Depression or Depressing????

The following was an inquiry made and addressed by Dr. Robert Wubbolding

Enjoy his thoughtful response

Thank you for your inquiry regarding the issue about "depressing" and
being depressed". Dr. Glasser is now retired and I am answering his correspondence regarding such inquiries.

There are several points that need to be made regarding this issue:

1. It is important to understand what is essential to choice theory and reality therapy and what is peripheral. The issue of choice regarding emotions is not essential to practicing or teaching CT/RT.

2. The word choice is used with a wide range of meanings. To say that we choose our emotions among which is depression is not to say that we have complete control over them. In fact, even within the theory itself it is quite appropriate to say that at times we have very little control over how we feel.

3. Therefore, it is helpful to distinguish behaviors over which we have more effective control such as our actions from other behaviors over which we have less control such as emotions. It is useful to understand this nebulous word "choice" as encompassing a wide range of possibilities. When I teach choice theory/reality therapy, I prefer to state that feelings and emotions are generated from within and not thrust on us from the outside world.

4. To say that feelings originate inside of us is not to blame or to find fault with a person who is depressed. It merely means that they possibly have more control over their feelings than they previously thought. This does not mean that they can easily relinquish a depression. Nor does it mean that a therapist should function outside the standard of care or the standard of practice.

5. Using reality therapy empowers clients and the last thing we intend to do is to blame them. For example, if people are in danger of being attacked and feel fear or panic, no sensible human being would blame them or simply say that they are choosing their behavior. Rather, a good reality therapist would say that these feelings are the best behaviors available to them at that time, perhaps the only behaviors available, and that they feel them because they have a need for survival and more specifically they want to be safe.

6. Choice theory and reality therapy do not underemphasize client history or environmental circumstances. The purpose of the 10 axioms is to illustrate that CT/RT emphasizes client empowerment without demeaning them or heaping scorn on them in any way whatsoever.

7. It is a therapeutic system based on the necessity of respecting clients and establishing a genuine therapeutic alliance with them. Therefore, empathy and positive regard are pre-requisites for dealing effectively with individuals who feel depression, anxiety, shame, guilt, anger as well as every other human emotion.

8. Clearly, the 10 axioms are an attempt to summarize complex ideas in a few words. In so doing much is omitted.

Please feel free to send contributing blogs to maryamandagraham@hotmail.com

New Beginnings

This blog is dedicated to the concepts of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy developed by Dr. William Glasser.

Dr. Glasser is an internationally recognized psychiatrist who is best known as the author of Reality Therapy and Choice Theory; a method of psychotherapy he created in 1965.

This blog is dedicated to all things focused on Choice Theory and Reality Therapy.

What this blog is intended to do is to share the power of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy for individuals, systems, schools, relationships and self. We welcome personal stories and antidotes’ on the use of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy in counseling, in relationships, in schools and in personal situations. How has Choice Theory and Reality Therapy changed you for the better? Let us know! We would love to share your stories through this blog!

To contribute to this blog please send entries to  maryamandagraham@hotmail.com

The following is information taken from http://www.wglasser.com

Check it out for a new beginning and a new perspective in life!

The 1998 book, Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom, is the primary text for all that is taught by The William Glasser Institute. Choice theory states that:

All we do is behave

That almost all behavior is chosen, and

That we are driven by our gense to satisfy five basic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun

In practice, the most important need is love and belonging, as closeness and connectedness with the people we care about is a requisite for satisfying all of the needs.

Choice theory, with the Seven Caring Habits, replaces external control psychology and the Seven Deadly Habits. External control, the present psychology of almost all people in the world, is destructive to relationships. When used, it will destroy the ability of one or both to find satisfaction in that relationship and will result in a disconnection from each other. Being disconnected is the source of almost all human problems such as what is called mental illness, drug addiction, violence, crime, school failure, spousal abuse, to mention a few.

Relationships and our Habits

Seven Caring Habits		Seven Deadly Habits
1.	Supporting	1.	Criticizing
2.	Encouraging	2.	Blaming
3.	Listening	3.	Complaining
4.	Accepting	4.	Nagging
5.	Trusting	5.	Threatening
6.	Respecting	6.	Punishing
7.	Negotiating differences	7.	Bribing, rewarding to control

The Ten Axioms of Choice Theory

1.    The only person whose behavior we can control is our own.

2.    All we can give another person is information.

3.    All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship problems.

4.    The problem relationship is always part of our present life.

5.    What happened in the past has everything to do with what we are today, but we can only satisfy our basic needs right now and plan to continue satisfying them in the future.

6.    We can only satisfy our needs by satisfying the pictures in our Quality World.

7.    All we do is behave.

8.    All behavior is Total Behavior and is made up of four components: acting, thinking, feeling and physiology.

9.    All Total Behavior is chosen, but we only have direct control over the acting and thinking components. We can only control our feeling and physiology indirectly through how we choose to act and think.

10.  All Total Behavior is designated by verbs and named by the part that is the most recognizable