Using reality therapy with adult offenders

This paper presents a modified version of reality therapy as understood and applied in work with adult offenders in a variety of practice settings. Reality therapy seeks to enable the client to attain an innate sense of personal responsibility and to gain conscious mastery of his or her behavior. The practice theory, as developed here, is rooted in the early writings of William Glasser. The first part of the discussion focuses on the normative principles underlying the theory. The central section of the paper then outlines five basic treatment techniques-involvement, current behavior, evaluation of behavior, planning, commitment-and illustrates each with a case vignette. The authors conclude that reality therapy can indeed provide a path to more responsible behavior for most adult offenders.