[[5]] Glasser and Zunin, "Reality Therapy," Current Psychotherapies, p. 324.
In another example of reality therapy, a patient says, "I feel depressed and miserable." Instead of responding, "How long have you felt this way?" or "What have you been feeling depressed about?," a reality therapist might ask, "What have you been doing that continues to make you depressed?" or "Why aren't you even more depressed?" With both of these responses, the therapist makes it clear that he believes the client can influence his or her feelings.
Often therapists, no matter what their approach, will say to clients who are going through a difficult time that they may phone after hours if there is an emergency. A reality therapist may, in addition, also say, "I hope you'll call me if you have had a special success."
APPLICATIONS OF REALITY THERAPY
Reality therapy has been used in connection with these types of problems:
* individual problems involving anxiety, marital conflicts, maladjustment, and some psychoses where a person is comparatively out of touch with reality and may have hallucinations or delusions
* teenage delinquency
* difficulties faced by women who have recently been widowed
* designing school programs that stress the development of individual identity based on a sense of personal success
Reality therapists believe that their approach is of value to people who want to develop a more successful pattern of living, of managing their own affairs, and of coping effectively with challenges at work and with problems of everyday living. Reality therapy has also been used in industry with organizational problems and with difficulties experienced by individual employees.