)

 

Corey, G. (2009). Theory and practice of counseling and psycotherapy. Fullerton: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning.