ABSTRACT
An important mediating goal in the process of personal responsibility is that of realism or the capacity to assume responsibility for thinking, language and inner speech. An important area of choice concerns flexible regulation of feelings. A major reason for focusing on thinking is to help people to define themselves rather than to be defined by others, be they significant people from their pasts or people in their current environments. Personal responsibility counselling and therapy heavily emphasizes not only what counsellors can do for clients, but also what clients and people in general can do for themselves. Focusing on thinking is a useful approach to self-therapy. Clients have often had much experience in instructing themselves negatively. ‘Defence mechanisms’, ‘defences’ and ‘security operations’ are other terms used for the ways in which clients ‘operate’ on incoming information in order to reduce anxiety by maintaining consistency in the ways in which they view themselves, others and the world.
