ADLERIAN THERAPY (ALFRED ADLER)

Inferiority feelings

• Motivate us to strive for mastery, success (superiority), and completion

• We  are driven to overcome our sense of inferiority and to strive for increasingly higher levels of development

Phenomenological

Adlerians attempt to view the world from the client’s subjective frame of reference

Subjective reality

paying attention to the individual way in which people perceive their world

Individual Psychology

• Avoid reductionism

• Adler emphasized the unity and indivisibility of the person and stressed understanding the whole person in the context of his or her life

Holistic concept

 implies that we cannot be understood in parts; rather, all aspects of ourselves must be understood in relationship

Fictional finalism

• refer to an imagined life goal that guides a person’s behavior

Guiding self-ideal & goal of perfection: striving toward superiority or perfection

Lifestyle

includes the connecting themes and rules of interaction that give meaning to our actions

• Often described as our perceptions regarding self, others, and the world

• Includes an individual’s characteristic way of thinking, acting, feeling, living, and striving toward long-term goals

Social interest

the action line of one’s community feeling, and it involves being as concerned about others as one is about oneself

Community feeling

• Embodies the feeling of being connected to all of humanity— past, present, and future—and to being involved in making the world a better place

• Those who lack this community feeling become discouraged and end up on the useless side of life

Early recollections (ERs)

• “Stories of events that a person says occurred [one time] before he or she was 10 years of age” 

• Specific incidents that clients recall, along with the feelings and thoughts that accompanied these childhood incidents

Lifestyle assessment

learning to understand the goals and motivations of the client

Private logic

concepts about self, others, and life that constitute the philosophy on which an individual’s lifestyle is based

Subjective interview

• the counselor helps the client to tell his or her life story as completely as possible

• facilitated by a generous use of empathic listening and responding

Objective interview

• - seeks to discover information about (a) how problems in the client’s life began; (b) any precipitating events; (c) a medical history, including current and past medications; (d) a social history; (e) the reasons the client chose therapy at this time; (f) the person’s coping with life tasks; and (g) a lifestyle assessment

• Family constellation, early recollections, integration and summary

Insight

“understanding translated into constructive action”

Interpretation

deals with clients’ underlying motives for behaving the way they do in the here and now

Encouragement process

• entails showing faith in people, expecting them to assume responsibility for their lives, and valuing them for who they are 

• Change and search for new possibilities

• Making a difference

Reorientation

involves shifting rules of interaction, process, and motivation; change in awareness