[1] Reality therapy maintains that most people suffer from socially universal human conditions rather than individual mental illnesses, and that failure to attain basic needs leads to a person's behavior moving away from the norm.
[2] The reality therapy approach to counseling and problem-solving focuses on here-and-now actions and the ability to create and choose a better future.
Typically, counseled people seek to discover what they really want and how they are currently choosing to behave in order to achieve these goals.
[4] Reality therapy was developed at the Veterans Administration hospital in Los Angeles in the early 1960s by William Glasser and his mentor and teacher, psychiatrist G. L. Harrington.
By the mid-1990s, the still evolving concepts were described as "choice theory", a term conceived and proposed by the Irish reality therapy practitioner Christine O'Brien Shanahan at the 1995 IRTI Conference in Waterford, Ireland and subsequently adopted by Glasser [citation needed].
Choice theory asserts that each of us is a self-determining being who can choose (many of our) future behaviors and hold ourselves consciously responsible for how we are acting, thinking, feeling, and also for our physiological states.
One of the core principles of reality therapy is that, whether people are aware of it or not, they are always trying to meet these essential human needs.
Reality therapy stresses one major point—people are in control of what they are currently doing in their lives whether or not it is working in their favor toward meeting their basic psychological needs for power, belonging, fun and freedom.
Reality therapy holds that the key to behavior is to remain aware of what an individual presently wants and make choices that will ensure that goal.
Reality therapists say that when patients are able to use the skills, behaviors, actions, and methods learned through the therapy in their personal lives, then they will be able to successfully work out external relationships as well.
[7] Glasser believes that there are five basic needs of all human beings: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom or independence, and fun/pleasure.
[2] The therapist focuses on realistic attainable goals in order to remedy the real life issues that are causing discomfort.
The therapist helps the client create a workable plan to reach a goal; this is at the heart of successful reality therapy.
While traditional psychoanalysis and counseling often focuses on past events, reality therapy and choice theory solutions lie in the client's present and future.
[10] Reality therapy has been shown to be effective in improving underachieving junior high school students' internal perception of control.
[10] Reality therapy can be used to help school psychologists improve students with emotional and behavioral disturbances.
[11] Cynthia Palmer Mason and Jill Duba, professors at Western Kentucky University, have proposed reality therapy techniques be applied to school counseling programs.
[12] They propose using reality therapy methods will help school counselors develop positive therapeutic relationships and improve students' self esteem.
[13] According to Klug, reality therapy in coaching helps build relationships, a healthy teaching environment and brings a definitive purpose to goal setting.
[14] It is suggested that applied reality therapy methods may help children evaluate their eating behaviors, set realistic goals and integrate effective self-evaluation.
[14] Sheryl Prenzlau, a social worker in Israel, has found empirical evidence to suggest that reality therapy can reduce somatization and rumination behaviors associated with PTSD.
[15] The main limitation regarding reality therapy is that it primarily and exclusively deals with the current and the present problems of the individuals.
Not looking to unlock trauma or recurring dreams, reality therapy's only workable arena is the present and going forward in the best possible way, while remembering the importance of taking responsibility for one's own actions and realizing that the only person one can control is oneself.
Apart from specific brain pathology, Glasser argues that mental illness is a result of unsatisfying present relationships or general unhappiness.
[3] An opposing view to this is, that many other schools of therapy (especially cognitive approaches) focus on the present rather than the past, and that the concept of disconnection (or failure to correctly perceive how motive and inner need/intent are linked), is in some form or other, at the root of dysfunction is also considered not unusual, according to several other accepted schools of therapy, from transpersonal psychology to transactional analysis.