Choice Theory (47 page)

Accepting this axiom is uncomfortable for external control believers. But failing to understand it takes away a lot of freedom. To choose to stop depressing is a wonderful freedom that external control people will never have. These people think the miserable feeling is happening to them or is caused by what someone else
does. As soon as we say,
I’m choosing to depress
or I
am depressing,
we are immediately aware it is a choice, and we have gained personal freedom. This is why designating these choices by verbs is so important.

10. All total behavior is chosen, but we have direct control over only the acting and thinking components. We can, however, control our feelings and physiology indirectly through how we choose to act and think.

Understanding that we cannot directly control our feelings and our physiology, only our actions and thoughts free us to avoid what we cannot control. It is not easy to change our actions and thoughts, but it is all we can do. If we succeed in coming up with more satisfying actions and thoughts, we gain a great deal of personal freedom in the process.

Whenever you feel as if you don’t have the freedom you want in a relationship, it is because you, your partner, or both of you are unwilling to accept the choice theory axiom:
You can only control your own life.
Until you learn this axiom, you will not be able to use any of the choice theory ideas such as the basic needs, the quality world, and total behavior. But once you learn it, all of the choice theory becomes accessible to you. You can then freely choose to move closer to the people you want to be close with no matter how they behave. But the more they, too, learn choice theory, the better you will get along with them. Choice theory supports the golden rule. To gain the freedom to use it is the purpose of this book.

I
N 1967, I FOUNDED
the Institute for Reality Therapy for the purpose of teaching that therapy. The institute is a nonprofit, charitable foundation. Neither my wife, Carleen, nor I take any salary for our work at the institute. Since its inception, I have greatly expanded my thinking with the addition of choice theory and have applied that theory to almost every aspect of reality therapy. I have also extended the use of choice theory into the schools, as exemplified by the quality school, and into managing for quality in all other areas in which people are managed. In this book I have taken the further step of trying to apply choice theory to an entire community.

With all these expansions and applications, I have gone so far beyond reality therapy that, for accuracy, I was encouraged to change the name of the institute to the William Glasser Institute. I
made the change so anyone who is interested in any of my ideas or my applications of these ideas can easily contact us. Over the years, as our teaching and training have expanded, satellite institutes have been set up in many countries around the world.

The institute serves the public through its membership and benefits its members in many ways. Membership is an acknowledgment of a commitment to the principles and practices of reality therapy, lead management, and choice theory psychology. The institute coordinates and monitors all training programs and serves as an information clearing house. My latest thinking is often made available through audiotapes, videotapes, and publications to the members. As a networking center, people can exchange ideas through the institute’s newsletter and connect through international conventions and regional meetings. The institute lends support to its members in their work with individuals, agencies, and communities. The
Journal of Reality Therapy
is a vehicle through which members can publish their works on new ways of using and teaching reality therapy. The institute also provides a voice for the membership through regional representatives and international liaisons.

The basic effort of the William Glasser Institute centers on an intensive three-week training program for individual professionals who want to use reality therapy in every area of counseling. (I use the terms
counselor
and
therapist
interchangeably.) There are five parts to this training, which takes a minimum of eighteen months to complete. First, we offer a Basic Intensive Week, which is available to small groups, with no more than thirteen participants per instructor. After this first week, those who wish to go on may enroll in the Basic Practicum group for a minimum of thirty hours. After they successfully finishing the Basic Practicum, they may enroll in the Advanced Intensive Week with a different instructor and, following that, the Advanced Practicum.

Finally, at the recommendation of the supervisor of the Advanced Practicum, a trainee is invited to a Certification Week in which the trainee demonstrates what he or she has learned. For this demonstration, we give a certificate of completion. This certificate
is not a professional, legal license to practice, but the training is often used for college credit and continuing education units. Right now there are more than 5,000 certificate holders worldwide.

After obtaining their certificates, some trainees opt to go on with training and become instructors in our organization. There are four levels of instructors: the basic-practicum supervisor, who can teach a Basic Practicum; the advanced-practicum supervisor, who can teach both Basic and Advanced Practica; the basic-week instructor, who can teach both practica, as well as the Basic Intensive Week; and the advanced-week instructor, who can teach all four phases. Fees for the various phases of training vary. For the Basic and Advanced Intensive Weeks, the fees are dependent on whether the group members have contracted individually for the week or have contracted as a group.

For schools that are interested in becoming recognized as quality schools, such as Huntington Woods, the institute has a new program based on almost ten years of experience with this process. Contact the institute for the details. At the completion of this program, each staff member receives a specialist certificate stating that he or she has demonstrated competence as a quality school classroom teacher. The principal receives a similar specialist certificate stating that he or she has demonstrated competence as a quality school administrator. Their school is then recognized as a quality school. Before starting, the principals are strongly encouraged to take a one-week Administrator’s Program offered by the institute with instructors who have had a great deal of experience teaching the quality school ideas.

Fees for this training are paid by the schools, but schools that don’t have the funding usually apply and get funding from a variety of sources. Since a quality school is a drug-free school, federal and state grants may be available through drug-prevention funds. If a committed school puts effort into it, the funding can usually be obtained. Each phase is funded separately, so the initial outlay may be within the training budget of many schools. This book is the foundation of all we teach. Reading and discussing it is a requirement for phase one.

All our instruction in both programs is by explanation and demonstration. These are
hands-on
programs. It is our hope that people will contact the William Glasser Institute and find out how we can help anyone, any group, any school, or any community to pursue these ideas.

For people who live in southern California and are interested in these ideas, I present them at the institute in Chatsworth (when I am in town) on the last Sunday of every month from 4:30 to 6:30 P.M. There is no charge, and we welcome all who are interested. We give some priority to counselors, since I mostly teach counseling during these sessions, but if you wish to come, call, fax, or E-mail the institute to reserve a place.

The institute employs user-friendly, choice-theory-trained people, so if you contact us, you can be sure of a courteous response. It is my vision to teach choice theory to the world. I invite you to join me in this effort.

The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.

acquisition fee, 247

activity, 4

creativity and, 135, 136

in total behavior, 72–76, 78–79, 80, 83, 85, 87, 146

of the workless, 112

African Americans, 245, 259

alcohol, 22, 87, 88, 216

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), 23

alcoholism, alcoholics, 22, 23, 30,45. 87

workless compared with, 108

All Creatures Great and Small
(Herriot), 241

Alma, Mich., 236, 238

Anatomy of an Illness, An
(Cousins), 138

anger, 22, 25, 26, 52, 67, 77, 181, 200

restraining, 79–81, 83, 145, 146, 150, 151, 155

animals, needs of, 28, 32, 37, 41

anorexia, 32, 51, 52

anxietying (anxiety neurosis),76–77, 79, 137. 146–47.154–55

arthritis, rheumatoid, 79, 137–39, 141–42, 145–46, 152–53

arts, 247–48

aspirin, 141

asthma, 140, 142–45

attention deficit disorder (ADD; attention deficit hyper–active disorder; ADHD), 256

autistic children, 91–92

autoimmune diseases, 137–46, 152–53

avoidance behavior, 82–83

backaching, 137, 146

bedtime, 213–14

behavior:choice of, 71

defined, 72

see also
total behavior
belonging, 28, 29, 33–37, 42, 60, 157, 289

see
also
love Bergman, Ingrid, 163

Bill of Rights, 40

bipolar (manic–depressive) disease, in, 136, 154

blaming, 8, 19, 21, 22, 33, 49, 78, 86, 117, 164, 173

child abuse and, 218, 225, 231, 232

in marriage, 35, 52, 64–65, 67,93, 94, 104. 180–85

prevalence of, 3

boredom, in marriage, 174, 175

bosses, 9, 14, 15, 16, 50

boss management, 235, 239, 284–90

elements of, 285–86

obstruction and, 292–96

brain, 17, 71, 72

chemistry of, 4, 70, 85, 86–87, 121

creative system of, 135

drugs and, 4, 29, 70, 87–88, 2–57

information processing and, 3–4, 26

learning disabled and, 255–57

Brentwood Veterans Hospital, 147–49

bribery, 16

Bridges of Madison County, The
(Waller), 118n, 151–52

Browning, Robert, 52–53

calculation vs. math, 242–47

California:classroom size in, 251

driver’s license test in, 274–75

Cambridge Program, 266–67

Candid Camera
(TV series), 141

caring, 15, 21, 26–27, 28, 36, 309

lead management and, 290

love and, 164

quality world and, 45, 56–57

for the workless, 112

cars, buying vs. leasing of, 246–47

catatonia, 146

child abuse, 117, 192–95, 245

dealing with, 218–33, 320–21

child development, quality worldand, 56–60

child rearing, 51

choice theory, 206–18

trust and, 195–218

children:adult, 195

autistic, 91–92

of Francesca, 119, 120, 124, 129, 149, 151

quality world and, 46–47, 51,51, 53

see also
infants; students;TeenagersChoice Program, 209n

choice theory:cost of, 116, 144

defined, 7

language of, 21

other psychologies similar to, 10–11

see also specific topics

cholesterol, 140, 141

Clinton, Bill, 21

closeness, 30

loss of, 20–21

in love, 163–64

quality world and, 51–52, 57

cocaine addicts, 22

coercion,
see
control psychology, externalcommitment, 165, 166, 168, 171

community:quality,
see
quality communityquality world and, 60–61

compassion, 158

compatibility, 36, 177

personality and the strength ofthe needs and, 89–113

competence, 106, 131, 165, 179, 238, 273–82

proficiency testing and, 280–82

in quality schools, 273–80

the workless and, 110, 111

complaining, 21, 22, 78, 117, 164, 173

love and belonging and, 33, 36, 164, 173

in marriage, 14, 183, 185, 186

of parents, 198

compulsing, 146–47, 154–55, 157

computers, in schools, 55–56

conflict, 173, 174–75, *93

reality therapy and, 114–33

Constitution, U.S., 40

control, in choice theory, 4, 71,78

control psychology, external, 4–26,57–61

beliefs of, 16–17, 52–53

depressing and, 80–82

double harm of, 12–13

in education, 50, 56, 59, 237, 238, 241–42, 249, 250–51, 257–60

genetic factors in, 25–26

in infants, 25–26, 57

language of, 21

in marriage, 65–70, 89–91, 97, 164–65, 174–84

operational premise of, 5–6

ownership thinking in, 15,55–53

prevalence of, 6

system in, 12

technical vs. human progressand, 8–10

variations of, 13–14

work and, 289, 302

see also
punishment; rewards

Coppola, Vince, 311

Corning, N.Y., 319, 325–28, 330

schools in, 311–14

coronary artery disease (arterioscleroticheart disease), 84–85, 140–41

correctional officers, 322

coumadin, 141

Cousins, Norman, 138, 139, 141–42, 144–45

creativity, 40, 122, 134–59, 193

boredom and, 175

in child rearing, 208, 218

destructive, 136–59

education and, 265–66

psychosomatic disease and, 137–59

sex and, 175–76

crime, criminal justice, 7, 18–19, 216, 239, 245, 253