ALFRED ADLER BEFORE HIS TIME Forerunner of Existential

ALFRED ADLER

BEFORE HIS TIME… Forerunner of: Existential Cognitive Behavioral Reality (Glasser) Person-Centered Family Systems Social Justice

Adler vs. Freud Self-determining & freedom to choose Vs. Primary motivation: mastery/superiority Vs. Freud’s instinctual/biological determinism Freud’s drives Focus on conscious activity Vs. Freud’s unconscious

Adler: Main Concepts Social Interest: Natural empathy toward others, making contribution Key source & indicator of mental health Emphasis on social context Universal life tasks: Love, Friendship, Occupation, Self-Acceptance, Spirituality

Adler: Main Concepts Family of Origin & Birth Order � First born � Second born � Youngest � Only children � � What’s : Which is most likely to feel cheated? your birth order?

Adler: Main Concepts Purposeful behavior (teleological) Future goals (not just past) Goal-directed behavior: Fictional finalism, guiding selfideal Lifestyle Phenomenology

Mechanics of Therapy Failure to achieve life task = discouragement Social context as source of problems Power to choose & create new lifestyle

Mechanics of Therapy 1. 2. 3. 4. Relating collaboratively (egalitarian) Understand wants: Assessing lifestyle & universal life tasks Understand current behaviors: Promoting insight Reorientation: Instigating new behaviors & cognitions to achieve wants

Counseling Process Collaborative Relationship Encouragement, caring Identifying strengths Joint contract & goal alignment Lifestyle assessment (understand wants) Family constellation, Birth order Early recollections Guiding self-ideal, life tasks, purposes of behavior

Counseling Process Promoting insight (understand current behaviors) Interpret hidden purposes of behavior Awareness of private logic, basic mistakes Reorientation (new behaviors/cogs to achieve wants) Challenge Initiate basic mistakes, faulty values behaviors of new lifestyle, more social connection

Techniques Acting “as if” Natural consequences