Chapter 11: Reality Therapy

   Reality Therapy was developed by William Glasser. Reality Therapy holds that essentially humans ar positive by nature. Naivety is not apart of this however while theorists believe humans can be loving, forgiving, and altruistic, they can also be beguiled, bewildered, and selfish with their actions possibly appearing halting and horrifying to others. People also are the ones who choose their own behaviors and a 'real world' exists as based by societies consensual agreement. Reality Therapy also states there are 5 basic needs, survival, love, belonging, power, freedom, and fun. The Quality World (World of Wants) are the mental images and need fulfilling things/people that make us feel good due to their need satisfying nature. Total Behavior encompasses the 4 components of acting, thinking, feeling and physiology. Of these behaviors acting and thinking are more easily under a humans control than feelings and physiology however these last two generally follow the first two. The basis of Reality Therapy is Choice Theory which states we choose everything we do including feelings of pain or misery however we cannot choose the actions/behaviors of others only ourselves.
   In a college setting student will be introduced to new experiences and environments. This may throw a students Quality World askew as, fulfilling their needs may become more difficult or people/things that previously fulfilled these needs are no longer available. This may cause a student to choose actions that are viewed as negative in accordance to society in the attempts of fulfilling these basic needs. As student affairs we may have the responsibility to help these students. Guide them in focusing on the here and now while working towards making new choices.