I’ve presented a case study on reality therapy in class, one of the many methods used in counseling or psychotherapy. The first impression it gave me was, ‘Wow, this therapy is so straight to the point. It doesn’t look like what’s in many people’s pictures of psychotherapy. It’s just like asking people what they want and then encourage them to proceed to do it’
As a result of the preparation for the presentation, among all the therapies taught in class, reality therapy is the one I spent most time reading, and the more I read about it, the more I like it! It totally changed my view about psychology, man! I always thought that psychology deals a lot about unconscious and… hrm… I think I believe in a lot of things about unconscious mind. Whatever I do, I always think that it must be some reason behind that behavior, which I’m unconscious of.
Even though choice theory (which is applied in reality therapy) never denies the existence of the unconscious, what it proposes is that there is nothing you can do about the past (unconscious is always connected to something you’ve done or something happened in the past); hence, instead of continue thinking or doing something related to the past, reality therapy takes you out from the past and make you focus on here and now! For example, instead of insisting that your husband had once betrayed you (while he never admitted it), and making your life miserable by choosing to be depressing, angering, or whatsoever negative feelings (yeah, humans make choices about their own behaviors, there’s no ‘depressed’ but ‘depressing’ because you choose to do so and you’ve never asked to or forced to be depressed!), why don’t you just let go and continue with current life and also the future? So true, no? Ok, maybe you would argue that you may feel better if the husband at least admitted the betrayal. At this time, a reality therapist will ask you, ‘whose behavior can you control?’ “No other than yourself.” Yeah, right! We have no control over others’ actions; hence, just do yourself a favor, focus on what you yourself can do now to make your life better!
I know the reason why I like choice theory. I indulged myself too much in the unconscious that at times, I felt like I could hardly pull myself out from the past. This is terrible I tell you. The feelings are terrible. So, now I can tell myself, ‘Hey, don’t whine and whine and whine about the past! You can never undo the past! Stop thinking about the past and continue with your current life!” “You’ve already spent some time on negative events in the past, why still commit your current time on the same issue? It’s such a waste of time!”
Currently, while doing treatment proposal, which is one of the assignment for the counseling course, I read more about reality therapy again. I read few case studies and what the reality therapist always got was something like, ‘What kind of counselor are you? I don’t think you know what you’re doing. You don’t ask how I feel; you don’t want to hear about my suffering.” -_-” Pity the therapist lar… And if you’re yet to know, other than the past vs. current competition, choice theory also proposes actions over feelings. Instead of talking about feelings, the therapists always guide you to talk about actions, what you can do.
I think it’s enough. I should go back to my treatment proposal now.
*back to add something
Eh, people, reading about choice therapy itself is actually therapeutic also. Hence, if you think that you’ve some issue that you’re stuck at and that you have no where no seek for help or too shy to seek for help, just go to the nearest library and pick a book named ‘choice theory’. You can also search it online lar, in this case, try to search for a online book instead of newsletter or documents (they are barely sufficient). But but, if you think you can hardly cope with it alone, faster go out and get help!
And and… I think I like counseling… but but… is there any chance that I can survive in this field? I so weak in language. And I anti-social a bit. Hahaha…
