It sounds all nice and fuzzy: "Choice Theory." Treat people well yourself, and don't worry about controlling other people's behavior. It makes a lot of sense, really, and one town in upstate New York ~ Corning ~ has launched the Choice Community Project to propagate the meme with training for adults in a variety of settings, including jail, and for teachers in the school system. They also plan to introduce it into the school curriculum from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade.

The man who devised this program, Dr. William Glasser, has been at it for awhile.

When asked whether his prescription of the "caring habits" might be construed as naïve, Dr. Glasser said: "It doesn't go against human nature, but it goes against what everyone believes. I am naïve. I've made a good living being naïve, and people listen to me."

Most mental-health professionals say there is nothing particularly startling or even original about Dr. Glasser's views on personal responsibility and relationships. Rather, he has popularized and expounded on theories set out decades ago by thinkers like the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm, the psychologist Abraham Maslow and the psychotherapist Carl Rogers.

"It's apple pie," said Dr. Frank J. Bourke, a psychologist who serves on the project's steering committee, of Dr. Glasser's theories. `It's mainstream clinical opinion.`

Still, I've got to wonder how much confidence to place in a person who believes that all mental illness is chosen, including manic/depression and schizophrenia.

Dr. Glasser explains the symptoms of schizophrenia as behaviors that an individual chooses when one or more of the four human needs is not being met, and he has amply identified those needs in his writing as freedom, power, fun and a sense of love and belonging. "Choice theory is about basic needs," he said, "and if you can't satisfy them you're going to be unhappy, so the creative parts of our brain create schizophrenia and manic depression."

Didn't we go through all this awhile back with R.D. Laing, and with the "refridgerator mother" theories and the like? What, we're returning to the Just Snap Out of It approach to therapy? If your not a happy Stepford citizen, that's just a choice you're making?

I see the potential for great abuse here.

5:41:47 PM    please comment []