A comparison of reality therapy and paradoxical counseling strategies with school behavior problems

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not Reality Therapy techniques would be more effective in decreasing classroom behavioral problems than paradoxical counseling strategies. A control group who did not receive a specific type of counseling technique was also used. Subjects were ten students from Tyson Middle School in Knoxville, Tennessee and were identified by their guidance counselor as behavior problems. For each student, a baseline period of one week was followed by two counseling interviews per week over a three week period. A null hypothesis was used. It was predicted that there would be no significant difference in the results of the two different counseling techniques in improving the behavior of the subjects in this study. The null hypothesis was supported by the data collected in this investigation.