Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom [Paperback]

The new approach of using Deming's total quality teachings in education can change person's way of looking at life, and if applied in basic, middle and high school eduaction could be a great contribution towards making our children more reponsible for their own acts and better citizens.

Dr. Glasser states that nobody but ourselves can control our own feelings and reactions. Depression and anger are feelings that can be controled and changed. Also his present day approach shortens the amount of time that therapists have to spend with patients, by considering as important what is going out now and not loosing time figuring out the past. Dr. Glasses presents several clinical cases where results were outstanding using his method of therapy.

The concepts of this book apply to personal relationships as well as job related ones. Dr. Glasser shows how every person has a quality world with 3 main compone! ! ts: people we care for, things we consider important, and our own ideas and concepts about life. The combination of these factors will make us happy or unhappy depending upon our own choices. Only people and items we let into our own world are the ones that can influence our feelings and reactions, Dr. Glasser shows in this book how to manage them efectively, and teaches the reader how to make the changes that will transform their own lives and also to influence changes in lives of the people we love and care for.

Best of all, this is a wonderfully readable book. The reader gets acquainted, up close and personal, with real people who present real problems-problems all too familiar to most of us. Within the privacy of the counseling room, we are treated to word-for-word accounts that demonstrate how Dr. Glasser sets the stage for those who are troubled to open new and liberating doors for themselves. We are even treated to a view of the psychiatrist-writer counseling literary characters, such as Francesca in THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY.

The book, REALITY THERAPY, published in 1965, brought Dr. Glasser to international prominence. A book about counseling, it pioneered a movement, now widely followed. The current style of counseling is no longer aloof and mysterious, no longer rooted in futile attempts to re-live the past, but rooted in the here and now and directed toward need-fulfilling involvement with others. This new book demonstrates, in a most persuasive way, the startling idea that we choose all that we do. What a liberating idea! We even choose misery at times, but usually we have better choices, and the author shows us graphically that we are free to make these.

Much of the unhappiness that most of us endure-at least, periodically-stems from the widespread belief we hold that people can be forced, through threats or rewards, to do things they do not want to do. Glasser refers to this massive tendency toward coercion, ever present in our society, as external control psychology. Choice Theory is the exact opposite of domination and invasive power. The new choice theory is, indeed, a remedy for all this misery. Without resorting to threats or bribes, we can vastly increase the likelihood that people will do what we want them to do if we learn and apply choice theory. Glasser's convincing explanation of this practical way of improving our relationships is the great achievement of this book.

Though not a book about religion, we find here a consistency with the Golden Rule, as the author himself points out. This remarkable book explores the relationships that most affect the quality of our lives: love, marriage, work, and family relationships. The author shows how schools can be true centers for quality learning. In a chapter on management in the workplace, Glasser shows why W. Edwards Deming met with such stunning success, first in Japan and later in America. Glasser also gives his view of why Southwest Airlines has been so extraordinarily successful in a highly competitive industry.

Having pointed the way to quality in our most important relationships, Glasser offers a bold proposal for creating quality communities. His proposal for vast social impact is not just a remote ideal; he describes the steps that are now being taken in one American city. If Corning, New york can do it, why not your community?

Dr. Minor Morgan is an attorney and practicing psychologist in Dallas, Texas.

Glasser contrasts his "internal control psychology" with "external control psychology" which, he claims, dominates so-called common sense thinking. The mistaken idea that we can control others destroys marriages, se! ! riously damages our educational system and generally increases problems in society.

Glasser explains how he has developed his own ideas borrowing also from those of William Powers ("Control Theory") and W. Edwards Deming (the American statistician who revolutionised the Japanese economy in the 1950s). We behave in order to satisfy genetically-based needs and, to this end, we accumulate a catalogue of effective "pictures" he calls the "quality world". Almost all our behaviour is chosen and through it we attempt to realize our pictures and satisfy our basic needs. Since Glasser sees behaviour an a totality of doing, thinking, feeling and physiology, he claims that we can make choices to change all four components. "Choice theory explains that, for all practical purposes, we choose everything we do, including the misery we feel." We are often unaware that this is a choice but once we realize it we know we can choose something diffe! ! rent.

With this important view of behaviour as a totality! Glasser recognises that physiology will change quite dramatically when a person chooses different behaviours. The mistake of many scientists and pseudo-scientists has been to confuse correlation with causality and to assume that the chemistry causes the behaviour rather than it simply accompanies it. Even in the 1970s, world famous behaviourist Albert Bandura set up remarkable research designs to locate the independent variables in systematic desensitization therapy. He found that it was not stimulus nor physiological response but the client's perception ("self efficacy") that determined the outcomes of the therapy. Psychopharmacologist Peter Breggin's different books on psychiatric drugs betray the secrets of what I call the "pseudo-scientists", those who have an agenda other than science.

In a practical section of "Choice Theory" the author spells out implications of his ideas for marriage, family, education and the workplace. Glasser p! ! rovides many case reports, some fictional some real, to illustrate not only how he would handle these situations but also the reasons for his approach at each point.

Glasser does make claims that are radical: he does not accept the standard view of "mental illness"; he emphasizes the fact that we can choose our behaviours; he says we need to change the whole system in our schools (rather than force students to adapt to unsatisfying systems). He does give clear explanations for these remarkable views but it is important to remember that this book is not written by an arm-chair theorist. Glasser's ideas on therapy are put into practice by the thousands of people around the world who have taken official training in his approach and by countless others who rely on reading and college courses. His ideas on education can be seen at work in an increasing number of schools and are generally supported by several other important educational authors. There is also a grow! ! ing body of research to support the effectiveness of his id! eas.

"Choice Theory" is essential reading for anyone in professional helping roles but thanks to the author's commitment to writing in plain English, it is a source of new ideas for everyone. His theory is beguilingly simple but in fact the ideas are remarkably profound when one considers all the ramifications of what he says.

Surprisingly Glasser does not go into a lot of detail on addictions and addictive substances in this book although he has covered the topic well in earlier publications. An alphabetical index would also have been a helpful addition to the book. Currently other authors are compiling an inventory of research into Choice Theory issues and the resulting references would also greatly enhance this book. The most important improvement perhaps is to make it available in paper-back so that a wider audience can read it.

The author of this review is a faculty member of the William Glasser Institute. So you may regard the reviewer as biased or i! ! nformed. It's your choice. Best of all, read the book and make up your own mind.