Customer Reviews

Reality Therapy: A New Approach to Psychiatry (Perennial Library)

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I read this book at a time when I was dealing with some very difficult people in my life. It helped me to see ways that I could change my own way of dealing with difficult people in constructive ways.

In particular, the thing that stuck most with me was the importance of taking responsibility for my own actions, and holding others accountable in appropriate ways.

And yes, his book helped A LOT in dealing with difficult people.

I have since read another one of Glasser's books and plan to read as many as I can. HIS BOOK IS A CLASSIC.

You won't be disappointed.

Glasser's Reality Therapy is one of the recognized modern approaches to psychotherapy. This was his seminal work on the subject with practical cases from his experience in an institution with troubled teenage girls. The development of his thinking in this book is a good introduction to his later books on the subject. Easy to read, very practical in outlook and a relief from the obscure Freudian approaches. not to take anything away from the breakthrough that Freud brought to the entire subject of mental state.

People no longer have an excuse when they start to find out they have the power to choose. Understanding is fine, but it doesn't propel you forward. Please if you are sick of spinning your tires in the mud of the past and want to get unstuck, take a reality check. If you don't want to grow up, don't read this book. Don't waste your time reading this book if you don't want to take action.

In this book, Dr. William Glasser puts forward the claim that mental illness does not exist. He does not deny that the people whom we like to call 'mentally ill' have problems and are in need of help. He maintains, rather, that such people are not sick, but are instead irresponsible. The behaviour of so-called 'mentally ill' people is, on Glasser's view, an expression of those people's inability to fulfill two basic psychological needs without depriving others of the ability to fulfill their own basic psychological needs. The first need is the need to love and to be loved, the second is the need to feel a sense of being worthwhile to oneself and to others. Reality Therapy is the method of treatment that Glasser and his colleague have developed in an effort to help people to help themselves to fulfill these basic psychological needs and thereby to become more responsible.

Glasser's book is divided into two main parts, one that describes the theory of Reality Therapy and one that describes its practice. The first two chapters of the book outline the main principles of Reality Therapy and explain how Reality Therapy differs from conventional therapy. The remaining four chapters of the book present a variety of case studies that illustrate both some of the techniques involved in the practice of Reality Therapy and its success at treating patients who appear to be suffering from very different kinds of 'mental illness'. It is noteworthy that Reality Therapy often succeeds where traditional therapy has failed. The principles of Reality Therapy are also very effective in public school classrooms, so this is a book that could be read profitably not only by mental health professionals, but also by teachers. More generally, this book is also suitable for people who are interested in mental hygiene for themselves and the people they care about. For anybody who is interested in further exploring some of the issues raised in this book, I highly recommend Eric Berne's _Games People Play_, R.D. Laing's _The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness_, and John Russon's _Human Experience: Philosophy, Neurosis, and the Elements of Everyday Life_.

This book saved me from dropping school. As a young student of Psychology in the Freudianism dominated Universidade de São Paulo I was disilusioned about the usefulness of psychotherapy and its antagonism with my own values system, until a friend gave me this book, 27 years ago. To this day, hundreds of books later, it remains as one of the best books I ever read.
Responsibilty for self and for your choices and the learned abilites to fulfill one's own pshycological needs and to help others do it is what this book is all about. William Glasser is a blessing to this world.

Dr. Glasser's approach to psychiatry and counseling is, in today's world, unorthodox as he eschews medication and time wasted reliving useless past events. Dr. Glasser, with some real examples demonstrates the healing can be accomplished in a few sessions dealing directly with the presenting problem and the choices everyone of us make on a daily basis. Dr. Glasser believes that many physical disorders and caused by the patient's poor choices. This is an excellent book for both professional counselors and lay people.

Great book!!!!!
This book essentially changed my theoretical orientation, my view of psychological disorder and institutionalization!!
If you are in the helping professions or are studying to be, this book should be part of your requisite reading. Furthermore, regardless of one's theoretical leaning (behavioralist, cognitive-behavioralist, person-cenetered, existential, structural, etc.), helping professionals can benefit greatly from this book. Try it!!!!

Dr. William Glasser wrote his timeless classic, Reality Therapy, written in 1965.

Dr. Glasser began as an engineering student. He left engineering and went into medicine, specializing in psychiatry. When he began practicing, he developed a commonsense, practical, present day approach to treatment that he came to name "Reality Therapy." His premise is that things are tough all over, now what are you going to do about it?

Always his focus is on what is within a person's power and control to change or impact. He empowers his clients by directing them to focus their energy on things they can change. This is why he doesn't spend a lot of time talking about the past. While the past is an important component responsible, in part, for shaping who we are today, a person cannot change things that happened in the past. Staying focused in the past is a very disempowering position because it can't be changed.

Another error that people often make is thinking their life would be absolutely fine if someone else in it would change. This may, in fact, be true, however one person has very little impact in changing another person unless that person genuinely wants to change. This is why Reality Therapy focuses on what the person can change about him or herself to better manage the people and circumstances of his or her life. One's own behavior and thinking is within the person's control to change. That is empowering rather than spending a lifetime wishing that someone else would change.

Reality therapy helps people identify their goals, evaluates the actions they currently engage in as they relate to the attainment of that goal and when not effective, asks people to create a plan to do it more effectively. It's a very commonsense approach to problem solving that isn't common. It is much more common to remain in a victim's role, blaming the past and other people for where we are today. If you are interested in taking control of your life, then Reality Therapy will show you the way.

I think I may have read this years ago but I stumbled on it recently and bought it again. Glasser is a good writer and obviously a great therapist. The premise of the book is that those with problems that we call mental illness, in most cases, are problems of responsibility.

In some cases that might be a tough pill but overall there would seem to be a lot of truth to his findings, which he details from actual work in mental institutions along the way. The idea of taking responsibility for fulfilling our needs, which he describes as to love and be loved and to I think he says feel important ... certainly one can see in the business world playing out.

So overall I liked the book and philosophy, probably not 100% applicable, but worth the read and understanding.

Reality Therapy makes it clear that the key to mental health, happiness, and good relationships is R & R - Reality and Responsibility.

It is great for coaches and mental health professionals because it gives great examples of how to help clients face REALITY, and then take RESPONSIBILITY for meeting their goals and needs by working with reality - not escaping into fantasy.

Too often, people waste energy complaining that life, spouses, and kids aren't the way they "should be."

Accepting that things are the way they are...and that complaining, fighting, resisting don't change things...empowers people to create the lives they want in the only way they truly can: By taking responsibility for what they do and where they go from here.

Similar message found in Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life. Also a great read.