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| Image credit: Glasser, w. (2013). Take Charge of Your Life: How to get What you Need with Choice-Theory Psychology. Bloomington, IN, USA: iUniverse |
Whether it is applied in the therapist’s office, the classroom, or the workplace, Choice Theory starts (and continues) with building positive human relationships.
Therapists practicing Choice Theory typically start off with what Dr. Glasser has called the “getting acquainted talk and banter” needed “to develop the warm supportive relationship necessary for successful counseling” (Glasser, 1998, p. 64). His advice to teachers in The Quality School Teacher (1998) is to talk to students “much more than most of you have ever done before” and also to “get rid of the standard rectangular classroom configuration of rows” (p.3); making “a warm, supportive classroom environment” (is) the first of his six conditions of quality schoolwork (p.18). Lead managers, Kenneth Pierce reminds us in Using Lead Management on Purpose, make work “a talking and listening place” where workers “feel empowered” and are “more likely... to do quality work” (2007, p.94).
This same holds true in our community work. Our 2006 storytent manual contains a section titled “The First Twenty Minutes” which reads, in part
Relationship building is the most important part of the Storytent program. Everything we do in the storytent, from set-up onward, is done in a way that builds relationships.... When children come into the tent, workers smile and greet them. We tell them what happens in the tent, offer to read a book, or offer several books for them to look at, and then respect their choices. (Brown & Dryden, 2006, p. 51)Storytent is our best-known ongoing program, but it is not all we do or have done. We have offered door-to-door year round lending programs, and established participant-managed and/or small neighbourhood libraries. We take part in various neighbourhood events and seasonal celebrations. We run short-term community learning projects, and also offer mentoring and hands-on learning for volunteers who want to organize and deliver their own literacy events and projects. We provide private tutoring and small group literacy learning for adults. We have engaged in advocacy work with new Canadians and families in crisis, offered parent sessions on topics like home and school relations or helping children with homework, and provided professional consultation on topics like assisting low-literacy customers or using clear writing. Finally, we regularly run in-house ‘Choice Theory Focus Groups’ (Glasser, 2003) as part of our on-going professional development.
Choice Theory is integrated into all of this work: which is to say, we concentrate first and foremost on building positive human relationships. We also strive for quality by constantly reflecting on our work and looking for ways to make improvements to these relationships. We view challenges through the prism of what we can control, what it is we want, and what else we might do to reach our goals. We share our perceptions and quality world pictures, and then negotiate any disagreements. We are careful about the language we use. Being mindful of total behaviour, we pay attention to the things we need to do to stay healthy and happy in our work. It is this constellation of the different ways we integrate Choice Theory with our work that has led us to speak of it as “quality literacy.”
Brown, C. & Dryden, W. (2006). Quality Storytents.
Brown, C. & Dryden, W. (2004). Quality Storytents: Using Choice Theory to support reading through a community literacy project. International Journal of Reality Therapy, 24(1), 3 - 12.
Glasser, W. (2003). Warning: Psychiatry may be hazardous to your health. NY: HarperCollins.
Glasser, W. (2000). Reality therapy in action. NY: HarperCollins.
Glasser, W. (1998). Choice Theory: A new psychology of personal freedom. NY: HarperCollins.
Glasser, W. (1998). The quality school teacher: A companion to the quality school (revised edition). NY: HarperPerennial.
Glasser, W. (1992). The quality school: Managing students without coercion. NY: HarperPerennial.
Pierce, K. L. (2007). Using lead management on purpose. NY: iUniverse, Inc.
Wubbolding, R. E. (2000). Reality therapy for the 21° century. Philadelphia: Brunnser- Routledge.
