Glasser's Reality Therapy

The therapeutic theory and methods of William Glasser (see: Glasser, 1965, 1969) evolved out of work with young people and was constructed in response to the problems he encountered in his interactions with young people. Glasser found that despite the wide variety of young people with which he worked--a client population that varied from regular school children to girls in a reform school--the biggest problems confronting the teens were depression and anger. Accordingly, he developed a therapeutic modality designed specifically to treat young people suffering from these conditions. This is the general client population which maximally benefits from Glasser's Reality Therapy.

Reality therapy is a form of psychotherapy that differs markedly from the traditional psychoanalytic and client-centered approaches. The treatment approach calls for the therapist to focus on the present while actively and deliberately encouraging the young person to: (1) make a value judgement about his or her behavior; (2) develop a plan that will achieved the desired goal; and (3) be committed to the plan (Glasser, 1965, 1969; Barr, 1974). It can be seen by this delineation that the approach i