CONFLICT IN CHOICE THEORY AND
REALITY THERAPY
QUICKLINKS TO SECTIONS IN THIS
PAGE: TRUE CONFLICTS |FALSE CONFLICTS| CONTROL CONFLICTS
TRUE, FALSE AND
CONTROL CONFLICTS
INTRODUCTION
People seem to fight over everything from
how a country should be governed to how the living room should be
decorated. It is as if conflict arises from very fundamental aspects
of how our minds work. Some causes of conflict, from the point of
view of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy, are these:
Generally speaking, conflicts can be
thought of as true or false. A true conflict has no satisfactory
solution, at least in the short term. A false conflict has a
solution but it may be one which we don't feel like implementing.
In a true conflict there is no single solution which
will satisfy both sides. In a false conflict there is a solution,
often tough and unpalatable, which will resolve the issue.
Mary insists that she wants to live in
Dublin, John insists that he wants to live in London. Neither is
willing to live anywhere outside of one of these cities. This is a
true conflict. There is no solution which will satisfy both.
It is not simply a matter that there is a
conflict between them. There is also a conflict in each of
them.
Mary has a conflict between her desire to
live in Dublin and her love for John. John has a conflict between his
desire to live in London and his love for Mary.
How might they handle this conflict? Here
are some possibilities good and bad, satisfying and unsatisfying,
from the perspective of Reality Therapy and Choice Theory:
Note that the behaviours we use to get
what we want are not necessarily effective nor are they
necessarily pain-free for us - especially when some of the things
we want are in conflict with other things we want.
The things which meet their needs may not
be the same for each of them - what matters is that each can put
his or her energies into satisfying activities in which they are
not in conflict, while postponing
a decision on the major conflict.
Perhaps Mary wants to do an evening
course which will take three months. Perhaps John wants to join a
health club and get into shape.
There doesn't have to be a conflict about
it because they can each do these things separately.
The world never stands still and
something may happen in the meantime to resolve the situation that
they are most in conflict about - which city to live in.
This approach is common in industrial
relations - usually where the union agrees to try out a new work
arrangement and the management agrees to a joint review after six
months or a year.
Grieving over someone who has died or over a
relationship which has irrevocably ended or over a situation which
has changed for the worse (perhaps children grieving because their
parents have split up) is an example of a true conflict. There is a
conflict between wanting the old situation and having to live in the
new. There is no immediate solution which will resolve the conflict
in a satisfactory way. Only time, and doing other things which are
satisfying, will heal the grief.
There is no true conflict between
maintaining my weight at its present level and eating all I like - so
long as I am willing to run many miles a day.
There is no true conflict between working
and studying for a degree - so long as I am prepared to spend my
evenings studying and my money on fees instead of other
things.
If there is a single behaviour which would
resolve it, then the conflict is a false conflict.
Very often when we are "stuck", "in a rut",
"not able to move forward", we are in a false conflict.
We may be letting our family exploit us, we
may be in a job we don't want to be in, we may be in a bad
relationship: but we stay there, although there is a tough
alternative.
Perhaps we stay because we are afraid of
failure if we try to go it alone, or for the sake of someone else
caught in the same bad relationship or because we need the money to
educate our children. So there are good and bad reasons for staying
in a false conflict. Good reasons often reflect our values: doing our
best for our children, for instance. Bad reasons may have to do with
fear, a poor self-image or a habit of blaming the rest of the world
for our problems.
These are false conflicts which arise out of
attempts by one person to control another.
You cannot fully control another person, you
can only control yourself. People are programmed to seek autonomy and
if you seek to control them you will always be in conflict with
them.
The man who terrorises his wife to control
her will have to go on terrorising her because no matter how cowed
she may be she will act autonomously from time to time.
The solution is for him to recognise that
his need to control people is the problem.
Another type of control conflict involves
the use of an alleged conflict to control another person. If I can
convince my mistress that it is impossible to resolve the conflict
between the needs of my family and my need to be with her, then I can
keep her at my beck and call for many years.
If I can convince my employee that it is
impossible - despite my best intentions - to resolve the conflict
between his need for a decent wage and my need to make a profit, then
I can keep my employee on low wages for many years.
But my mistress and my employee can make
choices about their lives, instead of basing their futures on their
inability to control what I do, and these choices could liberate
them.
The conflict does not have to be between me and
another person. It can be in me alone. I may want to overeat and
want to be slim at the same time, for instance, or I may want to
have an income but not want to work.
