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Chapter 11- Reality Therapy
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MULTIPLE-CHOICE TEST ITEMS
1. Sandra is a reality therapist who is meeting her client Paul, who struggles with career
indecision, for the first time. How might she begin her work with Paul?
a. by diagnosing his problem using the DSM
b. by asking Paul what he wants from therapy
c. by asking about his earliest recollections
d. by asking him to take a career inventory
2. Reality therapy is best categorized as:
a. a brand of psychoanalytic therapy.
b. a form of nondirective therapy.
c. a derivative of Gestalt therapy.
d. a derivative of Adlerian therapy.
e. a form of cognitive behavior therapy.
3. Reality therapy has gained popularity with:
a. school counselors and administrators.
b. school teachers, both elementary and secondary.
c. rehabilitation workers.
d. all of the above
4. Reality therapy is best described as:
a. an intensive and long-term therapy.
b. a rational therapy.
c. an insight therapy.
d. a short-term therapy that stresses doing.
e. an experiential therapy stressing feelings and attitudes.
5. The client’s quality world consists of all of the following except:
a. activities that fulfill our needs.
b. images of people who enrich our lives.
c. beliefs.
d. insight.
6. WDEP stands for:
a. wants, decision, self-evaluation, perception.
b. wishes, direction, engagement, purpose.
c. wants, doing, self-evaluation, planning.
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d. wants, direction, efficacy, planning.
7. Which of the following is not a component of total behavior?
a. wanting
b. acting
c. feeling
d. thinking
e. physiology
8. A reality therapist would most likely respond to a client’s complaint of melancholy, sad mood by
saying:
a. “Sounds like you’re depressed.”
b. “Sounds like you have depression.”
c. “Sounds like you’re depressing.”
d. “Sounds like you’re depressive.”
9. The function of the reality therapist is:
a. to assist clients in dealing with the present.
b. to encourage clients to make a value judgment concerning the quality of their behavior.
c. to confront clients about specific irrational thoughts and ideas and to teach them to think
rationally.
d. to reindoctrinate clients with the acceptable standards for living.
10. Wubboding believes all of the following encourage the client’s involvement in therapy except for:
a. appropriate use of humor.
b. warmth.
c. facilitative self-disclosure.
d. allowing the client to focus on symptoms.
11. In reality therapy, the counseling environment is:
a. the time to explore past trauma.
b. characterized by a therapeutic climate that establishes the foundation for implementing
procedures .
c. highly structured with the aim of changing cognitions.
d. conducive to restructuring one’s personality.
12. Which method(s) is (are) often used in reality therapy?
a. behavior-oriented methods
b. the use of questioning
c. exploring a client’s quality world
d. designing an action plan
e. all of these
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13. What is Robert Wubbolding likely to say about people’s problems?
a. “People don’t have problems, they have solutions that have not worked.”
b. “Most people are emotionally disturbed, but many of them are able to create a believable facade
that they are high functioning. Don’t be fooled!”
c. “Most forms of psychopathology should be treated with medication.”
d. “People who have problems should try reality therapy only after uncovering the unconscious
determinants of their behavior.”
14. Which of the following procedures would a reality therapist be least likely to employ?
a. skillful questioning
b. encouraging clients to look at what they are doing
c. making action plans
d. engaging in homework to change behaviors
e. reliving an early childhood event
15. Which of the following is not a function of the reality therapist?
a. focusing on areas in the client’s life that need improvement so that he or she can achieve a
“success identity”
b. setting limits in the therapeutic setting
c. getting clients to be specific about how they will make desired changes
d. confronting clients by not accepting their excuses
e. helping clients reformulate their plans, if necessary
16. All of the following are true about planning and commitment in reality therapy, except:
a. Clients make a commitment to carry out their plans.
b. There is a connection between a person’s identity and their level of commitment.
c. A great deal of time is spent on this step of reality therapy.
d. Commitment puts the responsibility for changing on the client.
e. Therapists only ask for commitments that are reasonable.
17. Reality therapy is based on which of the following orientations to understanding human behavior?
a. radical behaviorism
b. psychoanalytic
c. existential-phenomenological
d. deterministic
e. person-centered theory
18. What do reality therapists believe about the use of questions?
a. They should rarely be used.
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b. Relevant questions help clients gain insights and arrive at plans and solutions.
c. There is no such thing as excessive questioning; the more the better!
d. Closed questions are more helpful than open-ended questions.
19. Reality therapists are likely to deal with all of the following except for:
a. what a client is currently doing.
b. what clients are thinking and feeling, when this relates to what they are doing.
c. a client’s relationships with significant others.
d. assisting clients in developing an action plan geared for change.
e. asking clients to recall, report, and share dreams.
20. A reality therapist will primarily focus on:
a. past behavior.
b. present behavior.
c. feelings.
d. thoughts.
e. the client’s personal history.
21. When reality therapists explore a client’s past, they tend to focus on:
a. relationships within the family.
b. early traumatic events.
c. problems in school performance.
d. past successes.
e. developmental problems.
22. In reality therapy, the purpose of developing an action plan is:
a. to encourage clients to stretch beyond their limits.
b. to teach clients to “think big.”
c. to arrange for successful experience.
d. to arrive at the ultimate solution to a client’s problem.
23. In reality therapy, when a client fails to carry out their plans, the therapist will:
a. use a behavioral form of punishment.
b. “put the client down” to arouse their anger and motivate them to change.
c. accept their excuses.
d. make a value judgment about the client’s behavior.
e. challenge the client to accept the reasonable consequence of his or her behavior.
24. Which of the following is (are) a contribution of reality therapy?
a. It helps clients deal emotionally with unfinished business from their past.
b. It provides insight into the causes of one’s problems.
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c. It provides a structure for both clients and therapist to evaluate the degree and the nature of
changes.
d. Most of its concepts have been subjected to empirical testing.
25. Reality therapy rests on the central idea that:
a. thinking largely determines how we feel and behave.
b. we choose our behavior and are responsible for what we do, think, and feel.
c. environmental factors largely control what we are doing.
d. the way to change dysfunctional behavior is to reexperience a situation in which we originally
became psychologically stuck.
26. Glasser would agree with all of the following conclusions except:
a. We are most likely to change if we are threatened by punishment.
b. We do not have to be the victim of our past.
c. We have more control over our lives than we believe.
d. We strive to change the world outside ourselves to match our internal pictures of what we want.
e. We often seek therapy when we do not have the relationships we want.
27. The core of reality therapy consists of:
a. teaching clients how to acquire rational beliefs instead of irrational beliefs.
b. helping clients to understand their unconscious dynamics.
c. giving clients opportunities to express unresolved feelings.
d. teaching clients to take effective control of their own lives.
28. A limitation of this approach as it applies to multicultural counseling is:
a. oppressed clients may have little choice over their circumstances.
b. this therapy provides specific tools to help clients make the changes they desire.
c. the concept of the quality world is abstract and lacks cross-cultural appeal.
d. reality therapists must be careful when adapting their approach to non-western cultures.
29. All of the following are procedures that are commonly used in reality therapy except:
a. exploring wants, needs, and perceptions.
b. exploring early recollections.
c. focusing on current behavior.
d. planning and commitment.
e. skillful questioning.
30. Which of the following procedures would a reality therapist be least likely to employ?
a. self-help procedures
b. the use of humor
c. homework assignments
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d. asking a client to emotionally reexperience a childhood experience
e. asking questions to get a better sense of the client’s inner world
31. In a reality therapy group, the leader:
a. is responsible for evaluating the clients’ behaviors.
b. performs an assessment to determine if the client is truly getting what he or she wants in life.
c. withholds feedback when members are designing their plans.
d. may encounter resistance from members when providing suggestions for how clients can best get
what they want.
32. All of the following are key characteristics of contemporary reality therapy except for:
a. There is a focus on talking about symptoms that bring a client into therapy.
b. Emphasis is on choice and responsibility.
c. There is a rejection of the notion of transference.
d. Therapy is kept in the present.
e. Clients are helped to get connected or reconnected with the people they have chosen to put in their
quality world.
33. Which of these statements is not true?
a. With the emphases on connection and interpersonal relationships, reality therapy is well suited
for various kinds of group counseling.
b. The WDEP system can be applied to helping group members satisfy their basic needs.
c. If members talk about their past experiences or make excuses for their current behavior, the
group leader redirects them to what they are presently doing.
d. Reality therapy does not lend itself to a group format.
34. In working with Japanese clients, a reality therapist might do which of the following when
asking clients to make plans and commit to them?
a. The therapist might be likely to accept “I’ll try” as a firm commitment.
b. The therapist would push clients for an explicit pledge to follow through.
c. The therapist would view a noncommittal response as a sign of weakness.
d. The therapist would refer their clients if they refused to commit to a plan.
35. According to Glasser, many of the problems of clients are caused by:
a. unfinished business with parents.
b. sibling rivalry.
c. early childhood trauma.
d. their inability to connect or to have a satisfying relationship with at least one of the significant
people in their lives.
e. the failure to succeed in changing the other person in the relationship.
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TRUE/FALSE TEST ITEMS
Decide if the following statements are “more true” or “more false” from the reality therapy perspective.
1. Reality therapists believe in a biological basis for mental illness.
2. Reality therapy is not well-suited to group counseling.
3. Reality therapy cautions against the therapist mentoring the client.
4. Glasser believes the need to love and to belong are secondary needs.
5. According to reality therapists, we are not born blank slates waiting to be externally motivated by
forces in the world around us.
6. One of the procedures of reality therapy is to work through unfinished business from the past.
7. Reality therapists see therapeutic value in working with a client’s dreams.
8. Glasser took the position that schools needed to be structured in ways to help students achieve a
success identity as opposed to a failure identity.
9. Reality therapists ask clients to take a hard look at whether their current actions are working for them.
10. Reality therapy sees transference as a way for the therapist to avoid getting personally involved in the
clients’ lives.
11. The core of reality therapy is developing a plan for change as a way of translating talk into action.
12. The first step in the process of reality therapy consists of a comprehensive assessment leading to a
specific diagnosis.
13. Commitment puts the responsibility directly on clients for changing.
14. Reality therapists refuse to accept excuses.
15. Reality therapists use punishment as a way to help clients follow through with their plans and
commitments.
16. Reality therapy tends to be a long-term approach.
17. Reality therapy is a popular approach in correctional work.
18. Therapeutic contracts are frequently used in reality therapy.
19. Reality therapy is basically active, directive, practical, didactic, cognitive, and behavioral.
20. Choice theory is based on the assumption that people are in charge of their own destiny.
21. Reality therapists maintain that clients will not change unless they assume a self-critical attitude.
22. Clients are expected to focus on their feelings and attitudes, and then their behavior will change.
23. Glasser recommends that therapists look back for the causes of a client’s present failures.
24. A main function of the reality therapist is to encourage clients to assess their behavior to determine
how well it is working for them.
25. Reality therapy is often used in treating drug and alcohol abusers.
26. It is the job of the reality therapist to convey the idea that no matter how bad things are there is hope.
27. The SAMIC3 plan is an essential part of the evaluation phase of the WDEP system.
28. Robert Wubbolding stresses the importance of an engaging therapeutic environment.
29. Regarding group work, members provide one another with feedback regarding their choices and plans.
30. Reality therapy gives only limited attention to helping people address environmental and social
problems.