How to use this app
"How the Brain Works" is the William Glasser Institute's chart explaining Choice Theory — how the brain takes in the world, compares it to what we want, and produces behavior. This app gives you four ways to work with it.
About the Chart
Created by Wm. Glasser, M.D., founder of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy, the chart maps the brain as a control system — a loop that continuously compares the world we perceive against the world we want, and behaves to close the gap. It contrasts Situation A (not in effective control) with Situation B (gaining more effective control).
Read — The Chart
Each stage of the control system is summarised in plain language, from the Real World through to Total Behavior. Tap a stage to expand it. Work through them in order — the loop only makes sense as a sequence.
Recall — Flip Cards
Once you've read a stage, use the flip cards to test whether the key idea has stuck. Tap a card to reveal the answer. Filter by The Chart, Practice, or Institute to focus your review.
Learn — Institute & Practice
The Institute tab covers where Choice Theory comes from — the William Glasser Institute, the certification pathway, the Quality School — and how Reality Therapy puts the theory into practice with a counselee or student.
Ask — AI Tutor
Use the Q&A tab to go deeper on any part of the chart — the Quality World, the Comparing Place, Total Behavior, the five basic needs, or how the loop shows up in everyday life. The tutor stays focused on the chart and Choice Theory.
A note on the content
The summaries in this app are original paraphrases written for quick study — not the chart's text reproduced. For the chart itself, and William Glasser Institute training programs, visit wglasser.com.
The Control System Loop
Tap a stage to read what it does and where it sits in the loop.
Recall — Flip Cards
Tap the card to flip it. Use Next / Previous to move through the deck.
The Institute & The Practice
Where Choice Theory comes from, and how Reality Therapy puts it to work.
🏛️ The William Glasser Institute
Founded in 1967 in Los Angeles by psychiatrist, lecturer, and author Dr. William Glasser, the Institute has trained practitioners in Reality Therapy since its earliest days. As Dr. Glasser continued developing his ideas, Choice Theory became the psychological foundation of everything the Institute teaches, alongside lead-management concepts for schools, workplaces, and organizations. Intensive trainings run across the United States, Canada, and several other countries, drawing professionals from mental health, education, corrections, and pastoral care.
🎓 Choice Theory / Reality Therapy Certification
There are no educational prerequisites to begin. The course of study runs through five stages: a Basic Intensive Training, a Basic Practicum, an Advanced Intensive Training, an Advanced Practicum, and finally a Certification Session where participants demonstrate what they've learned. Most people complete the full pathway in 16–18 months. Each Intensive Training runs three to four days and combines lectures, discussion, demonstration, and role-play, with a strong emphasis on self-evaluation — and a different instructor leads each stage.
🏫 The Quality School Training Program
Built on the ideas in Dr. Glasser's books The Quality School and Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom, this program helps individual schools make the systemic changes needed to become a Quality School. The principal's use of lead-management — leading rather than bossing — is central to the process, with Intensive Training provided once staff commit to the vision.
🧭 What Choice Theory Claims
Choice Theory holds that all we do is behave, that almost all behavior is chosen, and that we're driven by our genes to satisfy five basic needs — survival, love and belonging, power, freedom, and fun. Of these, love and belonging is the most important in practice, since closeness and connection with people we care about make satisfying the other needs possible. Choice Theory is offered as a replacement for external control psychology — the forcing, punishing psychology most people default to — because that psychology damages relationships and drives the disconnection behind most human problems.
Reality Therapy — How the Counselor Works
To build the relationship that makes reconnection possible, the counselor works through nine practices, in this order.
Q&A with the AI Tutor
Ask about any part of the chart — the tutor will explain it using Choice Theory and the "How the Brain Works" model.
Resources
The original William Glasser Institute chart this app is based on.