Harper Collins, 1998, 340 pages$23.00 ($32.50 Canada)

This important work, the latest by Dr. Glasser, is a bold proposal for helping families, schools, work places and entire communities, to help people feel free, and at the same time, get along with each other.

The essence of choice theory is exemplified in this situation: you hear the telephone ring; you answer the phone. The reason you answered the phone? Because it rang. No, The reason you answered the phone is because you chose to answer the phone. You could have chosen not to answer it.

The opposite of choice theory is what Glasser calls external control psychology, that we are feeling or behaving because of some external person or situation, which may be true in extreme cases such as war or natural catastrophes. But in ordinary life, if we believe "You made me angry;" or "You made me break it." and similar excuses for our behavior, then we are controled by a belief in external control psychology. In Games People Play, (1964), Berne lists a number of games with a similar theme as in "You made me do it." or "See what you made me do;" or "If it weren't for you." "Look how hard I tried." and "Aint it awful."

So many of the assumptions and axioms here are compatible with those in Transactional Analysis. Thus, Glasser states that the only person whose behavior we can control is our own. And he works only in the Now, saying what happened in the past should be treasured if it was pleasant and put away if it was unpleasant. His insistance on this, we believe, puts undue restraints on the use of such valuable tools as the rubberband, or redecision therapy which may help the client understand his or her history and ease appropriate changes. And he says most of our miseries are caused by our own beliefs, not too different from the position taken in Suffering is Optional (1976).

There is a great deal of disagreement about how much freedom of choice one has. For example, I interviewed a man in prison who had murdered his infant. I asked him what was happening. He answered. "She would not stop screaming at me." So he must have thought his four month old daughter had more freedom of choice than he had.

"People who are lucky enough to live in freedom, safety and plenty are more free to speculate about personal choices and actions." (Alan Jacobs)

Many children in this fair land suffer a living hell with parents who very likely were also abused as children. In Chicago today there are more than 40,000 children in foster homes, removed from their parents because of abuse or neglect. Who knows whether these foster parents are more loving and caring than the real parents? Many parents believe to comfort a crying infant will spoil it. Some psychologists also believe this despite overwhelming evidence that infants reared in a loving, nurturing home will grow up to be loving and nurturing adults, while infants abused will have more difficulties being nurturing and loving.

Today I saw two boys who complained that they were yelled at by their mothers. I asked them, "What do you do in such a situation?"

Boy #1: I go into dreamland.

Boy #2: 1 just sit there like I can't move and get a belly ache.'
These boys had fewer choices than their mothers.

Most adults in the United States probably have a lot more freedom of choice than they realize, but this freedom is neither universal nor unlimited. Thousands of homeless adults scrounge garbage for food, and sleep on the cold park benches or sidewalks. And plenty of working adults are stuck in extremely painful jobs. (Studs Turkel, Working (1972).

Around the world today hundreds of millions of people are existing on the verge of starvation. Millions are being tortured or harassed for racial, ethnic or religious beliefs. All over this planet several million refugees suffer without a country. For them suffering may not be optional.

In the situations described below, the adults clearly had choices they did not know they had before they became enlightened by psychotherapy.

Here is an example with a physical problem:

Glasser: What is the problem?

Thelma: Terrible headaches .... My doctor found nothing physical, told me to come see you. He said it is stress. I am skeptical.

G: Stress is very simple, occurring when something in your life is not the way you want it .... Do you have any children at home?

T: Oh Samantha, she's 16. I can't stand her.

G: Tell me more.

T: She never does what I tell her to do?. She leaves the kitchen a mess? On the couch watching TV.

G: What do you do when you come home and see her?

T: I yell at her ... Last week I got so furious at her nasty mouth, I slapped her and she slapped me back and has not spoken to me since and I had the worst headache...

G: I am going to ask you to do something that you will find very hard to do ... When you get home, do nothing....

T: But Samantha is the problem.

G: The relationship is the problem... What do you do when you have a customer where you work who is a big pain?

T: The customer is important.

G: More important than your daughter?

T: She is all I have .... (cries)
G: So when you get home what would you like to do?

T: Pour a glass of wine and sit and watch TV with her. If I did that she would think I had lost my mind...
G: Tell her you have stopped yelling, and sit with her. .. Do it for three days. And things got better at home.

And here is a summary of an hour session with a couple:

Glasser: What is the problem?

He. She keeps spending money.

She: He nags me about money.

(There is much arguing and accusing.) G: I can't help you if you keep this up.

G: Who can make you change?

He: Only I

She: Only I

G: What can you do different to make the marriage better?

He: I can say nothing about money to her.

She: I can be a little more affectionate.

They leave feeling better.

And at the Huntington Woods School:

Glasser taught the teachers to work with individual students, and to expect competent results. If the work of the student is not competent, the student is told to keep working until "we are both sure you are competent." The teacher checks the work and encourages. There are no threats, no failures. This previously very troubled school has been a quality school for three years, visited by people from all over the world.

Choice theory says that the reason most students don't do their best in school is because of external control psychology: the schools, supported by parents and politicians, think they know what is right and children who don't learn what they are told is right should be punished

And the Schwab Middle School

A math class in this very disturbed school . The teacher was giving the lesson and no one was listening or doing the assignment. Glasser sat down with one student who was not listening to the teacher and asked her quietly two or three times, "Are you going to do the problem?" He helped her and she finished the assignment, and then he sat with another student. He asked the teacher to do the same. He was teaching the teacher by example. No threats, no coercion, but encouragement and help, and good results.

Another example is a girl who won't graduate because she is failing in English.

"I hate Shakespeare. I try hard but I can't understand it.

What do you like?

I like animals.

Would you be willing to read a book about animals? I am sure you can pass a test on this book.

She agrees.

Why force Shakespeare? The purpose of this class is to provide language skills. Yet some teachers thought it would be better to sacrifice her to preserve a coercive system. Some schools kill the love of learning which children show in kindergarten and first grade. In describing his work in schools and in the work place, he uses the Deming example: (Out of the Crisis, 1986) programs which aim to change the person are ineffective; what must be changed is the system.

I asked my daughter, Carla, when she returned from her first day of school, "What did you learn in school today?" She said "I learned that only the teacher can talk."

When Glasser asked the teachers in the Schwab Middle School in Cincinnati, what they wanted, they said, they wanted to teach the way they felt was best, but were afraid, so Glasser got written permission from State and local authorities to grant teachers this right. He went into the community to find volunteer tutors so there would be two teachers for each ten students. You can imagine that things improved greatly in that school. The small extra cost of this kind of program is much more economical than keeping these kids in prison when they fail school.

Similarly in the workplace, Glasser demonstrates what he calls "lead management" which involves the manager working with the employee or demonstrating the work, so that they both understand the purpose and methods to be used. The employee adds his suggestions and questions. The key to success in the workplace, as in families. or schools, is good relationships, and in the workplace, pay incentives are provided for excellence.

The most valuable part of this book is not the new theories which are old theories with new names, but in the very creative, energetic and boldly ambitious examples of successful programs.

His most ambitious program: to change an entire community.

In the winter of 1997, Glasser and his wife offered their services to the Corning, New York community, in an effort to change not only the family, school and work life, but the life of the entire community. When the book Choice Theory was written, they were in the process

The book would be improved with an index.

TAJnet Volume 3, January 2, 2000.