"People don't have problems, They have solutions that have not worked"

"People don't have problems, they have solutions that have not worked" - Ericksonion's principle

Today, my lecturer has taught me something about “a choice”, the freedom of choosing what we want to do or we need to do and the best is without depends on others. In the choice therapy, “survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun” are five needs that genetically encoded in every human since they are born, although they vary in strength among individuals.

Survival refers to basic needs that need to be fulfilled, however harming others not the best mechanism to survive. Power refers to achievement and feeling worthwhile, motivating a person for the good of individual and it is often has been misused. The freedom on the other hand is the enemy of (power) which someone tries to control another. This is the ability to do what we want as long it does not interfere someone’s else ability to feel freedom. Fun; laughter and lack of this basic represent an unpleasant relationship. Lastly, the most difficult need to satisfy; love and belonging. We need others to satisfy the needs and need someone who are willing to help us to meet this need. This include to love, to share and to cooperate.

We always feel unhappy or unsatisfied and this is because one or more of the needs is not strong mostly because we think we deserves more. Depression which is one of the common and serious medical illness often to be caused by this unsatisfying feeling such as “we want” or “still hoping”. For example, a person who experienced a breakup in their relationship might hurt themselves because they want the other person to come back by their side and things to work as normal as they can, and that is also a choice that she made.

Maybe, for once there must be a thought comes to our mind “why do she have more freedom and I don’t” or “why do she feels so sad even she achieved more than most of us” and all of this situation is related to the individual’s quality of world that have been built inside our minds to keep the information what we want the things to happen or works.

Unlike the needs, this “quality world” is much specific. The information that we (most of us) kept in our minds about a happy family is that they must include a father, mother and child. So the quality world will be ruined if the parents in the family is divorced or the conflicts occur. In this situation, the child will tend to choose affliction or misery by developing a variety of wretch, hurtful and disturbed behavior because the behavior is one of the ways that can help them to meet their satisfy. Robert Wubbolding believes that behavior is a language and we send the messages (implicit or explicit) by what we are doing. Regarding to the theory, we become what we choose.

It emphasizes that each of us are in total control of ourselves, not other people which people can't change someone else's behaviors but only can change themselves. To do that, they have to take responsibility for both the choices they make and the consequences that come from those choices.