William Glasser

Glasser is an internationally recognized psychiatrist. William Glasser was born in 1925. He was raised in Cleveland, OH. His first profession was a Chemical Engineer but decided to go into psychiatry when it became apparent to him this was his real interest in life. He attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland for medical school. At Veterans Administration Hospital he took his psychiatric training also attending UCLA. He became board certified in 1961. He did private practice from 1957 to 1986. Dr. Glasser’s approach is non-traditional.

He does not believe in the concept of mental illness unless there is something organically wrong with the brain that can be confirmed by a pathologist. In 1967, he founded The Institute for Reality Therapy. In 1994, The Institute was renamed The Institute for Control Theory, Reality Therapy and Quality Management to reflect the scope of The Institute’s teachings. Two years later it became The William Glasser Institute with Dr. Glasser renaming his theory, choice theory. Initially, The Institute was active only in the United States and Canada but under Dr.

Glasser’s direction, his teachings have now spread to many countries (wglasser. com) Glasser is best known for his book Reality Therapy which he wrote in 1965. The idea behind this type of therapy is that people need to meet the basic needs of love both giving and receiving and the need of finding self-worth. A therapy that leads all patients toward reality, toward grappling successfully with the tangible and intangible aspects of the real world, might accurately be simply called Reality Therapy. Glasser 6) Glasser states the in order for us to fulfill our needs we must have one person that we care for and in return cares for us to meet our basic needs. Reality Therapy is based on Choice Theory. Choice theory states that: •all we do is behave, •that almost all behavior is chosen, and •that we are driven by our genes to satisfy five basic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun. There are ten axioms that go along with this theory as well they are all follows: 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 or 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 . 7. All we do is behave. 8. All behavior is Total Behavior and is made up of for components: acting, thinking, feeling, and physiology. . 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 most recognizable. (wglasser. com) Dr. Glasser is semi-retired, but is still a much sought-after speaker nationally and internationally. Some of his many accomplishments are as follows:

•listed in Who’s Who in America since the 1970s; 1990 – awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa from the University of San Francisco; •2003 – presented with the ACA Professional Development Award recognizing the significant contributions made to the field of counseling; •2004 – presented with the “A Legend in Counseling Award” by the ACA; •January – 2005 presented with the prestigious Master Therapist designation by the American Psychotherapy Association; and finally, •2005 – presented with the Life Achievement Award by the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology for his enormous influence as a psychotherapist and author. wglasser. com) William Glasser’s methods of psychity are very useful. He teaches people to love them self and others. If you have a so called mental illness he tries to get to the under lying cause believing that you only have a mental illness if it can be proven by Drs. Glasser still does speaking about his theories. Works cited 1. William Glasser Institute. Oct. 6, 2009. [www. wglasser. com] 2. Glasser, William. Reality Therapy. New York. Harper& Row 1990.