[from Mary Powers 991211]
Bill (991211.0558 MDT) said:
Most of the practices of the RTP program are not based on PCT at all...
Bill is right that Ed Ford is using Glasser's Quality School techniques in
his RTP program. I don't know exactly when Ed left the Glasser
organization, but it was probably before 1980, when Glasser ran across
Bill's book and enthusiastically proclaimed it as the basis and
justification for his work. Unfortunately he thought it justified
_everything_ about his work, which it does not. Glasser also thought he
understood it better than he actually did - he believes that the only type
of conflict is external, that you change undesirable behavior by
will-power, and, because he didn't understand it, he does not include the
concept of the hierarchy in his work.
However, part of what Glasser espoused: the litany "what are you doing - is
what you are doing getting you what you want?" while pure Glasser, as Bill
says, is also (I think) one of the main parts of Glasser's, and Ed's,
programs that _is_ justified by PCT. It is directing attention to goals -
desired perceptions - and begins to suggest that in order to achieve a goal
it may be necessary to vary one's behavior. This is done not just by
Glasser and Ed, but also people in IAACT. IAACT consists primarily of
people who have been quitting the Glasser organization since 1996. Its
members, who are mainly into applications, use this part of the Glasser
technique, which they now think of as a practical expression of the PCT
model. That is, a technique with a reason, not something learned by rote.
(One reason IAACT people quit Glasser was that he did want them to learn
techniques like this only by rote, from him only - his excuse being that
PCT was much too technical and hard for the likes of teachers and social
workers and counselors.)
In reply to Rick (991210.1940) it is probably true that RTP has practices
which come straight from Glasser and are not justified by PCT. Some
practices, however, are ones which, while not originally based on PCT, were
later recognized as being PCTish by Glasser. Some of what Ed does is pure
Ed, with a strong whiff of the parochial school. But RTP is also
explicitly and directly based on PCT in some major ways, beginning with the
understanding that human beings are control systems.
I think Ed discovered PCT on his own, after he had left the Glasser
organization. Maybe he read Stations of the Mind, the one big contribution
Glasser made to PCT, since it inspired several people to check out PCT
directly.
Mary P.