Dr. William Glasser’s book on “Choice Theory” offers a positive and exciting new approach to the concept of personal empowerment and freedom. In his easy to read book Dr. Glasser suggests that almost all human behaviour is chosen to satisfy the five basic needs for survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun.

Glasser contends these five basic needs are written into our genetic structure and they drive all our behaviours from birth to death. Unfortunately our genes do not provide us with any specific behaviour to meet these needs. So very soon after birth, we start learning how to behave in order to get our needs met and we continue learning new and refined ways for the rest of our lives.

To better enable us to learn we are provided with the ability to feel both pleasure and pain. Anything we do that feels good, feels that way because it is satisfying to one or more of our basic needs. Anything we do that feels bad, insufficiently satisfies our needs.

Choice Theory suggests that whether we realise it or not, one of our most motivating needs is for love and belonging; as we all want to feel close to and connected with the people we care about. In fact, it is our relationships with people we care about that largely determines whether or not we feel we lead fulfilling lives. Continue reading →