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Authors: Khosrow Bagheri Noaparast
Keywords: choice theory, William Glasser, William Powers, constructivism
Abstract: Inspired by William Powers' control theory, Willaim Glasser developed his view from the reality therapy to the control theory and then to the choice theory. This makes difficult the positioning of Glasser among humanists or mechanist thinkers. As far as Glasser's choice theory is concerned, there are some basic challenges in front of it. Firstly, the list of basic needs in the choice theory can be criticized on some grounds. Even though his denial of Maslow's hierarchical model has some merits, the denial of any kind of hierarchy among human needs and embracing an entirely parallel model among all the needs, as Glasser does, is doubtful. In addition, while it is not clear whether he uses an inductive or deductive method in searching for human needs, his list is not comprehensive as it lacks some important elements such as spiritual needs. Furthermore, freedom can hardly be considered as a need in line with other needs. In fact, freedom is more fundamental in human existence than simply a need. Secondly, Glasser's basic strategy in dealing with "total behavior" is, by all means, defensible as he attempts, in this way, to put aside the flavor of radical behaviorism. However, the structure of total behavior is not completely satisfactory. In particular, the claim that humans have direct control on their thoughts and actions is challengeable. As far as thoughts are concerned, while some sorts of thinking are decidable, it is not the case that the whole body of human thought can be so. Humans are considerably passive in their thought processes. As for actions, the direct control on them is more doubtful because for doing an action, one needs to have a reason or a motive. This shows that some other elements intervene between humans and their actions. Thirdly, a more fundamental challenge can be put forward against the philosophical background of the choice theory. It is argued in this paper that Glasser's phenomenological approach, being an entirely constructive one, needs to be completed by a realistic constructivism.