Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

Described as: “. . . A most democratic, friendly, hospitable person with a love for informal sociability, music, and all the arts, including gardening.”

Adler: History

• Born in 1870 outside Vienna

• 2nd son of wealthy family (6 children total)

• Recalls childhood unfondly

  • Had rickets and unsuccessfully competed with older brother

    • Had pneumonia that MD said he could not recover from

    • Was run over (twice!) at the age of 4 or 5

  • Constant fear of death

  • Developed “screen” memory to deal with repeated near-brushes with death

• Chose to pursue medicine

  • “in order to overcome death and the fear of death.”

• At medical school, adopted a socialist orientation

  • More “humanistic” and “equal”

  • Became spokesman for the “common man” or “underdog”

• First practice was with low SES

  • Namely, acrobats (and tailors)!

    • Overcame childhood adversity

• 1902, joined Psychoanalytic Society

  • Quit because of focus on sexuality and did not want to cater to the rich

  • Formed “Society for Individual Psychology” (focus: whole person)

• WWI physician; dealt with much carnage

Basic Adlerian Assumptions

• All behavior has social meaning

• All behavior has a purpose and is goal-directed

• Behavior represents “unity” and has a pattern

• Behavior is designed to overcome feelings of inferiority and move toward feelings of superiority

• Behavior is the result of our subjective perceptions

The Fundamental Human Motive

• Search for success,

• Superiority,

• Freedom from helplessness,

• Escape from fear,

• & perfection and personal completeness!

Freud vs. Adler

• While Freud focused on:

  • Sexual and aggressive pleasure-seeking

• Adler focused on:

  • The striving to compensate for one’s own PERCEIVED inferiorities, for one’s enforced states of helplessness

Inferiority and Compensation

• Inferiority Complex

  • Overcome by a feeling of lack of worth which leads to the impossibility for self-improvement

• If repressed, this may be felt as a superiority complex

  • Behave arrogantly (which personality disorder?)

  • Exaggerate their achievements

    • E.g., people who claim telepathic powers

Moving from a felt-minus to a felt-plus

• describes the human drive to move from a feeling of inferiority, incompleteness, or inadequacy (felt-minus) toward a state of mastery, competence, and completeness (felt-plus)

• Organ inferiority

• Aggressive drive

• Masculine protest

• Superiority & Perfection Striving

Organ inferiority

• ALL people succumb to “disease” in the most poorly developed organ

  • We may compensate for poor development (e.g., stutterer —> orator)

• Early states (more biological) —> later (subjective)

Aggressive Drive

• People develop a hostile reaction to their perceived helplessness (e.g., baby’s first cry)

• Aggression may be expressed outright (e.g., fighting, cruelty) or may be transformed (e.g., competition, striving for dominance or mastery)

Masculine Protest

• “Masculinity” implies greater competence or superiority

  • People strive for competence & superiority

  • Adler generally rejected gender roles

• Marks shift from biology to psychology

Superiority Striving and Perfection Striving

• Masculine protest leads to “mask” of compensatory traits designed to spark self-improvement

  • People create “fictional goals” and strive to attain them

  • This is more “realistic” than it may sound; NOT perfectionism

Social Interest: The Tasks of Life

• Three Tasks

  • Societal Tasks

    • To be interested in others; to make friends

  • Work Tasks

    • Interest in cooperative activity for the benefit of others; provides a sense of worth in society

  • Love

    • Ability to take more interest in another than self

• Style of Life

  • Each of us sculpts our own personality

  • Established by 4 or 5

Style of Life

• Individual’s attitudes toward society, work, and love

  • The individual’s choice! The creative life force tries to lead to fulfillment!

• Begins as a compensatory process

  • People develop consistency in personality while trying to make up for an inferiority

• Law of Movement:

  • Direction taken by the person that originates in his or her ability to exercise free choice

Mistaken Styles of Life

• Ruling Type

  • Dominate others; Confront problems in a selfish way.

  • May be high achievers, but are generally vain and overly competitive

• Getting Type

  • Dependent; Adopt a passive attitude towards others.

  • More likely to be depressed

• Avoiding Type

  • Tend to isolate themselves, and seem “cold” to others

  • Hide a subtle, and fragile, superiority belief

Appropriate Style of Life

• Socially Useful Type

  • Act in a way that benefits others

    • Not just in an economic sense; artists and actors help others to “feel,” for example

• Research shows that our Style of Life is generally consistent from childhood to adulthood (Pulkkinnen, 1992)

Early Recollections (usu. about age 3½ )

• Commonly used by Adlerian therapists

• Used to assess people’s lifestyles

  • Indicates how a person views himself, his/her personal strivings, and others

• Fact is not important!

  • The present determines the past

  • A first memory remains because it has been thought about repeatedly during life: It is subjectively important to that person . . .

    • Emotional content is the most important

How does one’s family impact personality development?

• Mother is greatest influence

  • Guides development of social interest

• Father is second greatest influence\

  • Provides encouragement to pursue interests

• Birth order

  • Family size and sex of siblings cause individual differences

Adlerian Advice to Parents

• Encourage the child rather than punish

• Be firm, but do not dominate

• Show respect to the child

• Emphasize cooperation

• Don’t give the child TOO much attention (pampering)

  • But do not neglect the child!

• Do not struggle for power with the child

• Do not show excessive sympathy

Birth Order: Adler’s Hypotheses

• First-Born

  • Will not do well with “dethronement”

    • More likely to act antagonistically against others

    • Will “seek others”

• Second-Born

  • Stimulated to higher achievement via competition with older siblings

    • Most likely to be successful

    • Will likely isolate themselves in pursuit of success

• Later-Born

  • Tend to be pampered and spoiled

    • More likely to be “getting type”

    • Expect over-indulgence from others

• Only Children

  • Exaggerated sense of self-importance

    • Must be center of attention

Birth Order: Research

• Most differences are between first-born and others

  • 1st born are higher in achievement motivation

  • Tend to have higher levels of success

  • Tend to be more self-centered (narcissistic)

  • Tend to be Type A, especially if female

  • Tend to be anxious, especially if male

Adlerian Therapy

Stages:

• Empathy and relationship

  • Establish a working relationship

• Information Gathering

  • Client’s history, early memories, and current functioning

• Clarification

  • Client’s core beliefs about self, others, and life

• Encouragement

  • Encourage progress towards a new Style of Life

• Interpretation and recognition

  • Helping client to reconsider their fictional finalism *

• Knowing

  • Client can monitor their behavior with less input from therapist

• Emotional Breakthrough

  • Old patterns are discarded via imagery and roleplay

• Doing Differently

  • Client behaves differently in life

• Reinforcement

  • Client begins to pay more attention to others’ needs rather than their own

• Social Interest

  • A sense of community is established

• Goal Redirection

  • A new goal to strive for

• Support and Launching

  • Client strives towards new goal in the spirit of social interest

Fictional Finalism

• The Psychology of “As If”

• The nature of goals

  • Imagined goals

  • Determining how to achieve them

    • As always, in the spirit of social interest!

• Guided Self-Ideal

  • Subjective and personally meaningful

  • Created by the individual to navigate through life’s obstacles

Adler and YOU

• What are YOUR ultimate goals?

• How would YOU like to spend your

  • Academic year?

  • College career?

  • Time until 40 years old?

  • Life?

• What kind of life would YOU need to live to look back at your life with satisfaction?