Reality Therapy
D J Sahoo
For most of my life, I was a strong believer in conventional psychology, which focuses on finding the psychological roots of an individual's problems. The idea is that once a person's past traumas are brought to the surface and dissected, he will be able to change his attitude toward life and, in turn, alter his behavior. All of this made perfect sense to me.
At the same time, I was a staunch nonbeliever in the concept of "behavioral modification," which is in total conflict with conventional psychology. Behavioral modification seemed to imply synthetic change, which is why I associated it with the rah-rah slogan "Just fake it till you make it."
But my attitude toward both traditional psychotherapy and behavioral modification changed when I started learning about "reality therapy," a psychotherapy method created by Dr. William Glasser.
I'm no expert on this subject. My goal here is to simplify reality therapy in an effort to share some information and insights that I believe could be helpful to you in your quest for a better life.
The
central focus of reality therapy is fulfillment of an individual's
needs. This has nothing to do with his past, no matter how traumatic
his past experiences may have been.
However, it is important to
understand that reality therapy does not deny the existence of past
problems. Rather, it just views them as unnecessary when it comes to
helping someone fulfill his present needs.
The corollary to the above is that if you learn to fulfill your needs in the present, the past no longer matters. A perfect example would be an individual who has experienced a bad first marriage. The sooner such a person can find happiness in a second marriage, the sooner his/her first marriage will become a distant memory.
Therefore, to the reality therapist, it's a waste of time to sit around and lament what has happened to us in the past and continue to use old traumas as an excuse for our present unhappiness. The only things you can change are your thoughts and actions of today.
Reality therapy teaches that the key to fulfilling our needs is responsible behavior. As Dr. Glasser puts it, "Happiness occurs most often when we are willing to take responsibility for our behavior. ... Responsible behavior leads to a feeling of self-worth."
Responsible behavior pretty much coincides with practicing the virtuous traits that are the bedrock of Western life. People demonstrate responsible behavior through such traits as hard work, saving for the future, civility, loyalty, respect, honesty, temperance, and charity.
While we can't change the past, we do have the capacity to control how we think and act today. This capacity is known as "free will." We are the only living creatures who can change the nature of our existence by altering events.
It is free will that makes behavioral modification work. For example, someone smoked until s/he was in her late twenties, but s/he stopped in one day. Through free will, s/he was able to modify my behavior by accepting reality - smoking was an irresponsible behavior - and employing one of the most important of all responsible traits - self-discipline.
Whatever it is that you don't like about your present life - business, personal, or otherwise - don't sit around and blame it on the past. Just as important, don't feel that you have to get at the deeply rooted, underlying causes of your problems.
I have absolutely no doubt that you, as a human being blessed with the awesome faculty of free will, have the capacity to take action - TODAY - to do the right thing.
--DIVYA JEEVAN SAHOO
http://www.djcosmos.in/
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