Reality therapy, developed by William Glasser, proceeds on the theory that the brain functions as a system that controls behavior by fulfilling needs built into the environment; an individual's problems are caused by not being able to control or effectively act on these environmentally based needs. Individuals have psychopathology because they cannot control their environment in a way that satisfies their basic needs for survival, belonging, power, fun, and freedom.

In this model, behavior is an integration of a person's feelings, thoughts, and actions, relating to personal needs and behavior of others; this behavior comes from within and depends on the needs it means to satisfy. Since its focus is on present experience and helping the client to make better choices of behavior, reality therapy considers antecedent experiences and outside forces to be of little import. Every person, along with society, is assumed to have a set of personal standards, which reality therapy considers especially important if a client is operating contrary to those personal or societal standards. Reality therapy seeks to teach people to gain control of their environments by choosing more effective behaviors.

Reality therapy rejects the concept of mental illness. Reality therapists would not bill using the DSM-5 because they don't believe in the pathology model.

Individuals have two psychological needs:

1. The need to love and to be loved
2. To feel worthwhile to themselves and to others

Eight basic steps in reality therapy:

1. Having established a friendly relationship, the counselor finds out from the client what he/or she wants (is "controlling for")

2. The counselor finds out what the client is doing to make it happen

3. The counselor helps the client evaluate how effective his/or her behavior is in achieving these wants

4. The counselor then helps the client make a plan for more effective control over the situation/environment

5. The counselor exacts a commitment to follow through on the plan

6. The counselor does not accept the client's excuses for not doing so

7. If possible, the counselor imposes reasonable consequences (such as temporary restrictions of freedom or temporary removal of privileges) when the plan is not carried out

8. The client is not allowed to simply give up by controlling the counselor; if one plan just won't be followed, then the counselor and client amend it or create another, until the client implements it and begins to take control of his/or her life.

Though Glasser concedes that this individual control can take a long time to achieve, he argues that it will succeed because it is the individual who controls the environment, not the other way around.