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The term "choice theory" is the work of William Glasser, MD, author of the book so named, and is the culmination of some 50 years of theory and practice in psychology and counselling.
Choice theory posits that the behaviors we choose are central to our existence. Our behavior (choices) is driven by five genetically driven needs in hierarchical order: survival, love, power, freedom, and fun.
The most basic human needs are survival (physical component) and love (mental component). Without physical (nurturing) and emotional (love), an infant will not survive to attain power, freedom, and fun.[ citation needed ]
“No matter how well-nourished and intellectually stimulated a child is, going without human touch can stunt his mental, emotional, and even physical growth”,which is proved by the research of livestrong on the influence of physical touch on a child's development
“Touching Empathy: Lack of Physical Affection Can Actually Kill Babies”, Psychology Today, October 1, 2010.
Survival needs include:
And four fundamental psychological needs:
Choice theory suggests the existence of a "quality world." The idea of a "quality world" in choice theory has been compared to Jungian archetypes, but Glasser's acknowledgement of this connection is unclear[ citation needed ]. Some argue that Glasser's "quality world" and what Jung would call healthy archetypes share similarities[ citation needed ].
Our "quality world" images are our role models of an individual's "perfect" world of parents, relations, possessions, beliefs, etc. How each person's "quality world" is somewhat unusual, even in the same family of origin, is taken for granted.
Starting from birth and continuing throughout our lives, each person places significant role models, significant possessions, and significant systems of belief (religion, cultural values, icons, etc.) into a mostly unconscious framework Glasser called our "quality world". The issue of negative role models and stereotypes is not extensively discussed in choice theory.
Glasser also posits a "comparing place," where we compare and contrast our perceptions of people, places, and things immediately in front of us against our ideal images (archetypes) of these in our Quality World framework. Our subconscious pushes us towards calibrating—as best we can—our real-world experience with our quality world (archetypes).
Behavior ("total behavior" in Glasser's terms) is made up of these four components: acting, thinking, feeling, and physiology. Glasser suggests we have considerable control or choice over the first two of these, yet little ability to directly choose the latter two as they are more deeply sub- and unconscious. These four components remain closely intertwined, and the choices we make in our thinking and acting will greatly affect our feelings and physiology.
Glasser frequently emphasizes that failed or strained relationships with significant individuals can contribute to personal unhappiness. spouses, parents, children, friends, and colleagues.
The symptoms of unhappiness are widely variable and are often seen as mental illnesses. Glasser believed that "pleasure" and "happiness" are related but far from synonymous. Sex, for example, is a "pleasure" but may well be divorced from a "satisfactory relationship," which is a precondition for lasting "happiness" in life. Hence the intense focus on the improvement of relationships in counseling with choice theory—the "new reality therapy". Individuals who are familiar with both reality therapy and choice theory may have a preference for the latter, which is considered a more modern approach.
According to choice theory, mental illness can be linked to personal unhappiness. Glasser champions how we are able to learn and choose alternate behaviors that result in greater personal satisfaction. Reality therapy is a choice theory-based counseling process focused on helping clients learn to make those self-optimizing choices.[ citation needed ]
William Glasser's choice theory begins: Behavior is not separate from choice; we all choose how to behave at any time. Second, we cannot control anyone's behavior but our own. Glasser emphasized the importance of classroom meetings as a means to improve communication and solve classroom problems. Glasser suggested that teachers should assist students in envisioning a fulfilling school experience and planning the choices that would enable them to achieve it. [2]
For example, Johnny Waits is an 18-year-old high school senior and plans on attending college to become a computer programmer. Glasser suggests that Johnny could be learning as much as he can about computers instead of reading Plato. Glasser proposed a curriculum approach that emphasizes practical, real-world topics chosen by students based on their interests and inclinations. This approach is referred to as the quality curriculum. The quality curriculum places particular emphasis on topics that have practical career applications. According to Glasser's approach, teachers facilitate discussions with students to identify topics they are interested in exploring further when introducing new material. In line with Glasser's approach, students are expected to articulate the practical value of the material they choose to explore. [2]
Glasser did not endorse Summerhill, and the quality schools he oversaw typically had conventional curriculum topics. The main innovation of these schools was a deeper, more humanistic approach to the group process between teachers, students, and learning.[ citation needed ]
In a book review, [3] Christopher White writes that Glasser believes everything in the DSM-IV-TR is a result of an individual's brain creatively expressing its unhappiness. White also notes that Glasser criticizes the psychiatric profession and questions the effectiveness of medications in treating mental illness. White points out that the book does not provide a set of randomized clinical trials demonstrating the success of Glasser's teachings.
Medical psychology or medico-psychology is the application of psychological principles to the practice of medicine, sometimes using drugs for both physical and mental disorders.
Psychology is an academic and applied discipline involving the scientific study of human mental functions and behavior. Occasionally, in addition or opposition to employing the scientific method, it also relies on symbolic interpretation and critical analysis, although these traditions have tended to be less pronounced than in other social sciences, such as sociology. Psychologists study phenomena such as perception, cognition, emotion, personality, behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Some, especially depth psychologists, also study the unconscious mind.
In psychology, cognitivism is a theoretical framework for understanding the mind that gained credence in the 1950s. The movement was a response to behaviorism, which cognitivists said neglected to explain cognition. Cognitive psychology derived its name from the Latin cognoscere, referring to knowing and information, thus cognitive psychology is an information-processing psychology derived in part from earlier traditions of the investigation of thought and problem solving.
Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective that arose in the mid-20th century in answer to two theories: Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and B. F. Skinner's behaviorism. Thus, Abraham Maslow established the need for a "third force" in psychology. The school of thought of humanistic psychology gained traction due to Maslow in the 1950s.
Gestalt Theoretical Psychotherapy(GTP) is a method of psychotherapy based strictly on Gestalt psychology. Its origins go back to the 1920s when Gestalt psychology founder Max Wertheimer, Kurt Lewin and their colleagues and students started to apply the holistic and systems theoretical Gestalt psychology concepts in the field of psychopathology and clinical psychology. Through holism, "a person's thinking, feeling, actions, perceptions, attitudes and logical operations" are seen as one unity. Many developments in psychotherapy in the following decades drew from these early beginnings, like e.g. group psychoanalysis (S. Foulkes), Gestalt therapy (Laura Perls, Fritz Perls, Goodman, and others), or Katathym-imaginative Psychotherapy (Hanscarl Leuner).
Clinical psychology is an integration of human science, behavioral science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically-based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and personal development. Central to its practice are psychological assessment, clinical formulation, and psychotherapy, although clinical psychologists also engage in research, teaching, consultation, forensic testimony, and program development and administration. In many countries, clinical psychology is a regulated mental health profession.
Reality therapy (RT) is an approach to psychotherapy and counseling developed by William Glasser in the 1960s. It differs from conventional psychiatry, psychoanalysis and medical model schools of psychotherapy in that it focuses on what Glasser calls "psychiatry's three Rs" – realism, responsibility, and right-and-wrong – rather than mental disorders. Reality therapy maintains that most people suffer from socially universal human conditions rather than individual mental illnesses, and that failure to attain basic needs leads to a person's behavior moving away from the norm. Since fulfilling essential needs is part of a person's present life, reality therapy does not concern itself with a person's past. Neither does this type of therapy deal with unconscious mental processes.
William Glasser was an American psychiatrist. He was the developer of W. Edwards Deming's workplace ideas, reality therapy and choice theory. His innovations for individual counseling, work environments and school, highlight personal choice, personal responsibility and personal transformation. Glasser positioned himself in opposition to conventional mainstream psychiatrists, who focus instead on classifying psychiatric syndromes as "illnesses" and prescribe psychotropic medications to treat mental disorders.
Existential psychotherapy is a form of psychotherapy based on the model of human nature and experience developed by the existential tradition of European philosophy. It focuses on concepts that are universally applicable to human existence including death, freedom, responsibility, and the meaning of life. Instead of regarding human experiences such as anxiety, alienation and depression as implying the presence of mental illness, existential psychotherapy sees these experiences as natural stages in a normal process of human development and maturation. In facilitating this process of development and maturation existential psychotherapy involves a philosophical exploration of an individual's experiences while stressing the individual's freedom and responsibility to facilitate a higher degree of meaning and well-being in his or her life.
Self-knowledge is a term used in psychology to describe the information that an individual draws upon when finding answers to the questions "What am I like?" and "Who am I?".
Depth psychology refers to the practice and research of the science of the unconscious, covering both psychoanalysis and psychology. It is also defined as the psychological theory that explores the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious, as well as the patterns and dynamics of motivation and the mind. The theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, and Alfred Adler are all considered its foundations.
Behavioral medicine is concerned with the integration of knowledge in the biological, behavioral, psychological, and social sciences relevant to health and illness. These sciences include epidemiology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, physiology, pharmacology, nutrition, neuroanatomy, endocrinology, and immunology. The term is often used interchangeably, but incorrectly, with health psychology. The practice of behavioral medicine encompasses health psychology, but also includes applied psychophysiological therapies such as biofeedback, hypnosis, and bio-behavioral therapy of physical disorders, aspects of occupational therapy, rehabilitation medicine, and physiatry, as well as preventive medicine. In contrast, health psychology represents a stronger emphasis specifically on psychology's role in both behavioral medicine and behavioral health.
The psychosocial approach looks at individuals in the context of the combined influence that psychological factors and the surrounding social environment have on their physical and mental wellness and their ability to function. This approach is used in a broad range of helping professions in health and social care settings as well as by medical and social science researchers.
Psychodynamics, also known as psychodynamic psychology, in its broadest sense, is an approach to psychology that emphasizes systematic study of the psychological forces underlying human behavior, feelings, and emotions and how they might relate to early experience. It is especially interested in the dynamic relations between conscious motivation and unconscious motivation.
The methods of neuro-linguistic programming are the specific techniques used to perform and teach neuro-linguistic programming, which teaches that people are only able to directly perceive a small part of the world using their conscious awareness, and that this view of the world is filtered by experience, beliefs, values, assumptions, and biological sensory systems. NLP argues that people act and feel based on their perception of the world and how they feel about that world they subjectively experience.
Sport psychology is defined by the European Federation of Sport Psychology (FEPSAC) in 1996, as the study of the psychological basis, processes, and effects of sport. Sport is defined as any physical activity where the individuals engage for competition and health. Sport psychology is recognized as an interdisciplinary science that draws on knowledge from many related fields including biomechanics, physiology, kinesiology and psychology. It involves the study of how psychological factors affect performance and how participation in sport and exercise affect psychological and physical factors. Sport psychologists teach cognitive and behavioral strategies to athletes in order to improve their experience and performance in sports.
Psychology encompasses a vast domain, and includes many different approaches to the study of mental processes and behavior. Below are the major areas of inquiry that taken together constitute psychology. A comprehensive list of the sub-fields and areas within psychology can be found at the list of psychology topics and list of psychology disciplines.
Human Givens is the name of a theory in psychotherapy formulated in the United Kingdom, first outlined by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell in the late 1990s, and amplified in the 2003 book Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking. The human givens organising ideas proffer a description of the nature of human beings, the 'givens' of human genetic heritage and what humans need in order to be happy and healthy based on the research literature. Human Givens therapy draws on several psycho therapeutic models, such as motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioural therapy, psychoeducation, interpersonal therapy, imaginal exposure therapy and NLP such as the Rewind Technique, while seeking to use a client's strengths to enable them to get emotional needs met.
Intrapsychic humanism is a comprehensive general psychology and philosophy of mind that provides a new understanding of what it is to be human. Intrapsychic humanism is a nonderivative depth psychology that provides a unified and comprehensive theory of child development, psychopathology, and psychological treatment.
In praxeology, methodological dualism is an epistemological position which states that it is necessary ─ based on our current state of knowledge and understanding ─ to use a different method in analysing the actions of human beings than the methods of the natural sciences.
