Chapter 5: Adlerian Therapy

Vocabulary flashcards based on the provided lecture notes about Adlerian Psychology, covering key terms and their definitions presented in the glossary.

Adlerian brief therapy

An intervention that is concise, deliberate, direct, efficient, focused, short-term, and purposeful.

Basic mistakes

Faulty, self-defeating perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs that may have been appropriate at one time but are no longer useful. These are myths that are influential in shaping personality.

Birth order

Adler identified five psychological positions from which children tend to view life: oldest, second of only two, middle, youngest, and only. Actual birth order itself is less important than a person's interpretation of his or her place in the family.

Community feeling

An individual's awareness of being part of the human community. Community feeling embodies the sense of being connected to all humanity and to being committed to making the world a better place.

Early recollections

Childhood memories (before the age of 9) of one-time events. People retain these memories as capsule summaries of their present philosophy of life. From a series of early recollections, it is possible to understand mistaken notions, present attitudes, social interests, and possible future behavior.

Encouragement

The process of increasing one's courage to face life tasks; used throughout therapy as a way to counter discouragement and to help people set realistic goals.

Family atmosphere

The climate of relationships among family members.

Family constellation

The social and psychological structure of the family system; includes birth order, the individual's perception of self, sibling characteristics and ratings, and parental relationships. Each person forms his or her unique view of self, others, and life through the family constellation.

Fictional finalism

An imagined central goal that gives direction to behavior and unity to the personality; an image of what people would be like if they were perfect and perfectly secure.

Goal alignment

A congruence between the client's and the counselor's goals and the collaborative effort of two persons working equally toward specific, agreed-on goals.

Guiding self-ideal

Another term for fictional finalism, which represents an individual's image of a goal of perfection.

Holistic concept

We cannot be understood in parts; all aspects of ourselves must be understood in relation to each other.

Individual Psychology

Adler's original name for his approach that stressed understanding the whole person, how all dimensions of a person are interconnected, and how all these dimensions are unified by the person's movement toward a life goal.

Inferiority feelings

The early determining force in behavior; the source of human striving and the wellspring of creativity. Humans attempt to compensate for both imagined and real inferiorities, which helps them overcome handicaps.

Insight

A special form of awareness that facilitates a meaningful understanding within the therapeutic relationship and acts as a foundation for change.

Interpretation

Understanding clients' underlying motives for behaving the way they do in the here and now.

Life tasks

Universal problems in human life, including the tasks of friendship (community), work (a division of labor), and intimacy (love and marriage).

Lifestyle

The core beliefs and assumptions through which the person organizes his or her reality and finds meaning in life events. Our perceptions of self, others, and the world. Our characteristic way of thinking, acting, feeling, living, and striving toward long-term goals.

Lifestyle assessment

The process of gathering early memories, which involves learning to understand the goals and motivations of the client.

Objective interview

Adlerians seek basic information about the client's life as a part of the lifestyle assessment process.

Phenomenological approach

Focus on the way people perceive their world. For Adlerians, objective reality is less important than how people interpret reality and the meanings they attach to what they experience.

Private logic

Basic convictions and assumptions of the individual that underlie the lifestyle pattern and explain how behaviors fit together to provide consistency.

Reorientation

The phase of the counseling process in which clients are helped to discover a new and more functional perspective and are encouraged to take risks and make changes in their lives.

Social interest

A sense of identification with humanity; a feeling of belonging; an interest in the common good.

Striving for superiority

A strong inclination toward becoming competent, toward mastering the environment, and toward self-improvement. The striving for perfection (and superiority) is a movement toward enhancement of self.

Style of life

An individual's way of thinking, feeling, and acting; a conceptual framework by which the world is perceived and by which people are able to cope with life tasks; the person's personality.

Subjective interview

The process whereby the counselor helps clients tell their life story as completely as possible.

The question

Used in an initial assessment to gain understanding of the purpose that symptoms or actions have in a person's life. The question is, "How would your life be different, and what would you do differently, if you did not have this symptom or problem?"