POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

WRITTEN REPORT
Choice Theory and Reality Therapy
Therapeutic Process

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School

Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Sta. Mesa, Manila

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in Theories and Techniques in Counseling

Master in Psychology (Clinical Psychology)

Submitted by

Karen Gail P. Comia

(MP-CP)

Submitted to

Dr. Rosenda De Gracia

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WRITTEN REPORT
Choice Theory and Reality Therapy
Therapeutic Process

The Practice of Reality Therapy

The practice of reality therapy can be best conceptualized as the cycle of

counseling which consist of:
i. Creating the environment
ii. Implementing specific procedures that lead to changes in behavior.
The art of counseling is to weave these components together in a way that lead
clients to evaluate their lives and decide to move in more effective directions.
How do these components blend in the process of counseling?
If clients decide to try new behavior, they make plans that will lead to change,
and they commit themselves to those plans. The cycle of counseling includes:
 Creating a working relationship with clients

 Exploration of clients wants, needs and perceptions

 Clients explore their total behavior and make their own evaluation of how
effective they are in getting what they want,
 Following up on how well clients are doing and offering further
consultation as needed.
It is important to keep in mind that although the concepts may seem simple as
they are presented here, being able to translate them into actual therapeutic practice
takes considerable skill and creativity. Although the principles will be the same when
used by any counselor who is certified in reality therapy, the manner in which these
principles are applied does vary depending on the counselor’s style and personal
characteristics. These principles are applied in a progressive manner, but they should
not be thought of as discrete and rigid categories. The art of practicing reality therapy
involves far more than following procedures in a step-by-step, cookbook fashion.
Although these procedures are described in jargon-free language, they can be
challenging to implement.
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The Counseling Environment
The practice of reality therapy rests on assumption that a supportive and
challenging environment allows clients to begin making life changes.

 Avoid: arguing, attacking, accusing, demeaning, bossing, criticizing,

finding fault, coercing, encouraging excuses, holding grudges, instilling
fear and giving up easily.

 Appreciate: caring, accepting, noncoercive choice theory environment.

It is from this mildly confrontive yet always noncriticizing, nonblaming,

noncomplaining, caring environment that clients learn to create the satisfying
environment that leads to successful relationships. In this coercion-free atmosphere,
clients feel free to be creative and to begin to try new behaviors.

Procedures That Lead to Change

Reality Therapists operate on assumption that we are motivated to change
 When we are convinced that our present behavior is not meeting our
needs
 When we believe we can choose other behaviors that will get us closer to
what we wants.

Reality therapists begin by asking clients what they want from therapy. Therapists
take the mystery and uncertainty out of the therapeutic process. They also inquire about
the choices clients are making in their relationships. In most instances, there is a major
unsatisfied relationship, and clients usually do not believe they have any choice in what
is going on in this relationship. In the beginning the client may deny this is the case. For
example, the client might say, “I’m depressed. My depression is the problem. Why are
you talking about my relationships?” The client often does not want to talk about the real
problem, which is the unsatisfying relationship or lack thereof. Reality therapists explore
the tenets of choice theory with clients, helping clients identify basic needs, discovering
clients’ quality world, and finally, helping clients understand that they are choosing the
total behaviors that are their symptoms. In every instance when clients make a change,
it is their choice. With the therapist’s help, clients learn to make better choices than they
did when they were on their own. Through choice theory, clients can acquire and
maintain successful relationships.
The WDEP System
Wubbolding uses the acronym WDEP to describe key procedures in the practice
of reality therapy. The WDEP system of reality therapy can be described as “effective,
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practical, usable, theory-based, cross-cultural, and founded on universal human
principles”
The WDEP System can be used to help clients explore their wants, possible
things they can do, opportunities for self- evaluation, and design plans for improvement.
Grounded in choice theory, the WDEP system assists people in satisfying their
basic needs. Each of the letters refers to a cluster of strategies:
 W- wants, needs and perception

 D- Direction and Doing

 E- Self – Evaluation

 P - Planning

These strategies are designed to promote change. Let’s look at each one in more
detail.
 Wants (Exploring Wants Needs and Perception)

◦ Reality therapists assist clients in discovering their wants and hopes.

◦ Wants are related to the Five Basic Needs

◦ Key Question: “What do you want?”

◦ Some useful questions:

 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
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 you don’t seem to be getting from life?

 What do you think stops you from making changes you would like?

Through the therapist’s skillful questioning, clients are assisted in defining what
they want from the counseling process and from the world around them. It is useful for
clients to define what they expect and want from the counselor and from themselves
Clients are given the opportunity to explore every facet of their lives, including what they
want from their family, friends, and work. Furthermore, this exploration of wants, needs,
and perceptions should continue throughout the counseling process as clients’ pictures
change. It is an art for counselors to know what questions to ask, how to ask them, and
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when to ask them. Relevant questions help clients gain insights and arrive at plans and
solutions. Although well-timed, open-ended questions can help clients identify their
counseling goals, excessive questioning can result in resistance and defensiveness.
 Direction and Doing

The focus on the present is characterized by the key question asked by the
reality therapist: “What are you doing?” Even though problems may be rooted in the
past, clients need to learn how to deal with them in the present by learning better ways
of getting what they want. Problems must be solved either in the present or through a
plan for the future. The therapist’s challenge is to help clients make more need-
satisfying choices. To accomplish this, reality therapists focus on questions like these:
“What are you doing now?” “What did you actually do yesterday?” “What did you want to
do differently this past week?” “What stopped you from doing what you said you wanted
to do?” “What will you do tomorrow?” when clients talk about problematic feelings, most
reality therapists affirm and acknowledge these feelings. Rather than focusing mainly on
these feelings, however, reality therapists encourage clients to take action by changing
what they are doing and thinking. It is easier to change what we are doing and thinking
than to change our feelings. Reality therapy focuses on gaining awareness of and
changing current total behavior.
 Self Evaluation

The core of reality therapy is to ask clients to make the following self evaluation:
“Does your present behavior have a reasonable chance of getting you what you want
now, and will it take you in the direction you want to go?”

According to Wubbolding, clients often present a problem with a significant

relationship, which is at the root of much of their dissatisfaction. The counselor can help
clients evaluate their behavior by asking this question: “Is your current behavior bringing
you closer to people important to you or is it driving you further apart?” Through skillful
questioning, the counselor helps clients determine if what they are doing is helping
them. Evaluation involves the client examining behavioral directions, specific action,
wants perceptions, new directions, and plans. Artful questioning assists clients in
evaluating their present behavior and the direction this is taking them. Asking clients to
evaluate each component of their total behavior is a major task in reality therapy. It is
the counselor’s task to assist clients in evaluating the quality of their actions and to help
them make responsible choices and devise effective plans. Individuals will not change
until they first decide that a change would be more advantageous. Without an honest
self-assessment, it is unlikely that clients will change.

Useful Question:

 Does your behavior help you or hurt you?

 By doing what you’re doing, are you getting what you want?
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 Are you breaking the rules?

 Are your wants realistic and attainable?

 How does it help to look at it like that?

 Planning and Action

Much of the significant work of the counseling process involves helping clients
identify specific ways to fulfill wants and needs. The process of creating and carrying
out plans enables people to begin to gain effective control over their lives. If the plan
does not work, for whatever reason, the counselor and client work together to devise a
different plan. The plan gives the client a starting point, a toehold on life, but plans can
be modified as needed. Throughout this planning phase, the counselor continually
urges the client to be willing to accept the consequences for his or her own choices and
actions. Not only are plans discussed in light of how they can help the client personally,
but plans are also designed in terms of how they are likely to affect others in the client’s
life.

Wubbolding discusses the central role of planning and commitment. The

culmination of the cycle of counseling rests with a plan of action. Although planning is
important, it is effective only if the client has made a self-evaluation and determined that
he or she wants to change a behavior. Once clients determine what they want to
change, they are generally ready to explore other possible behaviors and formulate an
action plan. The Key question is “What is your plan?”

Wubbolding uses the acronym SAMIC to capture the essence of a good plan:
Simple, Attainable, Measurable, Immediate, Involved, Controlled by the planner,
Commited to, and Consistently done.

Therapist Attitudes

The following are attitudes counselor adopt:

◦ Don’t accept excuses. Excuses should be ignored, and the counselor

should go on to focus on carrying out other plans.

◦ No punishment or criticism. It is not appropriate for the counselor to

criticize, punish, or argue with an individual who has not followed through
on the procedures of reality therapy, as it will damage the therapeutic
relationship.

◦ Don’t give up. Change is not an easy process.

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Reality Therapy Strategies

Commonly used Psychotherapeutic Techniques in Reality Therapy:

◦ Questioning. Questions play an important role in exploring total behavior,

evaluating what people are doing, and making specific plans.

◦ Being Positive. The reality therapist focuses on what the client can do.

◦ Metaphors. Attending to and using the client’s language can be helpful in

communicating understanding to a client through use of her language.

◦ Humor. Reality therapists try to develop with their clients, humor fits in
rather naturally.

◦ Confrontation. Helping clients to make plans and to commit to plans for

behaviors that are difficult to change means that often plans are not
carried out as desired.

◦ Paradoxical Techniques. Give contradictory instruction to the clients.

 Reframing helps individuals change the way they think about a

topic.

 Paradoxical prescriptions refer to instructing the client to choose

a symptoms.

Case Sample From Glasser

The Choice to Depress: Teresa

I was determined not to ask Teresa to tell me her story and, especially not to ask her
how she felt. I had to try to convince her that she was making ineffective choices in her
life, knowing full well that my claim that she was making choices, especially choosing to
depress, would be the furthest thing from her mind. If I couldn’t begin to convince her on
her first visit, there was little chance of any measurable progress. (Glasser, 2000a, p.
129)

Teresa was surprised when Glasser did not want to hear her story about her
husband leaving her with children and no money. She was initially puzzled by Glasser’s
questions about making choices. His kindness and friendliness allowed her to accept
his seemingly odd questions. Teresa tried to show Glasser that her plight was hopeless,
but he continued to focus on choice that Glasser sees as a positive move away from
choosing to depress.
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“But I had a marriage, I was somebody. I’m nobody now. Just a poor woman with kids
on welfare, and they’re going to take that away in a year.”

“I’ll admit your life was a lot better than it is now, but you’re still alive. And if you’re still
alive, you can still choose to have a life, The only person who can stop you from making
better choices right now is you. As long as you choose to depress, you no longer have
a life.”

“But what else can I choose? I just can’t go home and choose to be happy.”

“That’s right, you can’t separate choosing how you feel from choosing what you do.
They go together. But you can go home and spend the rest of the day saying to
yourself: Teresa, face it. Good or bad, happy or sad, you’re choosing everything you do
all day long.

I didn’t explain total behavior to Teresa, but this is connecting acting to feeling. It
worked. She caught on.

“But what difference will that make? I’ll still have the same lousy life.”

“What do you choose to do all day that keeps your life the same?”

“I sit home, watch my soaps, and eat. That’s what I do. That’s what a lot of women like
me do. I know quite a few of them from the neighborhood. Most of them are just like me.
Too old for love, too young to die.”

“But not too old to start making better choices.”

“OK, like what?”

In print that “like what” seems cynical, but it didn’t come out that way at all. She really
wanted to know.

“All right, let’s start with one. What could you choose to do tomorrow that would be
better than today?”

“I could choose not to sit around all day.”

“No, that won’t work. It’d be like trying to choose not to eat so much. I’m not looking for
you to choose not to do anything. I’m looking for you to start to choose to do something
better than you’re doing now. Something active, so that you have to get up and get
going.”

Then she said something that made us both smile. She was getting it.
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“I could choose to clean the house. It’s a mess.”

“That’d be great, but will you do it?”

“I’ll do it. I will.”

“What you just said and, I guess, the way you said it reminds me of something. Did you
ever see the movie, My Fair Lady?”

“I did, the play and the movie. I was married. I had money then.”

“Remember when Eliza started to speak correctly? Higgins and Pickering danced and
sang. Do you know some of the words to that song?”

She gave me a look that said she didn’t remember.

“They sang, ‘She’s got it, by Jove, I think she’s got it.’ Or something like that. Teresa I
think you’ve got it. SO tell me, what do you know about everything you do? What do we
all do before we do anything?”

“Choose it, by Jove I think we choose it.”

“Will you call me after you clean the house? In fact, anytime you choose to do anything
all week, call me and leave a message on my machine. Leave your number, and I’ll find
the time to call you back. Can you come next week at the same time?”

Glasser illustrates several aspects of reality therapy in this dialogue. He is

friendly and positive throughout. He focuses on “choosing to” and does not accept
“choosing not to” as an alternative. Teresa makes a plan to clean her house (to do
better) and he helps her make a commitment to do these plans by asking her to call him
at his office.