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A therapeutic approach in which a therapist helps a client understand the reality of the world around them and how to function accordingly.

Reality therapy was developed by William Glasser, who wrote a book of the same name in the 1960s. This type of counseling suggests that all psychiatric subjects have the same basic underlying problem, namely an inability to fulfill their essential needs. Specific problems, like alcoholism or misbehavior in school, are the symptoms and not the problem. Troublesome symptoms occur when a person cannot or will not meet their needs.

Language of reality therapy

Essential needs can be broken down into two categories. One is the need to love and be loved at all times during the course of a lifetime. The other is the need to feel worthwhile to oneself and others. In order to feel worthwhile, one must maintain a satisfactory standard of...