Alfred Alder

  • Member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society
  • Proposed the aggression instinct
  • Departed from psychoanalysis and founded the Society of Individual psychology
  • Not as keen on the deterministic approach of Freud as Adler defied his own determinism- was a sickly child, was supposed to die, yet he felt he choose to change the predictions.
  • First systemic therapistàà understood people within the systems they live in.
  • Many of his ideas were a reflection of his own life

 

Individual psychology

  • The term individual psychology is a translation error
  • Used the Latin word individum to indicate the inseparableness of human personalityàà we can’t be separated into different things- we are a whole
  • Alder viewed individuals holistically, not as three separated structure of personality- id, ego and superego
  • He was particularly concerned with the community well-being, not just an individual focus.
  • His theory:
    • Based on the concept of holism o A phenomenological approach- subjective reality o Teleological explanation of human behaviour- purposeful and goal-oriented o Social interest is stressed

 

Holism

  • He thought people could only be understood as integrated and complete beings
  • All dimensions of a person are interconnected components
  • More emphasis on interpersonal relationships than on the internal psychodynamics of a person

 

Social interest

  • He believed that we are not healthy if we are only concerned about our own lives
  • This was one of his most important concepts
  • He considered it a sign of good health to be doing things to make a difference in society
  • Similar to Existential in that one should be engage in searching for meaning in one’s life
  • Tele-ology the study of purposes and causes

 

Community feeling

  • We all are motivated by a desire to belong and not be isolated- without it we are discouraged
  • If there is no sense of belonging- anxiety results
  • Only when we feel united with others are we able to act with courage to deal with our problems

 

Purpose for life

  • He believes becoming all you can be and striving for goals is how we can understand the individual
  • We can create ourselves rather than just being shaped by our childhood experiences
  • Alder emphasized that where we have come from is not as important as where we are striving to go.

 

View of human nature

  • In contrast to Freud, humans are primarily motivated by social relatedness rather than sexual urges, behaviour is purposeful and goal directed and consciousness, rather than unconsciousness.
  • At around 6 years of age our fictional vision of ourselves as perfect or complete begins to form into a life goal
  • The life goal unifies the personality and becomes the source of human motivation.
  • Genetics and heredity not as important as what we choose to do with the abilities and limitations we possess; however acknowledged that biological and environmental conditions do limit our capacity to create and choose.

 

Birth order

  • The influence of birth order has long intrigued psychologists- Alder was the first to formally rise the issue in the early 1990s
  • He called it the family constellation.
    • Emphasizes birth order as an important factor in the formation of our personalities o Even more important than the role of parents
    • Adler would say the interpretation of the events are more important than the vents themselves
    • These impressions are formed early and stay with us throughout our adult life- can inform us of our current struggles
  • Increase an individual’s probability of having a certain set of experiences – He identified five psychological positions within the family:
    • Oldest o Second of only two
    • Middle o Youngest
    • Only

 

Oldest – Get a great deal of attention
– Ousted from favoured position with birth of new baby sibling
– Reasserts his/her rightful place on the throne by being a model child, bossing younger siblings, being high achieving or at least exhibiting achievement oriented drive
Second of only two – From time of birth must share the attention with the older child
– Typically behaves as if in a race, generally full steam ahead at all times (training to surpass the older sibling)
– Competitive struggle influences their later course of life
– Younger child can expose weak points of older child, and  achieves success where the older child has not
– Often opposite to the first born (“chalk and cheese”)
Middle – Often feels squeezed out
– Can become convinced of the unfairness of life and feel cheated
– Can become a problem child and have poor me attitude
– Can become the mediator/peacemaker who holds family together
– If a family of 4 the second born may feel like the middle
Youngest – Always the baby of the family
– Tends to be most pampered one
– May develop helplessness as an art form
– Expert of having others at their service
– Tend to be very sociable and independent and may develop in ways not other family member
has attempted
– May outshine everyone
Only – Although shares characteristics of the first born (e.g. high achievement drive), may not learn to share or cooperate
– Will learn to deal well with adults
– Often child is pampered
– May become dependently tied to one or both parents
– May want centre stage all the time, if challenged with this, will feel it’s unfair

 

Earliest memories

  • Early recollections: one-time occurrences, usually before the age of 9.
  • From the thousands of experiences we have before the age of 9, we tend to remember only 6-12 memories.
  • Used as a projective technique and to assess…
    • Client’s convictions about self, others, life and ethics o Client’s stance in relation to the counselling session and the counselling relationship o Client’s coping patterns o Individual strengths, assets, and interfering ideas.
  • Can be very important as its through the family that we form our sense of self and our world view
  • Alder first to talk about time limited therapy àà cut through a lot with the question “What are your earliest memories”.
  • Trying to elicit the experiences that affected development- how our perception of the past and interpretation of early events has a continuing influence.

 

Universal life tasks

  • Build friendships- social task
  • Establish intimacy- love-marriage task
  • Contribute to society- occupational task
  • In reality, most people who seek therapy are struggling to meet one or more of these tasks.

 

Approach to life

  • By first 6 years of life one forms an approach to life
  • Behaviour is purposeful and goal-oriented
  • Humans are motivated by social goals rather than urges
  • Focus on conscious rather than subconscious
  • Role of family in the development of the individual is emphasized
  • Guiding self-ideal leads us to strive towards superiority/perfection

 

Life style or style of life

  • Alder said: the style of life of a tree is the individuality of a tree expressing itself and moulding itself in an environment
  • One’s lifestyle was how you live your life; handle your problems and interpersonal relations.
  • The connecting themes and rules of interaction that unify all our actions; our perceptions regarding self, others and the world.
  • Lifestyle is comparable to the psych,personality.
    • It is what we are, who we are, what we want to be. o The life style is usually set in motion by age 5/4
    • The persons opinion of self and world, and his or her unique way of striving for the goal in his or her particular situation
  • For Alder, meanings are not determined by situation but we are self-determined by the meaning we attribute to a situation.
  • Style of life is equated with self or ego, a unity of personality.
  • Individuality is seen as the individual form of creative activity
  • In striving for goals we develop a style of life

 

Inferiority

  • He thought we all feel inferior, particularly when we are growing up – we recognise we are helpless
  • Its natural and innate- not something that is necessarily bad
  • When we feel inferiority we are immediately pulled up into striving for superiority
  • This is not necessarily superiority over others- more about moving from incompetence to mastery of a task or skill
  • Can seek to change a weakness into a strength
  • We compensate for deficits in some areas and aim to excel in others –Inferiority complex:
    • Alder first to coin this term o If we fail to reach compensation then the complex develops o Not everyone who feels inferior develops the complex
    • If you feel inferior then according to Adler you didn’t manage to compensate in a correct way and unless you do so your feelings of inferiority will remain.
    • The solution for treating this is compensating in the right direction.
    • Affirmations, positive thinking etc. don’t work
    • § For example, cannot compensate for being lonely and unpopular by getting a PhD, instead should become active in peer groups to properly compensate and avoid the inferiority complex
    • If you don’t identify these feelings, they will remain.
    • Treating the inferiority complex:
    • § According to Adler, stress contributes to feeling of inferiority; therefore he advised that art and drama should be used to relieve stress.
    • § The more social outings and involvement in social interest, the less feeling of inferiority the individual has.
    • § Also breathing exercises, focused meditation, self hypnosis, yoga, and humour in relieving stress
    • § Encouragement can also be used to combat the sense of discouragement.
    • § Encouragement as a technique: It is central to all phases of counselling and therapy. To instil the courage to be imperfect.
  • Superiority complex o Neurotic individuals strive for personal superiority
    • Superiority over others rather than seeking better conditions for all society- Hitler

 

Adlerian therapy

  • Clients are not psychologically sick but discouragedàà they favour the growth model of personality rather than the medical model.

 

Therapeutic goals

  • Main aim of therapy: to develop the client’s sense of belonging and to assist in the adoption of behaviours and processes characterized by community feeling and social interest.
  • Increasing the client’s self-awareness and challenging and modifying his or her fundamental premises, life goals and basic concepts can accomplish this.
  • The counselling process focuses on providing information, teaching, guiding and offering encouragement to discouraged clients.
  • Mosak and Maniacci lists these goals for the educational process of therapy:
    • Fostering social interest o Helping client’s overcome feelings of discouragement and inferiority  o Modifying clients’ views and goals- changing their life-style o Changing faulty motivation o Encouraging the individual to recognize equality among people o Helping people to become contributing members of society.

 

Therapist role

  • Adlerians assume a non-pathological perspective and thus, do not label clients with pathological diagnoses.
  • These therapists operate on the assumption that clients will feel and behave better once they discover and correct their basic mistakes.
  • Therapists tend to look for mistakes in thinking and valuing.
  • Major function is to make a comprehensive assessment of the client’s functioning- style of living and early recollections.

 

Client’s experience

  • Client’s focus their work on desired outcomes and a resilient lifestyle that can provide a new blueprint for their actions
  • Clients explore private logicàà concepts about self, others and life that constitute the philosophy on which an individual’s life-style is based.
  • Private logic involves our beliefs that get in the way of social interact and that do not allow for useful belonging.
  • Clients’ problems arise because the confused drawn from private logic oftendo not conform to the requirements of social living.

 

Relationship b/w therapist and client

  • Good client-therapist relation is one between equalsàà based on cooperation, trust, respect, confidence, collaboration and alignment of goals.
  • At the outset of counselling clients should formulate a contract detailing- what they want, how they to get where they want to go, what is preventing them these goals, how hey can change non-productive behaviour etc.
  • This contract sets out the goals and specifies the responsibilities of both therapist and client
  • Developing a contract is not a requirement of Adlerian therapy, but it does bring a tighter focus to therapy.

 

Application: central objectives in Adlerian counselling

Not linear, do not progress in rigid steps

  1. Establish therapeutic relationship
    • Focusing on person-person interactionsàà not starting with the problem b. Instilling hope and faith
    • Listening with empathy
    • Therapist provides structure and assists with defining goals
  2. Assessment phase
    • Aim: to get a deeper understanding of an individual’s lifestyle
    • Focus is on the client’s social and cultural context
    • Helps explore hypotheses
    • Subjective interview: ‘How would things be different for you if you did not have this problem?’
    • Objective interview: medical history, social history, family constellation, early recollections etc.
    • Once material has been gathered integrated summaries are developed
  3. Encourage insight and understanding
    • Adlerian consider insight as a special form of awareness that facilitates a meaningful understanding within the therapeutic relationship and acts as a foundation for change.
      • Disclosure and well-timed interactions are techniques that facilitate the process of gaining insight
      • Different to PCT paraphrasing- more hunches or guessesàà we want to clarify with the person.
      • During this phase of therapy, the counsellor helps the client to understand the limitations of the style of life the client has chosen.
  1. Reorientation and re-education
    • Aim: helping clients discover a new and more functional perspective
    • During this phase, clients can choose to adopt a new style of life based on the insights that they have gained.
    • Reorientation involves shifting rules of interaction, process and motivationàà these shifts are facilitated through changes in self-awareness
    • More often clients need to be oriented toward the useful side of life
      • Useful sideàà sense of belonging, being valued, having an interest in others and their welfare, courage, acceptance of imperfection, willingness to contribute etc.
      • Useless sideààself-absorption, withdrawal from life tasks, self-protection, or acts against one’s fellow human beings. (People acting on this side are less functional and are more susceptible to psychopathology)
    • Interacted in more than changes in behaviours
    • Seek to help clients to gain courage and connect to strengths within themselves
    • Utmost importance is courage to an Adlerian therapist

 

The encouragement process

  • Encouragement is central to all phases of counselling and therapy
  • Encouragement entails showing faith in people, expecting them to assume responsibility for their lives and valuing them for who they are.
  • Clients often do not recognize their positive qualities or strengths àà one of the main tasks of a therapist is to help them do so.
  • Adlerians believe discouragement is the basic condition that prevents people from functioning.
  • In the relationship phase, encouragement results from the mutual respect between client and counsellor
  • In the assessment phase, clients are encouraged to recognize that they are in charge of their own lives and can make different choices based on new understandings
  • During reorientation, encouragement comes when new possibilities are generated and when clients are acknowledged for taking positive steps to change.

 

Areas of influence –   Education

  • Parent education
  • Community health movement
  • Couples counselling
  • Family/group counselling
  • Many of his ideas made their way into other schools of psychologyàà CBT, existential – Maslow and Rodgers influenced by Alder’s work; often without much credit given to Adler. –      Alder said ‘my psychology belongs to everyone’ àà not focused on being well known

 

Contributions

  • Allows for a variety of approaches, not a narrow view of humans
  • Therapists using Adler’s theories are more concerned for the person than the problem
  • Introduced the concept of ‘time-limited’, brief therapy
  • The ‘earliest memory’ technique is very time efficient and minimizes sessions required as you get “right to the point”
  • Adler coined the ‘magic wand’ question…“The Question” – “If I had a magic wand that would eliminate your symptom immediately, what would be different in your life?” –     Flexibility and integrative nature- variety of techniques

 

Strengths from Multicultural perspective

  • Many aspects congruent with many cultures e.g. collectivism, pursing meaning in life, importance of family, co-operation as opposed to competitive and individualistic values.
  • Emphasizes subjective fashion in which people view the world àà respects for clients unique perceptions
  • Conscious of the value of fitting techniques to each client’s situation
  • Value understanding the subjective world of each individual

 

Focus on person in the environment (social context) enables cultural factors to be explored

 

Limitations

  • Tends to focus on the self being the locus of change and responsibility…. some cultures do not view self as autonomous
  • Also some cultures view counsellor as the ‘expert’ and expecting solutions
  • Tends to oversimplify some complex human problems
  • Assumptions about nuclear family- what about extended family households?
  • Adler chose teaching and practicing before writing a well- defined and systematic theory, many people at the time considered his ideas too loose and simplistic
  • A large part of the theory still requires empirical evidence
  • Works best with highly verbal and intelligent clients. This might leave out many people who do not fit that category
  • Adlerians do not like to make diagnoses, makes it hard in today’s expectations of psychologists