That kind of omnipotence is a crazy kind of naive to bring to adulthood. I don't know what you're quoting from, but it doesn't seem to be a post in the thread. Seems to be a much-distributed (on the internet) short article by a grad student who misjudged Glasser when in a course covering Glasser's work. Anyway, I'm kind of excited to reacquaint myself with Glasser from this thread and use the concepts on the page Snakecharmer linked to.

But I wouldn't call mental illness a choice ... in all cases. There is an element of choice in saying "This is not something I can handle on my own. I'm struck down by this and need professional help, which may include someone classifying my condition as a disorder." One could be correct or mistaken in that interpretation, but how you interpret things is your choice. There can also be denial, another choice that defines reality without determining it.

I know someone with some schizophrenic symptoms, who chooses to manage without medication the scary things he experiences, and has never been diagnosed with anything. So, does that person have "schizophrenia" in some form? While a layman might think so, isn't it for a professional to make that call, and if it's not been made, does the person have a mental illness? Not officially. And I think not, particularly as he is not utterly overcome by his experiences! Did the person make a choice to manage his life experience without medicalizing it, turning it over to a professional? In his case, he made a great choice and I'm glad he did, because both he and I have a horror of the profound side effects of medications. Different strokes for different folks - it's all about choices in life. Not every case of such symptoms can necessarily be managed by the individual alone, I expect.

There is an element of choice in identifying, "Yes, I've been victimized" or the opposite. All the above is certainly not a simplistic choice in the sense of "you create your own reality" or "the Secret" which are ridiculous.

Since your sense of reality is based on your understanding, broadening the latter can change your sense of things, but generally not change the things themselves. Sometimes understanding better can allow changes to be made, again not in that simplistic, magical and omnipotent way.

Looking at the Wikipedia article on Glasser's choice theory, I note it says:

>"Choice Theory posits that most mental illness is, in fact, an expression of unhappiness and that we are able to learn how to choose alternate behaviors that will result in greater satisfaction."

It doesn't say ALL mental illness. I do agree with the above, that often normal but painful human experience gets managed medically instead of dealt with directly on a human level, by making choices and learning to make various choices. It makes me sad that our culture shuts away human experience out of shame in so many cases, and medicalizes is.