WAKEshine

I’m about halfway through "Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom" by William Glasser, MD.  Dr. Glasser believes that problems can be solved mostly by making choices about how our future will go and testing those choices.  In his counseling, he doesn’t spend much time dwelling on the past.  The past does not determine our future, but our current choices do.

He has some interesting models of human behavior that I am trying to learn.

The first is the concept of the five basic needs of people: Survival, Love and Belonging, Power, Freedom, and Fun (also equated with Learning).  Every person has a "genetic" makeup of how deeply they feel these needs.  For example, a person may have a high need for security (survival) and a low need for power.

These genetic need maps are basically unchangable.  If a person has, say, a high need for power, they can certainly compromise or adjust their needs for others, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have the need.

One of the key principles in Choice Theory is that we can control ourselves, not others.  We can negotiate with others but the idea of controlling via threats, manipulation, or any other "external control" system is doomed to failure.  He sees this as a primary reason for the failure of upper grades of school: most learning is taught via a system of pressure and guilt.  In other words, by trying to control the students rather than participating in the students’ needs systems.

He believes most problems that we have come from relationship problems.  Interesting patterns come into play as we enter relationships.  If two high-power people come together, they will have a conflict in a different way than, say, a high-power and a high-freedom couple.  Before you can negotiate effectively with somebody, it helps to know what kinds of needs system they have in place.  There’s no point trying to convince somebody of the safety of a potential venture if the person you are trying to convince has a low need for survival (that is, he/she is very comfortable with taking risks) and a high need for freedom or creativity.

In any relationship we need to be clear about our needs, not to suppress them.  We need to decide how much we are willing to compromise and where our boundaries are.  Then the choice is up to the other as to whether they will participate.  Trying to force somebody to meet your needs is fruitless.