Glasser’s “Reality Therapy” Model

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Our Five Basic Needs

In Reality Therapy (post-1985), needs are classified under five headings:

• Love and Belonging (this includes groups as well as families or loved ones).

• Power (which includes achievement and feeling worthwhile, as well as winning).

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Our Five Basic Needs

• Freedom (includes independence, autonomy, your own “space”).

• Fun (includes pleasure and enjoyment).

• Survival (includes nourishment, shelter, sex).

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Theory - Reality Therapy

In Reality pre-1985:• Behavior is a matter of choice. Good behavior results

from good choices and bad behavior results from bad choices

• Psychologists and educators often look into students’ backgrounds for underlying causes of misbehavior

• Glasser does not deny that such conditions exist or that they influence behavior

• Yet, he claims that humans have rational minds and can make rational choices.

• They can understand what acceptable school behavior is and can choose to behave in acceptable ways.

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Theory - Reality Therapy

• In order to make good choices students must come to see the results of those choices as desirable

• Teachers must help students see that they are choosing to act in the ways they do

• Teachers must force students to acknowledge their behavior and make value judgments about it

• Teachers must refuse to accept excuses for bad behavior, always directing attention instead to what would be more acceptable

• The essence of discipline is in helping students make good choices.

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Principles of Reality Therapy

• Students are rational beings. They can control their behavior. They choose to act the way they do.

• Good choices produce good behavior. Bad choices produce bad behavior.

• Teachers must always try to help students make good choices.

• Teachers who truly care about their students accept no excuses for bad behavior.

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Principles of Reality Therapy

• Reasonable consequences should always follow student behavior, good or bad

• Class rules are essential, and they must be enforced.

• Classroom meetings are effective vehicles for attending to matters of class rules, behavior, and discipline.

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Seven Steps to Effective Discipline

• Step 1: Be warm and personal and willing to become emotionally involved

“I am glad you’re here, and I care about you as a person and a learner.”

• Step 2: Deal with the present behavior

“What did you do?”

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Seven Steps to Effective Discipline

• Step 3: Make a value judgment“Is it helping you?”“Is it helping others?”“Is it against a rule?”

• Step 4: Work out a plan“What can you do differently?”“What do you need me to do to help?”“Do you need any assistance from others?”

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Seven Steps to Effective Discipline

• Step 5: Make a commitment“Are you going to do this?”

• Step 6: Follow up“Let’s check later and see how the plan worked.”

• Step 7: No put downs but do not accept excuses“It’s O.K. Let’s keep trying. I trust that you can

develop a plan that will work.”“I know things happen, but you made a plan. Do we

need a new plan?”

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Educational Applications of Reality Therapy

What Teachers Should Do• Stress Student Responsibility• Establish Rules that Lead to Success• Accept No Excuses• Call for Value Judgments• Suggest Alternatives• Invoke Reasonable Consequences• Be Persistent• Carry Out Continual Review

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Strengths or Reality Therapy

• The problem solving can be accomplished in a short time.

• Because the model employs a step-by-step procedure, it is easy to learn

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Strengths or Reality Therapy

• By actively involving the student in the problem-solving process, the model responds to a variety of students’ needs.

• Because the model focuses on specific, observable behavior, data can be collected and the student is accountable for the results