Choice theory

1. Introduction

Version followed: William Glasser's choice theory as set out in Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom (1998), in the form now taught by the Glasser Institute for Choice Theory (US) and William Glasser International (five basic needs, quality world, perceived world, comparing place, total behaviour, ten axioms, seven connecting and seven disconnecting habits). Clinical delivery follows the reality therapy process as applied with choice theory: Glasser's Counseling with Choice Theory (2000, also published as Reality Therapy in Action) and Robert Wubbolding's WDEP system as taught in William Glasser International training (Wubbolding 2022, as cited in current training material). The books' content comes through institute pages and training documents. [source: GIFCT Quickstart; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026; Justice, Kent State module] [uncertain: book chapters]

What it is. Choice theory is a theory of motivation and behaviour, not a stand-alone therapy. Glasser's own definition, quoted on the institute site, calls it an explanation of how and why people make the choices they make at the time they make them. Reality therapy is the counselling process built on it. In Glasser's later work, choice theory is also used as content: it is taught directly to clients, couples, schools (Glasser Quality Schools), workplaces (Lead Management) and the public (the Take Charge of Your Life workshop and book). This guide gives the theory's clinical procedures. The family's reality therapy entry is assumed to cover WDEP in more depth, so WDEP appears here as the vehicle for choice-theory work. [source: Klefman 2024, wglasser.com; WGII Wellbeing page; Wikipedia] [synthesis: division of labour with the reality therapy tab]

How change happens. All behaviour is purposeful. It is a person's best current attempt to meet five genetic needs (survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, fun) by getting the real world to match specific pictures in their quality world. Distress comes from the gap, at the comparing place, between what the person wants and what they perceive they have. The gap is most often caused by an unsatisfying present relationship. Every behaviour is a total behaviour of acting, thinking, feeling and physiology. Only acting and thinking can be chosen directly, so lasting change comes when the client:

1. clarifies what they want;
2. evaluates whether what they are doing gets it;
3. chooses new actions and thoughts, especially connecting rather than controlling relationship habits.

Feelings and physiology follow. Glasser framed most diagnosed distress as unhappiness that is chosen (not consciously), and so changeable, rather than as illness. This guide reports that framing but does not endorse it for medical decisions (see Section 5). [source: GIFCT Quickstart; Choice Theory Basics (USMCU); Metapsychology review; Wikipedia, citing White 2005]

2. Framework

Choice theory has no official phase protocol or fixed session count. Glasser presented his counselling through case dialogues, not a manual. The phase structure below comes from current William Glasser International-aligned training material (Krahwinkel-Bower 2026, drawing on Wubbolding 2022). Glasser's books describe counselling that is often brief, but no source gives a standard number of sessions. [source: Metapsychology review; Kent State module ("number of sessions" not covered); Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [uncertain: typical length]

Format. Usually weekly individual sessions of about 50 minutes. The same model is used with couples (the solving circle, Section 4), in groups (WDEP check-ins, needs card sorts) and in psychoeducational workshops (Take Charge of Your Life; Basic Intensive Training is a 3-day course that teaches the concepts and the process through lecture, role-play and self-evaluation). [source: SASW training flyer; WGII Wellbeing page; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: session frequency]

The phases overlap and repeat. Current training stresses that WDEP is a structured clinical conversation, not a script, and that the process is not linear: follow the client. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026, citing Wubbolding 2022]

3. Guiding principles

The ten axioms (the institute's paraphrase of Glasser 1998), each with what it means in practice: [source: GIFCT Quickstart; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026; Wikipedia]

• The only behaviour you can control is your own. Keep the session on what the client can do. Do not plan how to change someone who is absent.
• All you can give or get from others is information. Present your input as information the client may use, never as control. Help the client treat what others say the same way.
• All long-lasting psychological problems are relationship problems. Early on, ask which important relationship is not working.
• The problem relationship is always part of the present. Look for the current unsatisfying relationship, not the original one.
• Painful past events shape us, but revisiting them adds little to fixing a present relationship. Acknowledge the past briefly and with respect, then move to what can be done now.
• We are driven by five genetic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, fun. Read each behaviour as an attempt to meet a need.
• We satisfy needs only by satisfying specific pictures in our quality world. Work with the concrete pictures (people, activities, values), not abstract needs.
• All we do from birth to death is behave, and all behaviour is total behaviour (acting, thinking, feeling, physiology). Explore all four parts of any complaint.
• Total behaviour is named with verbs, after its most obvious part. Describe states as activities ("depressing", "angering") so they look changeable.
• All total behaviour is chosen, but we directly control only acting and thinking. Aim interventions at doing and thinking. Expect feelings and physiology to follow.

Other principles:

• All behaviour is purposeful: each behaviour is the person's best current attempt to get what they want. Ask what a behaviour is for before trying to remove it, including symptoms and substance use. [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU); Klefman 2024; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• The perceived world is subjective and filtered through total knowledge and values. Clarify how the client sees the situation. Do not argue about "reality". [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Frustration matches how important the unmet picture is. Strong distress points to a highly valued picture; find it. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Organised vs reorganising behaviour. Once familiar behaviours stop working, the system creates new ones. Some "symptoms" are creative but costly attempts. Look for that creativity and use it. [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU); Wikipedia, citing White 2005]
• Internal control instead of external control psychology. Do not use coercion, criticism, rewards or punishment with clients. Teach clients to stop using them on others. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Use connecting habits; avoid the seven disconnecting habits. Every counsellor response should support, encourage, listen, accept, trust, respect or negotiate. Never criticise, blame, complain, nag, threaten, punish, or bribe/reward to control. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Meet your needs without stopping others from meeting theirs. Plans and wants are tested for whether they cost other people. [source: GIFCT Quickstart; SASW training flyer]
• Responsibility without shame. "Chosen" means changeable, not blameworthy. Never tell a client they chose their illness or addiction as an accusation. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Relationship first; client-led evaluation. Do not rush to evaluation, and do not evaluate for the client in secret. The client judges and owns the plan. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026; Kent State module]
• Transparency. Name the model and teach its ideas openly. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Curiosity about quality-world pictures. Never assume what a picture means, even with a long-term client. Allow for cultural differences in pictures and in how direct communication can be. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Pure vs adapted practice. Instructors may add their own ideas only if they label them as their own. Do the same: say clearly when you go beyond Glasser. [source: Klefman 2024]

4. Intervention inventory

Scope: these are the procedures that choice-theory sources describe or clearly imply. Where an item comes only from a book not drawn on here, or is my own operational wording, it is tagged. All example language is my own illustrative wording unless it is quoted and cited.

4.1 Building the counselling environment (involvement)

• Purpose: Choice theory says needs are met through relationships, and the client must experience the counsellor as caring, trustworthy and able to help. Without this, sources say counselling is unlikely to succeed. Use from the first minute and throughout. [source: Kent State module; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Use only the seven connecting habits in your own responses: support, encourage, listen, accept, trust, respect, negotiate differences.
  2. Check your speech for any of the seven disconnecting habits: criticising, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing, bribing.
  3. Keep the talk in the present and on what the client can influence.
  4. Explain the approach openly: you will help them get clearer on what they want and look together at whether what they are doing gets it.
  5. Do not evaluate the client's behaviour for them.
  6. Do not take on the role of the authority who decides what must change. [source: GIFCT Quickstart; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Example language (illustrative): "I'm not here to judge what you're doing. I'm interested in what you want for your life right now, and in working out with you whether what you're doing is getting you there."
• Watch for: Any sign that you are nagging, lecturing or being "helpfully" critical. In choice-theory terms these are external control, and they damage the relationship. It is working when the client brings real wants and admits behaviours that are not working, without getting defensive. [synthesis: indicators]

4.2 Locating the present problem relationship

• Purpose: This puts the axiom that long-lasting problems are present relationship problems into practice. Use it at intake and whenever a session drifts into abstract symptom talk. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Steps:
  1. Ask who matters most to the client now: partner, children, parents, friends, colleagues, a group.
  2. Ask which of those relationships is not as they want it.
  3. Ask what is happening in it this week.
  4. If the client names a past relationship, such as an abuser or a dead parent, acknowledge it. Then ask how it shows up in present relationships, or which present relationship is missing because of it.
  5. Agree on one relationship to focus on first. [source: GIFCT Quickstart] [synthesis: sequencing]
• Example language (illustrative): "Of the people in your life right now, whose relationship with you would you most like to be different?"
• Watch for: Clients with no current close relationship. Then the target is the missing relationship: building belonging, not repairing it. Do not use the axiom to dismiss trauma (Section 5). It is working when the conversation turns to a specific person and specific interactions. [synthesis]

4.3 Exploring the quality world (Wants)

• Purpose: Find the specific pictures (people, places, things, activities, values, beliefs, an ideal self) the client is trying to satisfy. Change works through these pictures, not through abstract needs. A picture enters the quality world because it feels very good and meets at least one need, whether or not others approve of it. [source: GIFCT Quickstart; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Ask open questions about what the client wants from each important relationship, from work or school, from themselves, and from the counsellor and counselling.
  2. Ask for concrete detail: what it would look like, sound like, and what they would be doing.
  3. List the pictures with the client. Training calls the result a personal "album" and a "quality world map".
  4. Ask how much each picture matters.
  5. Note pictures that cost the client or others: substances, controlling a partner, revenge. Ask what need each one meets.
  6. Revisit the map over time, because pictures change. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Example language: "What do you want?" and "What does your ideal life look like?" (both cited to the WDEP framework, Wubbolding 2022, in Krahwinkel-Bower 2026). Follow-up (illustrative): "If things were going the way you want with your daughter, what would I see the two of you doing on a Saturday?"
• Watch for: Vague or "should" wants ("I should want to stop"). Ask what the client really wants. Never assume what a picture means. It is working when the client states wants in their own words and with energy. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: "should" wants]

4.4 Basic-needs assessment

• Purpose: Find which of the five needs is unmet, and the client's dominant need(s). This helps explain the client's choices and points to replacement pictures. [source: GIFCT Quickstart; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Explain the five needs in plain terms. Survival covers safety and health. Love and belonging covers connection. Power covers mattering, achieving, competence and respect. Freedom covers choice, independence and creativity. Fun covers pleasure, play, humour and learning.
  2. Ask the client to rate how strong each need is for them and how well it is met at present. Current training uses a "Basic Needs Scale" handout; draw the scale or use your own 1–10 version.
  3. Link each important picture (4.3) and each problem behaviour to the need(s) it serves.
  4. Note the gaps between need strength and satisfaction. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [uncertain: the exact Basic Needs Scale and Wubbolding's "needs-strength profile" are not drawn on here; a home-made rating is synthesis]
• Example language (illustrative): "On a scale of 1 to 10, how strong is your need for freedom, and how well is it being met at the moment?"
• Watch for: Profiles differ and none is wrong. Many problem behaviours serve two needs (drinking may meet fun and belonging). In couples and families, mismatched need strengths explain much conflict. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: couple mismatch]

4.5 Clarifying the perceived world

• Purpose: Each person's perceived world is unique, often inaccurate, and feels completely accurate to them. Information passes through a total-knowledge filter and then a valuing filter (positive, negative, neutral). Use this when distress depends on how the client reads events or other people. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Steps:
  1. Ask the client to describe the situation as they see it.
  2. Ask what they know or have experienced that shapes this reading (the knowledge filter).
  3. Ask whether they rate it as pleasurable, painful or neutral, and why (the valuing filter).
  4. Ask what extra information they could collect. Remember that all anyone can get from others is information.
  5. Do not argue about what is "real". Invite the client to check. [source: GIFCT Quickstart] [synthesis: steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "That's how it looks from where you're standing. Is there anything you could find out this week that might show it to you differently?"
• Watch for: Drifting into cognitive disputation. Choice theory treats perception as information to gather, not as distortions to correct. It is working when the client gathers new information or chooses a different way to value the event. [synthesis]

4.6 Comparing-place (scales) work

• Purpose: Show the client that their frustration is the signal from an imbalance between a wanted picture and what they perceive. This turns distress into information that motivates. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Steps:
  1. Draw a set of scales. One side is the quality-world picture; the other is what the client perceives they have.
  2. Ask how far out of balance the scales are.
  3. Ask how important the picture is. The frustration matches the importance.
  4. Name the three options:
     • change what they do to get more of the picture;
     • change how they perceive the situation (gather information);
     • change or soften the picture itself.
  5. Ask which option to try first. [source: GIFCT Quickstart] [synthesis: the three-option menu as a teaching device]
• Example language (illustrative): "The size of this frustration tells me how much this picture matters to you. Let's look at what you could do to bring the scales closer to level."
• Watch for: Pressing the client to drop a deeply held picture (a dead child, a lost marriage). Changing a picture is the client's choice and may need grief work. It is working when the client sees distress as a gap they can work on. [synthesis]

4.7 Finding the purpose of a behaviour (picture-and-need analysis)

• Purpose: Every behaviour, symptoms included, is a best attempt to get something. Finding its purpose lets the client choose a less costly behaviour that serves the same need. Use it for any behaviour the client wants to stop. [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU); Klefman 2024; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps (paraphrasing the sequence in Klefman 2024):
  1. Ask which quality-world picture the behaviour is meeting right now.
  2. Ask which basic need(s) it serves.
  3. Ask whether those needs are actually met in the current situation, and at what cost.
  4. If not, look for another picture and behaviour that would meet the same need.
  5. For substance use, ask what it has been giving the client. Current training notes this is often linked to trauma (Krahwinkel-Bower 2026).
• Example language: Klefman's own reflective questions include "What Quality World picture is having ice cream now meeting?" Clinical version (illustrative): "When you pick up a drink after work, what does it give you that you need right then?"
• Watch for: The client hearing "it serves a purpose" as approval or as blame. Present it as respect for their past problem-solving. It is working when the client names the need and starts to produce alternatives. [synthesis]

4.8 Total-behaviour analysis (the car)

• Purpose: Show that the main complaint has four parts and that change starts with the two parts the client can steer. Use it with any symptom presented as a feeling or a physical state (anxiety, depression, anger, pain). [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU); Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Draw a car. The front wheels are acting and thinking, which you steer directly. The back wheels are feeling and physiology, which follow. The engine is the needs; the steering wheel is wants. [uncertain: the engine/steering-wheel parts are the commonly taught Glasser chart and were not confirmed; the front/back-wheel division is confirmed in Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
  2. Take one recent episode of the complaint. Fill in what the client was doing, thinking, feeling and noticing in their body.
  3. Name the behaviour after its most obvious part. Choice Theory Basics gives four examples: jogging (named for acting), being angry (feeling), meditating (thinking), shivering (physiology).
  4. Ask which front wheel could turn differently next time. [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU)]
• Example language (illustrative): "You can't make yourself stop feeling anxious by deciding to. But you can choose what you do and what you think about, and feelings tend to follow those."
• Watch for: Clients hearing "you control your feelings". Only acting and thinking are directly controllable. It is working when the client spontaneously suggests a change in action or thinking. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]

4.9 Verb language for feelings ("depressing", "angering")

• Purpose: Glasser names total behaviours with verbs so that states look like active and changeable choices. Use it once the relationship is secure and the client has grasped the car (4.8). [source: GIFCT Quickstart (axiom 9); Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Explain why the language matters: a noun like "depression" sounds like something you have, while a verb sounds like something you are doing for a reason.
  2. Invite the client to try saying "I am depressing" or "I am choosing to depress". Training attributes these phrasings to Glasser.
  3. Ask what the depressing does for them right now. Typical answers are holding anger in check, asking for help, or avoiding something harder (see 4.7).
  4. Never force the language on a client. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: step 3 prompts; Glasser's own list of purposes is in Choice Theory 1998]
• Example language (illustrative): "Some people find it useful to say 'I'm depressing' instead of 'I'm depressed', not to blame themselves but to remind themselves it's something they can do differently. Want to try it and see how it sounds?"
• Watch for: Shame, feeling invalidated, and severe depression. Skip or delay the technique when the client is suicidal, psychotic, has a clear medical cause, or is grieving freshly. Training warns that responsibility must not become shaming. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: exclusions]

4.10 Changing acting first (and thinking when action is blocked)

• Purpose: The quickest way to change feeling and physiology is to change what you are doing. If the situation prevents that, change what you are thinking. [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU)]
• Steps:
  1. Choose a recurring distressing episode.
  2. List actions the client could take in the moment that would meet a need better. The source's example: after a frustrating workday, a brisk walk instead of complaining to a co-worker.
  3. If no action is possible (in a meeting, in traffic), choose a thought to put in its place.
  4. Try it as a small experiment and review what happened to feelings and body. [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU)] [synthesis: experiment framing]
• Example language (illustrative): "Next time you get home wound up, what's one thing you could do in the first ten minutes that might shift how you feel?"
• Watch for: Activities that are really avoidance and do not meet a need. Check which need the new action serves. It is working when the client reports that feelings changed after a chosen action. [synthesis]

4.11 Exploring current doing and direction (D)

• Purpose: Get a specific, behavioural picture of what the client is actually doing now, across all four parts of total behaviour, and where it is heading. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026; Kent State module]
• Steps:
  1. Ask what the client did the last time the problem happened, in sequence.
  2. Go through acting, then thinking, then feeling, then physiology.
  3. Ask about overall direction: where the current pattern will take them in a month or a year.
  4. Affirm strengths and past successes on the way. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: sequence detail]
• Example language: "What are you actually doing and what direction is it taking you?" (cited to Wubbolding 2022 in Krahwinkel-Bower 2026). Follow-up (illustrative): "Walk me through yesterday evening from the moment you got home."
• Watch for: The client describing other people's behaviour or giving feelings only. Gently bring them back to their own actions. It is working when the account is specific enough to evaluate. [synthesis]

4.12 Self-evaluation (E)

• Purpose: Training calls this the cornerstone. The client, not the counsellor, judges whether current behaviour gets them what they want and whether it meets their needs without stopping others from meeting theirs. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026; Kent State module; GIFCT Quickstart]
• Steps:
  1. Only after W and D are clear, ask the client to judge one specific behaviour against one specific want.
  2. Accept the answer they give.
  3. If they say it is working, explore what working means for them and at what cost.
  4. Use double-sided reflections when they are ambivalent. Training combines this with motivational interviewing.
  5. Summarise as a bridge to planning.
  6. In groups, invite peer evaluation, which training reports is often more powerful than evaluation by the clinician.
  7. In middle sessions you may give a gentle evaluation of your own, but only when you mean it and present it as information. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Example language: "Is what you are doing getting you what you want?" (Wubbolding 2022, cited in Krahwinkel-Bower 2026). Self-evaluation sequence from the Kent State module, paraphrased: what do I want; what am I doing to get it; is it working; is there a better way to meet my needs?
• Watch for: Asking the question as a rhetorical trap. That is a disguised criticism, and therefore a disconnecting habit. It is working when the client's own "no, it isn't" leads into planning. [source: GIFCT Quickstart] [synthesis: the rhetorical-trap warning]

4.13 Teaching choice theory directly (psychoeducation)

• Purpose: In Glasser's later model, clients learn the theory and use it on themselves. Training introduces the axioms and total behaviour as the underlying philosophy before techniques. The Kent State module says the counsellor teaches choice theory at an appropriate time. [source: Kent State module; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026; WGII Wellbeing page]
• Steps:
  1. Teach in short pieces linked to the client's own material, never as a lecture.
  2. A typical order: needs; quality world; comparing place; total behaviour (the car); the two control axioms (you control only your own behaviour; all you can give or get is information); connecting and disconnecting habits.
  3. Use diagrams. The institute publishes infographics on needs, habits and the axioms.
  4. Ask the client to apply each idea to one example from their week.
  5. Optionally suggest reading: Glasser's Choice Theory or Take Charge of Your Life. [source: GIFCT Quickstart; WGII Wellbeing page] [synthesis: teaching order]
• Example language (illustrative): "Here's an idea from the approach I use: the only behaviour any of us can actually control is our own. Let's see what that means for the situation with your manager."
• Watch for: Overloading the client, or teaching in place of listening. The Glasser Institute's Irish branch has school teaching pages for each axiom (titles only). It is working when the client starts using the terms on their own. [source: WGII Wellbeing page] [uncertain: those pages' contents]

4.14 Habit audit: from disconnecting to connecting habits

• Purpose: Choice theory traces most relationship breakdown to external-control habits. Use it in individual work about a key relationship, and in couple, family, parenting and workplace work. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Steps:
  1. List the seven disconnecting habits (criticising, blaming, complaining, nagging, threatening, punishing, bribing or rewarding to control) and the seven connecting habits (supporting, encouraging, listening, accepting, trusting, respecting, negotiating differences).
  2. Ask the client which disconnecting habits they used with the person this week, and in what situations.
  3. Ask them to evaluate whether these brought them closer to what they want from the relationship.
  4. For each disconnecting habit, choose a connecting habit to use in that situation.
  5. Practise in session with role-play.
  6. Make one replacement the plan for the week (4.17). [source: GIFCT Quickstart] [synthesis: audit and role-play steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "When you reminded him about the dishes for the third time, was that nagging? Did it get you closer to him or further away? What might 'negotiating differences' look like there instead?"
• Watch for: The client auditing the other person's habits. Bring the focus back to the axiom that they control only their own behaviour. In abusive relationships, connecting habits are not a safety strategy (Section 5). [synthesis]

4.15 Handling the past briefly

• Purpose: Respect what happened without making it the focus. Glasser held that painful past events shape us, but revisiting them adds little to improving a current relationship. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Steps:
  1. Listen to the account with respect.
  2. Acknowledge its impact.
  3. Ask what from that time is still affecting present relationships or choices.
  4. Ask about past successes and strengths: what helped them survive or cope, and what worked before.
  5. Turn to what they want now. [source: GIFCT Quickstart; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "What happened then was real and it mattered. I'm not going to rush past it. What I'd like us to work on is what you want now, and what you can do now, because that's where you have choices."
• Watch for: Training explicitly does not require digging into trauma before a relationship is established, and it pairs the model with trauma-informed care. With PTSD, combine with or refer to trauma-focused treatment (Section 5). [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: referral]

4.16 Resolving conflicting pictures (quandaries)

• Purpose: Quality-world pictures can conflict and leave the client stuck: for example, a partner and an affair, or a career and family time. [source: GIFCT Quickstart]
• Steps:
  1. Name both pictures and the need(s) each one serves (4.4).
  2. Ask whether either picture could be changed so that it serves its need without excluding the other.
  3. Look for a third picture that meets both needs.
  4. If a choice is unavoidable, have the client self-evaluate each option against their most important wants and its cost to others.
  5. Accept that whatever the client chooses will cost something. [source: GIFCT Quickstart] [synthesis: steps]
• Example language (illustrative): "Both of these matter to you. Which needs does each one meet? Is there a way to meet those needs that doesn't force you to give up the other?"
• Watch for: The counsellor quietly taking a side (value imposition). It is working when the client can hold both pictures and choose deliberately. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026 (no imposing a good life)]

4.17 Planning (P): SAMIC³ plans

• Purpose: Turn a genuine self-evaluation into a concrete new behaviour. [source: Kent State module; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Ask the client what they could do differently. Generate options together, but the client chooses.
  2. Shape the plan so it is:
     • Simple;
     • Attainable;
     • Measurable;
     • Immediate (it starts today or tomorrow);
     • Controlled by the client alone (it does not depend on someone else changing);
     • Committed to;
     • Consistent or continuous (repeated).
  3. Phrase it as doing something, not stopping something.
  4. Agree when you will review it. [source: Kent State module; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026 (both list SAMIC³; they word the last C slightly differently)] [synthesis: the "doing, not stopping" step, which is common reality-therapy teaching but not confirmed]
• Example language (illustrative): "So the plan is: Tuesday and Thursday, when you get home, you'll ask your son one question about his day before you mention homework. Is that something only you control? Will you do it?"
• Watch for: Plans that are too large, that depend on others, or that are the counsellor's own idea. It is working when plans are carried out and reviewed every week. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]

4.18 Commitment

• Purpose: Strengthen follow-through by making commitment explicit. Wubbolding (1991) describes five levels of commitment, ranging from not wanting to change anything to being willing to do whatever it takes. [source: Kent State module]
• Steps:
  1. After a plan is agreed, ask how committed the client is.
  2. Listen for the level: "I don't want to"; "I want the outcome but not the effort"; "I'll try / maybe"; "I'll do my best"; "I'll do whatever it takes".
  3. For low commitment, shrink the plan or go back to wants and evaluation.
  4. Firm commitment may be confirmed verbally, in writing, or with a handshake. [uncertain: the wording of the five levels and the forms of commitment are from Wubbolding's books, which are not drawn on here; the Kent State module confirms only that the five levels and their range exist]
• Example language (illustrative): "On a scale from 'I'll see' to 'I'll definitely do it', where are you with this plan? What would make it a definite?"
• Watch for: "I'll try" usually signals a plan that is too big. It is working when stated commitment matches what the client does. [synthesis]

4.19 Reviewing plans: adjust, never abandon

• Purpose: Keep up momentum without punishment. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Open the next session by asking whether the plan was carried out.
  2. If it was, evaluate the effect on the want, and on feelings and physiology.
  3. If it was not, do not criticise or punish, and do not spend long on excuses. Ask whether the plan still makes sense and what would make it doable.
  4. Revise it, usually smaller.
  5. Keep the review going every session. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [uncertain: Glasser's 1965 rules of accepting no excuses, using no punishment and never giving up are classic reality-therapy teaching but not confirmed]
• Example language (illustrative): "It didn't happen this week. That's useful information, not a failure. What got in the way, and what version of the plan would work?"
• Watch for: Repeated non-completion. Go back to W: the plan may serve the counsellor's picture, not the client's. [synthesis]

4.20 Using reorganisation: generating new behaviours

• Purpose: Organised behaviours are familiar ones that worked before. When they stop working, the behavioural system starts reorganising, an ongoing creativity that produces new behaviours. Use it when the client says they have "tried everything". [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU)]
• Steps:
  1. Name the familiar behaviours that no longer work.
  2. Explain that the mind is already generating new options, some helpful and some costly. Glasser counted some symptoms among these (Wikipedia, citing White's 2005 review).
  3. Brainstorm without judging: list every possible action and thought, however odd.
  4. Have the client evaluate each one against the want and the needs.
  5. Choose one for a SAMIC³ plan. [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU)] [synthesis: brainstorm procedure]
• Example language (illustrative): "The old ways of handling this have stopped working, so it makes sense you feel lost. Let's put every idea on the table, even silly ones, and then you pick which might actually work."
• Watch for: Calling a severe symptom "creative" in a way the client hears as dismissive. It is working when the client generates options themselves. [synthesis]

4.21 The solving circle (couples)

• Purpose: A structured couples procedure in which each partner commits to connecting behaviour for the sake of the relationship. Use it with couples who both want to stay together. [uncertain: described in Glasser & Glasser, Getting Together and Staying Together (2000) and Eight Lessons for a Happier Marriage (2007), neither drawn on here. A couples-therapy thesis (Mills 2009) applies reality therapy to couples, but its full text is not drawn on here. The steps below are my reconstruction from secondary teaching and must be checked against the books before use]
• Steps (reconstruction):
  1. Teach both partners the axioms that each controls only their own behaviour, and the connecting and disconnecting habits (4.14).
  2. Ask them to imagine a circle on the floor that holds them and the marriage. Inside the circle, disconnecting habits are not allowed.
  3. Each partner, in turn, says what they will do in the coming week to help the relationship. Neither says what the other should do.
  4. Each makes their offer a small SAMIC³ plan.
  5. Review next session: did each do their own part? [uncertain: whole procedure]
• Example language (illustrative): "In the circle, each of you only talks about what you are willing to do this week for the relationship, not what your partner should do."
• Watch for: Coercive control, violence or fear in the relationship. Do not use conjoint work there (Section 5). Also watch for one partner having already left emotionally. It is working when each partner reports more connecting and fewer disconnecting habits. [synthesis]

4.22 Group work: WDEP check-in and peer evaluation

• Purpose: Training describes the group as a "quality world laboratory" and possibly a first experience of belonging. Use it in addiction, school and community programmes. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Structure each member's check-in around four questions, as given in the source: what they wanted to change this week, what they did, whether it worked, and what the plan is.
  2. Invite peers to ask the self-evaluation question ("Is that working for you?").
  3. Rehearse new acting and thinking behaviours in the group before members try them outside.
  4. Treat different need profiles as normal and equally valid. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Example language: "What's the plan?" (cited in Krahwinkel-Bower 2026). Facilitator (illustrative): "Before anyone offers advice, ask Sam how he thinks it went."
• Watch for: Peers criticising or advising, which are disconnecting habits. Steer them back to evaluative questions. It is working when members evaluate themselves and plan with little prompting. [synthesis]

4.23 Needs card sort (group or training exercise)

• Purpose: Build skill in recognising the dominant need behind behaviour, and show how one's own need profile colours that judgement. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Make groups of 4–5 people.
  2. Give each group a set of short vignettes. The source uses 20 and allows about 30 minutes. Groups sort them by dominant need and try to reach consensus.
  3. Debrief on the hardest card and on how each member's own needs shaped how they classified the cards.
  4. For clients, use vignettes based on situations typical of their group (adaptation). [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: client adaptation]
• Example language (illustrative): "Which card did your group argue about most? What does that say about the needs each of you sees first?"
• Watch for: Disagreement is expected and is useful. It is working when members can see several needs behind one behaviour. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]

4.24 Self-help, workshops and public mental-health use

• Purpose: Glasser's later work treated mental health as a public-health matter. Wellbeing can be built by teaching choice theory widely, not only by treating disorders. He recommended Take Charge of Your Life, and the institutes run Take Charge of Your Life (TCOYL) workshops. [source: WGII Wellbeing page]
• Steps:
  1. Recommend Take Charge of Your Life or Choice Theory to clients who like reading.
  2. Assign one concept per week and ask the client to apply it to their life.
  3. Discuss in session.
  4. Refer to a TCOYL workshop or an institute-run group where one is available. [source: WGII Wellbeing page] [synthesis: reading-assignment structure] [uncertain: Glasser's proposed choice-theory study groups are described in his 2005 paper "Defining Mental Health as a Public Health Issue"]
• Example language (illustrative): "This week, would you read the chapter on the basic needs and notice which one is loudest for you?"
• Watch for: Glasser's books also take strong anti-medication positions (e.g. Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health, 2003). Do not hand these to clients on medication without discussing it (Section 5). [source: Wikipedia, citing White 2005; ACA Counseling Today obituary] [synthesis]

4.25 Maintenance: a living quality-world map and early-warning plan

• Purpose: Keep gains after counselling ends. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Steps:
  1. Update the quality-world map as pictures change.
  2. Make self-evaluation (want, doing, working?) a daily or weekly habit.
  3. List early warning signs that needs are going unmet (for example, returning disconnecting habits, isolation, old "organised" behaviours) together with a pre-agreed plan for each.
  4. Taper the session frequency. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: tapering]
• Example language (illustrative): "What will tell you, early, that your need for belonging is slipping? And what's the first thing you'll do when you notice it?"
• Watch for: It is working when the client brings examples of running the process alone. [synthesis]

5. Handling problems

The sources contain little problem-specific guidance. Training material advises against rushing evaluation, recommends using the spirit of motivational interviewing with resistance, and frames relapse as a strategy that worked until it stopped working. Most of what follows applies choice-theory principles and is marked [synthesis]. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]

Stuck client ("nothing works", "I don't know what I want").

• Go back to W: the work may be stuck on someone else's picture (the referrer's, the family's, yours).
• Ask what the client wants from counselling, even if the only want is to get the referrer off their back.
• Use reorganisation brainstorming (4.20).
• Shrink plans until one gets done. [synthesis; the plan shrinking draws on Kent State module and Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]

Resistance and "I don't know".

• Do not push evaluation.
• Reflect both sides of the ambivalence and affirm.
• Remember the resistance is itself purposeful: ask what it protects (often freedom or power, against being controlled).
• Then say plainly that you will not try to make them change. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026 (MI spirit, double-sided reflections)] [synthesis: reading resistance as a need]

Excuses and blaming others.

• Do not argue. Acknowledge the other person's part.
• Return to the axiom that the client controls only their own behaviour.
• Ask what they could do this week regardless of what the other person does. [source: GIFCT Quickstart; Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [uncertain: Glasser's classic "accept no excuses" rule was not confirmed; in current practice it means not dwelling on excuses, never shaming]

Non-adherence to plans. Use the adjust-never-abandon review (4.19). Check that the plan meets SAMIC³, especially that it is controlled by the client and immediate. Repeated failure means going back to W and E, not applying sanctions. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026; Kent State module]

Overwhelm and flooding.

• Narrow to one want and one plan.
• Move to the acting "front wheel" with a small physical action, as in the brisk-walk principle (4.10).
• Hold teaching until later. [source: Choice Theory Basics (USMCU)] [synthesis]

Ruptures (the client feels judged, blamed or lectured).

• Treat a rupture as a sign that you used a disconnecting habit, such as criticising, nagging or a rhetorical "is that working?".
• Name it, take responsibility, and ask what the client wants from you.
• This models the connecting habits. [source: GIFCT Quickstart] [synthesis]

Specific to choice theory

• "Choice" heard as blame or shame. This is the main risk of the model. Say explicitly that "chosen" means "changeable", not "your fault". Do not use the verb language (4.9) with acute grief, trauma survivors who blame themselves, or severe depression until trust is solid. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis]
• Structural barriers and culture. Choice language can minimise poverty, racism, disability and other constraints. Direct questions may clash with norms of indirect communication. The evidence base largely excludes Black American, Indigenous and Global South clients. Name the structural constraints out loud, define "what you control" realistically, and adapt how direct you are. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026]
• Trauma. Axiom 5 (the past adds little) must not become refusing to hear trauma. Training pairs reality therapy with trauma-informed care. For PTSD, combine with or refer to an evidence-based trauma-focused treatment. [source: Krahwinkel-Bower 2026] [synthesis: referral]
• Medication, psychosis, bipolar disorder and medical conditions. Glasser rejected the medical model and opposed psychiatric drugs. Quoted in his ACA obituary, he said he had never prescribed one and was "against all brain drugs". Do not pass this stance on to clients. Do not advise stopping or changing medication. Work with the prescriber, and screen for medical causes of distress. Choice-theory work can run alongside medical care. [source: ACA Counseling Today obituary; Wikipedia, citing White 2005] [synthesis]
• Suicide and self-harm. Do standard risk assessment at intake and whenever it is indicated, and make a collaborative safety plan, including lethal-means counselling (safe storage or removal). Self-harm can be explored as a purposeful behaviour (what it gives the client), but never treat "you are choosing this" as a reason to skip safety steps. [synthesis]
• Abuse and coercive control in couples and families. "You control only your own behaviour" and "use connecting habits" must never become advice to a victim to accommodate the abuser, or a reason for conjoint work. Assess safety separately. Do not use the solving circle (4.21) where there is violence or fear. Follow local safeguarding and reporting duties. [synthesis]
• Mandated clients (courts, schools, corrections). Start with what the client wants given the mandate: freedom from supervision is a legitimate want. Be open about what you report. [source: Klefman 2024 (corrections, foster care and similar settings)] [synthesis]
• Children and adolescents. Use concrete pictures and simple versions of the car and needs. Glasser's school applications (classroom meetings, Quality Schools) suggest the same tools are suitable for children. Involve caregivers through the habit audit (4.14). [source: Wikipedia (classroom meetings)] [synthesis]
• Purist versus integrative drift. If you add techniques from other models (motivational interviewing, CBT, trauma work), label them as yours, as the institute expects of instructors. [source: Klefman 2024]

Sources

Sources:

• Quickstart Guide to Choice Theory – Glasser Institute for Choice Theory (US)
• Choice Theory Basics by Dr. William Glasser (USMCU-hosted handout) (attributed to Glasser; authorship of the handout's wording unverified [uncertain])
• Empowerment – J. A. Klefman, wglasser.com blog, 2024
• Choice, Responsibility and Recovery: Applying Reality Therapy in Addiction Counseling – J. M. Krahwinkel-Bower, PCB Annual Conference 2026
• Choice Theory Instructional Module: Reality Therapy – L. K. Justice, Kent State University
• Wellbeing – William Glasser Institute Ireland
• The Practice of Reality Therapy & Choice Theory Psychology – WGII Ireland (book listing, B. Lennon)
• RT Basic Training flyer – Saskatchewan Association of Social Workers
• Counseling with Choice Theory – review, Metapsychology Online
• William Glasser obituary – Counseling Today (ACA)
• Glasser's choice theory – Wikipedia (secondary)
• Glasser se realiteitsterapie en die toepassing daarvan in terapie met pare – M. Mills, UNISA, 2009 (record only)

Further reading (not drawn on): Glasser, W. (2005), Defining Mental Health as a Public Health Issue (WGII PDF), and WGII, Applying Choice Theory in Your Life (PDF).

Further reading (not drawn on):

• Glasser, W. (1965). Reality Therapy: A New Approach to Psychiatry. Harper & Row.
• Glasser, W. (1998). Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom. HarperCollins.
• Glasser, W. (2000). Counseling with Choice Theory: The New Reality Therapy (also published as Reality Therapy in Action). HarperCollins.
• Glasser, W., & Glasser, C. (2000). Getting Together and Staying Together. HarperCollins.
• Glasser, W. (2003). Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health. HarperCollins.
• Glasser, W., & Glasser, C. (2007). Eight Lessons for a Happier Marriage. HarperCollins.
• Glasser, W. (2011). Take Charge of Your Life: Choice Theory and Mental Health. iUniverse.
• Wubbolding, R. E. (1991). Understanding Reality Therapy. Harper Perennial.
• Wubbolding, R. E. (2022). Cited via Krahwinkel-Bower (2026) for the WDEP questions [uncertain: exact title].
• White, C. (2005). Review of Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health. Primary Care Companion to the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 7(2), 76 (via Wikipedia).