Internal and external locus of control (For Group and Indavidual therapies)

Internal and external locus of control is a great subject to cover with people who have an issue with the unexpected, has a lot of conflict with others, relinquishing control over things, or even problems with other people. This idea was developed by Julian Rotter in 1954.

Now a person with a very string External Locus of control might feel that there decisions and life events are controlled by things like: the environment, unseen forces, spiritual forces, luck, politicians, government and so on and so forth.

On the other hand a person with a very strong Internal Locus of control  believes that events in their life derive primarily from their own actions and that they have the most control over things like decisions and life events.

Generally speaking people who are more Internal than External tend to have less stress when going through life's different events because they believe that they have control over them. When a person is more External than Internal they may feel like no matter what they do nothing will change which leads to a higher level of stress.

I have had a lot of success with applying this style of though to working with at risk youth and people who seem to get into a lot of altercations with others.

There are several very good assessments that you can use to determine where your client stands on the locus of control scale such as:

http://www.psych.uncc.edu/pagoolka/LocusofControl-intro.html
(online only)


https://www.wlc.edu/uploadedFiles/success/SurveyLocus.pdf
(Paper test)

Here are some other useful references:
http://psychology.about.com/od/personalitydevelopment/fl/What-Is-Locus-of-Control.htm
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_90.htm





Lefcourt, Herbert M., and Karina Davidson-Katz. 1991. Locus of Control and Health. In Handbook of Social and Clinical Psychology: The Health Perspective, eds. C. R. Snyder and Donelson R. Forsyth, 246–266. New York: Pergamon Press.

Rotter, Julian B. 1954. Social Learning and Clinical Psychology. New York: Prentice-Hall.

Rotter, Julian B. 1966. Generalized Expectancies for Internal Versus External Control of Reinforcement. Psychological Monographs 80 (Whole No. 609).

Rotter, Julian B., June E. Chance, and E. Jerry Phares. 1972. Applications of a Social Learning Theory of Personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

Rotter, Julian. B., Melvin Seeman, and Shephard Liverant. 1962. Internal Versus External Control of Reinforcement: A Major Variable in Behavior Therapy. In Decisions, Values and Groups, Vol. 2, ed. Norman F. Washburne, 473–516. New York: Pergamon Press.