Choice Theory and the linked practice of Reality Therapy were developed by Dr William Glasser (1925-2013). His approach is based on the view that we are motivated to achieve basic needs which are Power, Belonging, Freedom, Fun and Survival. We are sometimes effective and sometimes ineffective in how we try to meet our needs. Reality Therapy is a form of cognitive behavioural therapy.
Dr William Glasser
William Glasser Institute Ireland
Reality Therapy is an approach to counselling developed by Dr William Glasser in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s. Choice Theory explains why Reality Therapy works. People often assume that Reality Therapy has something to do with giving people “a dose of reality.” In fact the approach is far more people-friendly than that.
Our Five Basic Needs
Almost all approaches to psychology assume that people have certain basic needs and, indeed, there is broad agreement on what these needs are.
In Choice Theory they are classified under five headings:
· Power (which includes achievement and feeling worthwhile as well as winning).
· Love & Belonging (includes groups as well as families or loved ones).
· Freedom (includes independence, autonomy, your own ‘space’).
· Fun (includes pleasure and enjoyment).
· Survival (includes nourishment, shelter, sex).
One of the core principles of Choice Theory is that, whether we are aware of it or not, we are all the time behaving to meet these needs.
But we don’t necessarily behave effectively. Socialising with people is an effective way to meet our need for belonging. Sitting in a corner and crying in the hope that people will come to us is generally an ineffective way of meeting that need – it may work for a while, but it is painful and carries a terribly high price for ourselves and others. Most of our troubles are linked to problems in relationships.
If you keep the basic needs in mind you can help clients identify the areas of their lives that are out of control or are not getting enough attention. You can also help the client to realise that wanting more freedom or fun, for example, in his or her own life is not selfishness but is based on a basic human need.
The key is what we want
Nobody ever gets up in the morning and says, “I must meet my Love & Belonging need today.”
We are more likely to say something along the lines of, “I wonder if Mary is free for lunch today” or “Maybe we can get the gang together on Friday night.” We want to have lunch with Mary or to marry John or to go out with our pals on Friday night or we want “our” football team or “our” political party to win.
So what really drives us as social beings is our wants. We don’t think of our needs as such. We think of what we want, behave to get what we want, fantasise about what we want and so on.
A workable plan
The counsellor in Reality Therapy helps the client to make workable plans to get what he or she wants.
A workable plan is a plan YOU can implement – in other words, it concentrates on the things that are in YOUR control to do:
· Maybe you can’t make your spouse speak to you but you can speak to your spouse;
· Maybe you can’t make your teenage son treat you with respect but you can decide that you will no longer provide a catering service to a son who treats you with contempt;
· Maybe you can’t make the company give you a promotion but you can look for a promotion, and apply for the job when it comes up;
In this way, Reality Therapy empowers the client by emphasising the power of doing what is in the client’s control to do.
Doing: the heart of Reality Therapy
Doing is the heart of Reality Therapy.
Emotions are a wonderful, immediate and “alive” source of information about how we are doing and whether we are happy with what is going on in our lives. But it is very, very hard to change our emotions directly.
It is easier to change our thinking: to decide, for example, that we will no longer think of ourselves as victims or to decide that in our thoughts we will concentrate on what we can do rather than what we think everybody else ought to do.
But to practitioners of Reality Therapy changing what we do is the key to changing how we feel and to getting what we want.
Indeed, we are sometimes so caught up in anger, depression or resentment that even changing how we think becomes an impossible task – in such situations a positive change in what we do may be the best we can manage.
The issue of control is also of great importance in Reality Therapy. Indeed, the theory underpinning Reality Therapy was, until recently, called Control Theory: it is now called Choice Theory.
The key issue of control
To meet their needs human beings need control: one person seeks control through position and money; another wants to control his or her physical space, like the teenager who bans all parents and parent-like persons from her room; another wants to chair the committee; another wants an office with a corner and two windows; another wants two lamb chops, Heinz beans and three boiled potatoes on the table at precisely 6.30 pm.
Control gets us into trouble in two primary ways: when we try to control other people, and when we use drugs and alcohol to give us a false sense of control.
At the very heart of Glasser’s Choice Theory is the idea that the only person I can really control is myself. If I think I can control others I am moving in the direction of frustration. Trying to control other people is a mug’s game: it is a never-ending battle, alienates us from others and causes endless pain and frustration. Even the most frightening dictator can never rest – those whom he is trying to control are always liable to rebel.
Similarly, if I think others can control me, and so are to blame for all that goes on in my life, I tend to do nothing effective and again head for frustration. This is not to deny that we can be subjected to violent and coercive situations but while we are alive we have choices even in these situations. In the worst situations these choices may not be enough to save us or they may be painful or they may be choices we wish we never had to make. For instance a person in an abusive situation may have to choose whether to stay or go, though both choices are painful – there is, nevertheless, a choice and that realisation may empower the person to choose to get away.
Unfortunately, we can get an instant sense of control from alcohol and some other drugs. But our lives are never more out of control than when we are drunk or drugged. There are very few people in this world who ever woke up with a hangover to find that they had fewer problems than they had when they started drinking the night before.
Excessive drinking and the use of drugs have to be replaced by doing something else – and that something else has to have a fair chance of getting us what we want in life. Many people working in the addiction field have found this approach useful.
The solution is in the present and the future
Counselling is often thought to involve delving into the past. Practitioners of Reality Therapy also visit the past but probably to a lesser extent than those who use other therapies – this is not a criticism of those who use other therapies, it is simply a way in which Reality Therapy is different.
In Reality Therapy the past is seen as the source of our wants and of our ways of behaving. Not only are the bad things that happened to us there but our successes are there too. The focus of the practitioner of Reality Therapy is to learn what needs to be learned about the past but to move as quickly as feasible to empowering the client to satisfy his or her needs and wants in the present and in the future.
This is because it is our present perceptions that influence our present behaviour and so it is these perceptions that the Reality Therapy practitioner helps the client to work through. It is very much a therapy of hope, based on the conviction that we are products of the past but we do not have to go on being its victims.
Differences
There are many ways to meet our needs for survival, belonging, freedom, fun and power. People differ in how they meet these needs. We all need to eat but I want a steak and you want a pizza. We even differ in the details: if we both want steak I may want mine medium and you want yours rare. I want a government which will pay for social services for people on low incomes; you want a government which will cut welfare and taxes. To the extent that we can respect the fact that other people – including those nearest and dearest to us – want different things than we want, we can live in harmony. If we cannot respect these differences, then we must live in conflict.
In Choice Theory all the things a person wants are described as making that person’s Quality World. For any two people some of the things in their Quality World will overlap (i.e. they want some of the same things) but many, perhaps most, will be different. We must be willing to allow these differences if we are to have harmony in our relationships.
Total Behaviour
To get what we want, we behave. We are engaging in one behaviour or another from the time we are born to the time we die. But this behaviour has components and when these are put together we can think of them as constituting Total Behaviour.
At any time, four things are happening for us: what we are doing, what we are thinking, what we are feeling and what is going on in our bodies.
Sometimes these activities work in harmony. For instance, if we are pleased we may be smiling (doing), thinking positive thoughts, feeling content and physically relaxed. If we are angry we may be shouting (doing), thinking angry thoughts, feel that we are in a rage and have our hearts beating quickly and our muscles tensed up.
Often, the four activities are going in different directions. If you are sitting in a dentist’s waiting room and you hear the drill starting up, your feelings may tell you to run but your thinking may tell you to stay. Your body may be tensed up with heart racing and adrenaline pumping. And what you are doing may be thumbing idly through an out of date copy of Hello! magazine.
You could say that at any one time we are behaving in each of these four ways: feeling, thinking, doing, physiology. We can call this combination our Total Behaviour. If we can change one of these, then we have a good chance of changing the others.
It is hard to change our feelings directly. It is easier to change what we are thinking and easiest of all to change what we are doing.
So the golden rule is: if you want to change how you feel, begin by changing what you are doing or what you are thinking.
Changing How I Feel
Consider the four components of behaviour: Doing, Thinking, Feeling, Physiology.
Which of these leads me from one moment to another? If I am led by my feelings I may be in difficulty: if I feel angry I may lash out at someone or I may become depressed to suppress the anger.
Moreover, if there is something I need to do, it would be a mistake to wait until I feel right about it before I do it. Suppose there’s an important phone call I have to make but which I never actually feel like making when the time comes to do it. If I am led, on a moment-to-moment basis, by how I feel, there is a good chance I will never make the call, or that I will postpone it until I am in trouble and cannot put it off any longer.
But I can change my focus so that I am purpose-led instead of feelings-led. I am still very aware of my feelings – they are the warm, beating heart of my life – but my purpose is my moment to moment guide and my orientation is towards doing.
So now I make my telephone call, even though I don’t feel like making it at this particular moment. With the phone call made, I – hopefully – feel relief, a return of energy, perhaps even a little elation.
Paradoxically, by focusing on what I can do rather than on what I feel, I arrive at a point where my feelings become pleasant and positive.
Sometimes the good feeling takes longer to arrive. If I am grieving over the end of a relationship or over a death, I will, hopefully, get to the point where I am doing things I want to do – seeing friends, taking a break and so on – but it may be a long time before this “feels” right and before I start to feel good. But I will get there, if I have the courage to keep working at it – and it will help greatly if I have friends to help me along the way.
This raises an important point about the things we want: Sometimes I cannot move ahead unless I change what I want.
Suppose I want the renewal of a relationship and that I want this more than anything else, but that I know it simply isn’t going to happen. For a time, part of the pain I am in comes from wanting something I can never have or can never have again. This wanting and this pain is part of grieving. But eventully, to be able to get on with my life, I must be willing to give more of my attention to other needs and wants in my life. This is so even though when I start to do this I will still be in pain. It is a bit like taking a picture and moving it to the back of your album instead of keeping it at the front.
So in order to bring about change in our lives, we must do something different or change what we want. If I want to be a good athlete but I spend my mornings in bed, I must change what I do – get up and start running instead of snoozing – or change what I want – perhaps decide that what I really want out of life is to be a couch potato.
We can also change what we think and this is helpful but sometimes our emotions are so strong – with grief or depression for instance – that all we can change is what we do, and our thoughts have to follow afterwards.
Everybody Needs Control
We try to control ourselves, people and situations to meet our needs or to get what we want. Everybody needs a certain amount of control to meet their needs for power, belonging, freedom and fun.
The most important word to notice here is “everybody”. You need a certain amount of control but so does your partner. The boss needs a certain amount of control but so does the worker. The parent needs a certain amount of control but so does the child.
When people fail to recognise that the other person also has a need for control, the stage is set for conflict. If, however, we are willing to negotiate and compromise we can find ways to cooperate and create a better life.
Sometimes we ask for what we want. This respects the sense of control of both parties. (If you don’t believe asking is an attempt to gain some control consider the outrage in the workhouse when Oliver Twist “asked for more.” To the authorities in the workhouse these children were not entitled to try to exercise any control over what happened to them and even asking for more porridge was a breach of that rule.)
Sometimes instead of asking, we demand what we want. But demanding what we want ignores the other person’s sense of control and they will want to resist us.
Control is all around us. Here are two examples: If I’m scared to go to work and stay in bed instead, I am controlling my situation at least to the extent of not going to work. A better way to control that situation might be to talk to my boss or my union or to look for another job. If I buy a lottery ticket I am trying to exercise a little bit of control over my future, however poor the chances of winning. I might achieve the same objective, more surely, if I put money into a savings account or pension plan.
Here are the two key points about control:
1. Regardless of how we feel we almost always have some control over what we do.
2. If you do something that is better than what you are doing now, there is a good chance that your thoughts and feelings will also change in a more positive direction, even though the change may not come straight away.
Conflict in Choice Theory and Reality Therapy
People seem to fight over everything from how a country should be governed to how the living room should be decorated. It is as if conflict arises from very fundamental aspects of how our minds work. Some causes of conflict, from the point of view of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy, are these:
2. Satisfying our fundamental needs. Satisfying my need for power will bring me into conflict with other people who have an equally strong need for power. Satisfying my need for freedom will bring me into conflict with people who have a strong need for power or belonging (in the case of belonging I may be mistreating a loved one by indulging my need for freedom). Satisfying my need for fun may bring me into conflict with other people too.
Generally speaking, conflicts can be thought of as true or false. A true conflict has no satisfactory solution, at least in the short term. A false conflict has a solution but it may be one which we don’t feel like implementing.
True Conflicts
In a true conflict there is no single solution which will satisfy both sides. In a false conflict there is a solution, often tough and unpalatable, which will resolve the issue.
Mary insists that she wants to live in Dublin, John insists that he wants to live in London. Neither is willing to live anywhere outside of one of these cities. This is a true conflict. There is no solution which will satisfy both. How might they handle this conflict? Here are some possibilities good and bad, satisfying and unsatisfying, from the perspective of Reality Therapy and Choice Theory:
1. Keep the conflict going. One way is to keep the conflict going for a long time. This could include fighting, threatening, coaxing, sulking resenting, depressing (getting depressed), getting sick or drinking to name but a few. This may be ineffective and painful and could destroy the relationship.
2. Turn it over to time. In other words, postpone a decision and get on with doing things which both find meet their needs. The things which meet their needs may not be the same for each of them – what matters is that each can put his or her energies into satisfying activities in which they are not in conflict, while postponing a decision on the major conflict. Perhaps Mary wants to do an evening course which will take three months. Perhaps John wants to join a health club and get into shape.
The world never stands still and something may happen in the meantime to resolve the situation that they are most in conflict about – which city to live in.
3. Try it and see. A third approach is to agree to try one solution for a time and then to assess whether it is acceptable to both parties. So John might agree that they will live in Dublin for four months and then look at the situation again. This approach is common in industrial relations – usually where the union agrees to try out a new work arrangement and the management agrees to a joint review after six months or a year.
Grieving over someone who has died or over a relationship which has irrevocably ended or over a situation which has changed for the worse (perhaps children grieving because their parents have split up) is an example of a true conflict. There is a conflict between wanting the old situation and having to live in the new. There is no immediate solution which will resolve the conflict in a satisfactory way. Only time, and doing other things which are satisfying, will heal the grief.
False Conflicts
There is no true conflict between maintaining my weight at its present level and eating all I like – so long as I am willing to run many miles a day.
There is no true conflict between working and studying for a degree – so long as I am prepared to spend my evenings studying and my money on fees instead of other things.
If there is a single behaviour which would resolve it, then the conflict is a false conflict.
Very often when we are “stuck”, “in a rut”, “not able to move forward”, we are in a false conflict.
We may be letting our family exploit us, we may be in a job we don’t want to be in, we may be in a bad relationship: but we stay there, although there is a tough alternative.
Perhaps we stay because we are afraid of failure if we try to go it alone, or for the sake of someone else caught in the same bad relationship or because we need the money to educate our children. So there are good and bad reasons for staying in a false conflict. Good reasons often reflect our values: doing our best for our children, for instance. Bad reasons may have to do with fear, a poor self-image or a habit of blaming the rest of the world for our problems.
Choice Theory, Reality Therapy and Depression
In Reality Therapy and Choice Theory, depression is seen as a way of dealing with the gulf between what we have and what we want. Because depression is seen in this way, Choice Theory always holds out the possibility of overcoming depression. And, as is clear below, Choice Theory does not see depression as being bad all the time. Sometimes it is better than the alternatives – what is important is not to trap ourselves in depression. What is more important is to know that the path out of depression begins with changing what we want or changing how we behave.
Depression can do four things for us and knowing what these are can help us to begin the climb out into the light. These four things can be thought of under the letters ACHE.
A for Anger
Depression is often considered an alternative to anger and sometimes it can be better to choose depression than anger. If you make a habit of lashing out when anything goes wrong, you can alienate other people and often make matters worse. Consider how many relationships anger has destroyed. Consider how many lives anger has destroyed. Anger has its place, and it often gives us the energy for change, or the energy to stand up for ourselves. But it can be destructive too. Depression can be a safe, temporary alternative to anger. It becomes unsafe when it goes on for too long.
C for Control
Depression gives us a certain amount of control over people and situations. It may help us to avoid taking risks, to stay in a safe environment. To a certain extent, people will try to avoid upsetting us when we are depressed. If we are absolutely devastated by something that has happened, depression may give us the only control over our lives that we can handle at the time. The price for this control, however, can be high because of the suffering that comes with depression. By definition, nobody enjoys depression – if we did, it would not be depression.
H for Help
Depression brings us a certain amount of help. This may be help from friends, from a doctor or from an institution. Some people need this help for a time. Again, if it goes on too long people may stop helping us and in any event depression is a high price to pay for the help we get. But why don’t we just ask for help? For many of us, it isn’t such an easy thing to do, to say “I am in a bad way, please help me.” Many of us have the tendency, when asked “What’s wrong?” to reply, “Nothing,” even though there may be a great deal wrong. Depression can get us help without us having to ask for it.
E for Excuse
Depression can excuse us for not doing what we should do. It can be a way of avoiding pain. If I am depressed, how can I be expected to get out and about, dress well, work, face my problems etc? Yet, very often, it is only by doing these things – even, at an extreme, by doing something, anything at all – that I can start to climb out of a depression.
So if I am depressed Choice Theory would say that I can begin to climb out of the depression by taking action.
I have no direct control over the feeling of depression. I may, if I am in the depths of depression, have little or no control over my thoughts. All I can control is what I do. Maybe all I can do is get out of bed and sit by the window, or get out of bed and go downstairs and that may be enough to start getting the depression to lift.
When I can do a little more, I should try to do something more. Ideally I should focus on small things that I want and that I can get.
Maybe I want my children back living with me, but I can’t get that, they’ve grown up and flown the nest: but maybe I can telephone or write to them, maybe I can spend more time with my friends or more time doing something else that I want to do and that is unattainable.
I may also need to change what I want – in this case to accept that my children will never return to live with me.
Is this easy? No, sometimes it’s very difficult and takes a long time. Our feelings, thoughts and actions are linked but sometimes we have to do something for quite a long time before our feelings follow and become positive. But though this work can be slow, and though we don’t feel like getting started, it will be worth it in the long run.
Medication and Depression
Dr William Glasser, who developed Reality Therapy, has a great deal to say about medication in his books. He has the qualifications to discuss medication. I do not, and my attitude is that I have nothing useful to contribute on the topic. But I believe that, whether you are on medication or not, the practice of Choice Theory can make your life better.
As well as the need to survive, which we share with other creatures, human beings have four key psychological needs. We are always attempting to meet these psychological needs.
Belonging (Connection)
This can mean being with our spouse or partner, being part of a family, part of a workplace or a team or a nation. Examples of how we meet this need are: social events, forming a couple or family, phone calls, voluntary work, texting, writing letters or social networking.
Power (Efficacy)
This can mean a sense of achievement, being respected, winning, feeling worthwhile and being in command of ourselves or of situations. It can also mean dominating, bullying, controlling and exploiting other people.
Freedom (Autonomy)
This can mean making our own choices, having our own space, being autonomous. It can also mean anything from walking around the block on your own to sailing around the world!
Fun (Play)
This can mean pleasure, enjoyment, laughter, playfulness.
Each of us has these four psychological needs. But usually one need is more important than the others. Which need this is can vary from person to person.
For instance, one person will be very much into Belonging and may go to great efforts to “keep the peace” or may organise lots of social events. A person mainly into Power may take on a leadership role, could be seen as bossy, or may push themselves very hard to achieve something. Someone with a very strong Freedom need may prefer to work alone, may need to spend lots of time on their own and may find close relationships quite constraining. If your primary need is for Fun you may find it hard to knuckle down to an unexciting work routine and you may enjoy learning new things (playing and learning are closely linked in children).
But remember we all have all four needs. While one of these needs may be stronger in you than the others, you still have all four. So although you may have, for instance, a strong Freedom need, the loss of important relationships will upset you because you also have a Belonging need. If Power is important to you but you are working sixteen hours a day to achieve, you are likely to feel frustrated because your needs for Fun, Freedom and Belonging are being frustated.
So try to make room for meeting all four of your psychological needs – and when you’re feeling very frustrated ask yourself which need is not being met. Then ask what you can do to meet it.
(Based on the work of Dr William Glasser, author of ‘Choice Theory’, ‘Reality Therapy’, and other books.)
Mindfulness and Choice Theory are very compatible – Mindfulness can help us see more clearly what needs are not being met. For my 15-lesson online mindfulness course, Easy Mindfulness, click here
by Padraig O’Morain
Published in the Conference Journal of the European Convention of the William Glasser Institute, WGII, Dublin, 2005
Why should those of us who use Choice Theory and Reality Therapy in our lives or work concern ourselves with the practice of mindfulness?
The answer is that mindfulness practice is not only compatible with Choice Theory but is also a very useful tool in Reality Therapy.
Mindfulness practice is becoming increasingly popular. Books and training courses on “living in the now” are proliferating. There is increasing interest in using mindfulness in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. The work of Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn at the Stress Reduction Clinic of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center has brought mindfulness practice into mainstream medicine. Dr Kabat-Zinn teaches his patients to use mindfulness and yoga exercises to enable them to live better with pain and chronic stress.
What is mindfulness practice? Essentially, it involves choosing to be aware of what is happening for us right here and right now.
Right now you are reading this article. You are breathing. Perhaps you are drinking a coffee at the same time.
Later you may be talking to somebody or driving or walking along a street.
Mindfulness practice simply means that you choose to be aware that you are doing these things while you are doing them.
“Simply,” however, is the wrong word. Try as you will to stay in the “now” you will find yourself drifting into thoughts of the past or future or into fantasy.
During these times you are not in touch with present reality. You are in a dream world.
Because of the mind’s tendency to drift away, the practice of mindfulness involves choosing again and again to bring your attention back into the present.
The connection with Choice Theory is this: we make choices in and out of awareness; the more awareness we have, the more control we can exercise over the choices we make.
One of the major sources of mindfulness practice is Buddhism. Buddhist psychology places a high value on awareness of what is happening to free us from unhelpful mental habits and false perceptions. It also places a high value on developing the ability to make new, beneficial choices rather than almost automatically following well-worn paths.
There is another parallel with Choice Theory: Buddhist psychology also values working with our behaviours in the present rather than dwelling on the past.
The following are some other ways in which the practice of mindfulness can be helpful to those who apply Choice Theory to their own lives or who use Reality Therapy at work:
When we consider a situation in a mindful, aware state, we have a far better chance of seeing the choices available and of making considered choices. For instance, when we compare a perception to a Quality World picture we may experience a frustration signal and act, effectively or ineffectively, to get what we want; or we may experience satisfaction and act to get the same experience again. But is the particular Quality World picture we are trying to meet one which we should be trying to meet at all? Is there another picture we would do better to try to meet instead? Mindfulness provides a mental space in which we can ask ourselves these questions. Otherwise the questions may not even occur.
One of the essential aspects of the practice of Reality Therapy is to adopt a non-punitive approach to persons whose plans are not working or who, indeed, have failed to carry through a plan. This is also an essential component of the practice of mindfulness. People practicing mindfulness are asked to take a kind, non-judgemental approach to themselves. They are encouraged just to accept it when they find their mind has wandered, as it will a thousand times a day. They are reminded that the key aspect of the practice of mindfulness is not to be aware of everything every moment of the day but to always bring your mind back gently to awareness every time it wanders off into a fantasy.
The concept of organised behaviours as – if I understand it correctly – sequences of actions which worked for us in the past and which we tend to repeat even when they have stopped working for us is very important in Reality Therapy. It is very easy to overlook these behaviours, though, because they so often take place just outside our awareness. Mindfulness brings the organised behaviours back into awareness at least at those times when we are remembering to be mindful. This makes it much easier to spot organised behaviours which no longer work. Awareness also makes it easier to change the organised behaviour in beneficial ways. So a person, for instance, who has a habit of gulping his alcoholic drinks can bring that behaviour into awareness and choose to sip instead, thereby lowering his overall intake of alcohol.
Some applications of mindfulness practice in situations which practitioners of Reality Therapy are commonly asked to help with are:
A mindfulness-based approach to panic attacks might include asking the person to be aware of the four components of Total Behaviour during the attack. What exactly happens to you physiologically, what is going through your mind, how do you feel emotionally, what do you actually do while it is going on? Is it possible for you to experience the panic attack without judging it as good or bad, without running away from it? Can you notice what other people are doing while you are having the panic attack? Can you notice that other people don’t actually realise you are having a panic attack? Encouraging the person to attend to all the aspects of Total Behaviour in this way and not just the one which is uppermost in his or her mind can help to give the person some degree of detachment from what is going on and some degree of control over his or her actions.
Where a person is suffering from groundless anxiety most of us would, as practitioners of Reality Therapy, encourage that person to take action to meet Quality World pictures despite the anxiety. If the person manages to do satisfying things, then the anxiety will abate sooner or later. In mindfulness, the person would be encouraged to simply be aware of the anxiety without feeling a need to have it dictate his or her actions and to go ahead and do whatever needs to be done while allowing the anxiety to just be there. This works hand in glove with the Reality Therapy approach: just go ahead and do what needs doing, even though the anxiety is there, they both say. One way of putting it is to say, “Allow the anxiety to accompany you” while you go about doing what you need to do.
Mindfulness can be a powerful tool for anybody using a Choice Theory approach to depression. The person who has suffered recurrent bouts of depression needs to know that there is something that can be done about it as soon as the first signs of depression appear. That something, for the practitioner of Reality Therapy, is to engage is more beneficial doing, thinking or doing behaviours. People working on the application of mindfulness to the treatment of depression take the same approach.
They suggest that persons who have been badly depressed a number of times before tend to make one fundamental error. At the first sign of fatigue or low mood or negative thinking they assume the depression is back. They then think themselves into a de*pression by “awfulising” about it, or they stay in bed because of their fatigue, or they drop their normal activities. What they need to do as soon as they spot any of the “signals” of depression is the opposite: stay physically active to combat fatigue, do more rather than less and think as positively as they can under the circumstances.
That’s a standard Reality Therapy approach. Where mindfulness can help is in enabling the person to spot that very first “signal” that depression might be “coming back”. Once spotted, it can be tackled. So encouraging people to be aware of the “signal” when it occurs can be a useful tool for any helper who uses a Reality Therapy approach to helping others.
I would add that because mindfulness involves being aware of what is going on in the present moment with the people and objects around you as well as with yourself it can help to reduce the tendency to brood and ruminate. Since rumination can get people into a depressed state and keep them there – rumination is ruination! I tell my clients – anything that counteracts that tendency is valuable.
Awareness of breathing Wherever your mind may be, your breathing is always in the present moment. So remaining awareness of breathing is a standard method for cultivating mindfulness. You don’t have to breathe in any special way to do this: just be aware of your breathing, that’s all. You’ll drift away a thousand times, of course, but keep coming back to it. The heart of the practice is choosing to bring your mind back when you discover it has drifted away.
Awareness of posture Are you standing, sitting, walking or lying down right now? As you are walking along a street, can you be aware that this is what you are doing? I am aware that thinking while walking is a great pleasure for many of us but try coming back into the here and now sometimes too! There is a whole world out there which you may not have seen for a long time.
Awareness triggers These are activities which you decide you will carry out in awareness as a help to developing mindfulness. These could include: walking up the stairs, answering the telephone, using your computer mouse, driving (instead of fulminating at other drivers!), having a shower or any of a myriad of everyday activities.
At the start of this article, I mentioned the use of mindfulness practice by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts for patients with chronic pain and stress. If you read his book Full Catastrophe Living, in which he describes his method, you will be struck by its parallels with the principles of Choice Theory.
A similar approach has now been introduced in Ireland by a GP, Dr Kate Healy and Mr KD Ryan, director of the Dublin Buddhist Centre, through their Blue Sky course.
Below I list some books and websites on mindfulness and therapy and on Buddhist psychology. I would particularly recommend Dr Kabat-Zinn’s book, Wherever You Go, There You Are, an interesting read full of good ideas for anybody who wants to explore the use of mindfulness in daily life.
Brantley, Jeffrey. 2003. Calming your anxious mind: how mindfulness and compassion can free you from anxiety, fear and panic. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications Inc.
Kabat-Zinn, Jon. 1991. Full Catastrophe Living: Using the wisdom of your body and mind to face stress, pain and illness. New York: Delta.
Kabat-Zinn, Jon. 1994. Wherever you go, there you are: mindfulness meditation in everyday life. New York: Hyperion.
McQuaid, John R. and Carmona, Paula E. 2004. Peaceful Mind: using mindfulness & Cognitive Behavioral Psychology to overcome depression. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications Inc.
O’Morain, Padraig, 2009. Light Mind – mindfulness in daily life. Dublin: Veritas
O’Morain, Padraig, 2007. Like A Man – a guide to men’s emotional wellbeing. Dublin: Veritas.
choice_theory_in_the_office.pdf
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A niece of mine worked in McDonalds during her holidays from university. I assumed in my, I suppose, snobbish way that the experience would be boring and unpleasant. Not at all, she said. She loved working there because of the great atmosphere among her co-workers. It was, she said, “fun”.
Fun, I think we can agree, meets a psychological desire for most of us – if you need convincing, look at the size of the entertainment industry.
We all know that the need to survive, to put food on the table and a roof over our heads, provides a strong motivator for going to work and that we meet that need through the money we earn from work.
But work, as the example above suggests, helps us to meet not only our basic survival need but our psychological needs too.
According to the psychological theory developed in the United States by Dr William Glasser, known as Choice Theory, we can group our psychological needs under four headings: belonging, power, fun and freedom. A good workplace helps us meet all of them.
At the most intense level, we meet our need for belonging in one-to-one relationships and in family settings. We also meet it by belonging to particular groups at work. If the company is too big to belong to, we belong in our section of the company or even in our little independent republic within that section. Some may derive their belonging, not from the company but from a particular craft or calling or from being members of a particular union. I suspect that those – in my opinion – heroes of commerce, salesmen and saleswomen have a sense of belonging among themselves which cuts across company loyalties. At the most basic level, people foster this sense of belonging by complaining about management’s total inability to manage! If you’re a manager, don’t let it bother you: it’s a bonding thing and you probably did it yourself.
And what of power? However much we may protest to the contrary, we all desire power, too, and there are loads of ways to get it at work. The notion of power, as Glasser defines it, doesn’t just apply to being able to give the orders or to competing and winning. A sense of achievement or “worthwhileness”, say from a job well done or an obstacle overcome, provides a shot of personal power. On the negative side, the person who designs a requisitions form so awkward that nothing can get requisitioned anymore could be on a little power trip – as can any of us when we are being a total, absolute and complete pain in the neck. Remember, we need power but that there are healthy and unhealthy ways of getting it.
Along with fun, belonging and power we have a psychological desire for freedom in the sense of independence or autonomy. The notion of designing work in such a way as to give employees a sense of freedom – through enabling them to make choices – is well-established. But people also get freedom by coming into work late, taking long lunches, refusing to fill in that new requisitions form, dressing flamboyantly and so on. Or it may be that the money you earn is financing a move towards a new career or living situation which also represents freedom to you. Some of those people who clean the office and who you may never see are, in my experience, likely to be working to get independence in their lives outside the workplace.
One way or another, your workplace is probably helping you to meet all these desires, effectively or ineffectively. Do people who trade in futures get a little power surge when the gamble works, do they bond by forwarding silly emails, do they have fun in the bar after work and do they get freedom by going around unshaven and unkempt at the weekend? You bet they do!
Look around you and you’ll see it everywhere in the workplace: the smokers all bonding in the smoking room, the office politician getting little surges of power out of planning and plotting, the fun brigade giggling in the canteen, that guy who’s good at his job so long as you leave him alone and let him do it his way.
And underpinning our continuous attempts to get power, fun, belonging and freedom into our lives, and to survive, is our ability to control, in sensible ways, ourselves and our environment.
The above article was published in Business & Finance, Dublin, on 10th April 2003
For information on Padraig O’Morain’s forthcoming mindfulness workshops (these are not necessarily linked to Choice Theory but they are what I mainly do) click here.
