TOP
THEORIES?
Chap 3: Adler: Individual psychology
Background
Alfred Adler
- Born on February 7,1870 in Rudolfsheim, Vienna
- Parents: Pauline Beer and Leopold Adler
- 2nd born of 7 children
- Childhood ill-health: RICKETS and PNEUMONIA
- He felt inferior to his older brother. Sigmund
Adler, because of health reason
- After 2 defining incidents, he was determined to
be a doctor
o When he had gone ice-skating with an
older boy who abandoned him and when
he found his way back home he fell
asleep on the couch and woke up
hearing the doctor saying Give yourself
no more trouble. The boy is lost.
o When at age 4, Adler awoke next
morning to find his younger brother,
Rudolf, dead in the bed next to his.
- man of music, art, and literature.
- He was trained to be a doctor and got a
medical degree from the University of Vienna in
1895 and specialized as an opthalmologist and
then later studied Neurology and Psychiatry.
- Also Became a general practitioner in one of
Viennas poor neighborhood.
- Finished elementary school and medical school
with no special honors or distinctions.
Origin of the theory
- WEDNESDAY PSYCHOLOGICAL SOCIETY/
VIENNA PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY
- STUDY OF ORGAN INFERIORITY AND ITS
PSYCHICAL COMPENSATION
- FREUDS SUPPORTERS VS. ADLERS SUPPORTERS
World War I
- Cornerstones of human motivation: Social Interest
and Compassion
- Adlers application for an unpaid lecture position
at the University of Vienna was turned down.
FINAL STATEMENT OF INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY
1. The one dynamic force behind peoples behavior
is the striving for success or superiority.
2. Peoples subjective perceptions shape their
behavior and personality
3. Personality is unified and self-consistent.
4. The value of all human activity must be seen
from the viewpoint of social interest.
5. The self-consistent personality structure develops
into a persons style of life.
6. Style of life is molded by peoples creative
power.
WHAT DISTINGUISHES THIS THEORY FROM ALL OTHER
According to Ferguson (1984), there are three
fundamental principles:
1. Behavior is goal oriented PURPOSIVENESS
2. Humans are fundamentally social, with a desire
to belong and having a place of value as an
equal human being SOCIAL INTEREST
3. And the individual is indivisible and functions
with unity of personality - HOLISM
(MOV ING IN UNITY TOW ARD SEL F-CHOSEN
GOAL S THAT REFL ECT A HUMAN V AL UE FOR
BEL ONGING AND SOCIAL CONTRIBUTION.)
MOTIV ATION
- People are motivated by mostly social influences
and by their striving for superiority or success.
STRUCTURE
- Alfred Adler generally avoided the traditional
concept of personality.
- He explained that to him, people are born with
weak, inferior bodies.
- Therefore, a feeling of unity with others (social
interest) is inherent in people and the ultimate
standard for psychological health.
AGGRE SSION
- Was a dynamic power behind all motivation
- Became dissatisfied with the term being a single
motivational force
Masculine protest
- Will to power or domination of others
- a behavior of women who reject traditional
feminine roles in favor of more masculine ones
Striving for superiority
- those who strive for personal superiority over
others
- those who strive to be superior to others
Striving for success
- actions of those who and motivated by highly
developed social interest
- those who strive for the success of the society
Final goal
CRE ATIV E POW E R
- By the age 4 or 5, their creative power has
developed to the point that they can set their
final goal.
- Peoples ability to freely shape their behavior
and their own personality.
STYLE OF LIF E
- Also, a persons style of life is fairly well
established at this age.
- Includes a persons goal, self-concept, feelings for
others, and attitude toward the world.
After age 5, Adler believed that environmental forces
have modified or shaped nearly every aspect of a
childs personality
DYNAMICS
The tenets of Adlerian theory:
1. The one dynamic force behind peoples behavior
is the striving for success or superiority.
2. Peoples subjective perceptions shape their
behavior and personality.
3. Personality is unified and self-consistent.
4. The value of all human activity must be seen
from the viewpoint of social interest.
5. The self-consistent personality structure develops
into a persons style of life.
6. Style of life is molded by peoples creative
power.
STRIVING FORCE AS COMPENSATION
- People strive for superiority or success as a
means of compensation for feelings of inferiority
or weakness.
- The striving force is innate, but its nature and
direction are due both to feelings of inferiority
and to the goal of superiority.
Tw o general av enues of striv ing:
Striving for Personal Superiority
- Their goals are personal ones, and their strivings
are motivated largely by exaggerated feelings of
personal superiority, or the presence of an
inferiority complex.
Striving for Success
- These healthy individuals are concerned with
goals beyond themselves, are capable of helping
others without demanding or expecting a
personal payoff, and are able to see others not
as opponents but as people with whom they can
cooperate for social benefit.
Subjective perception
- People strive for superiority or success to
compensate for feelings of inferiority, but the
manner in which they strive is not shaped by
reality but by their subjective perceptions of
reality, that is by their fictions, or expectations of
the future.
FICTIONALISM
- fictions
- ideas that have no real existence, yet they
influence people as if they really existed.
- People are motivated not by what is true but by
their subjective perceptions of what is true.
- Teleology
- An explanation of behavior in terms of its
final purpose or aim
- Concerned with future goals or ends
- Causality
- Behavior as springing from a specific cause
- Deals with past experience that effect the
present
PHYSICAL INF E RIORITIE S
- These physical handicaps have little or no
importance by themselves but become
meaningful when they stimulate subjective
feelings of inferiority, which serves as an impetus
toward perfection or completion.
- However, these deficiencies alone do not cause
a particular style of life; they simply provide
present motivation for reaching future goals.
Unity and self-consistency of personality
ORGAN DIALE CT
- The deficient organ expresses the direction of
the individuals goal. According to Adler (1956),
through organ dialect, the bodys organs speak a
language which is usually more expressive and
discloses the individuals opinion more clearly
than words are able to do.
CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS
Unconscious
- Adler (1956) defined the unconscious as the part
of the goal that is neither clearly formulated not
completely understood by the individual
Conscious
- Conscious thoughts are those that are
understood and regarded by the individual as
helpful in striving for success
Social Interest
- Adlers somewhat misleading translation of his
original German term, Gemeinschaftsgefuhl.
- GEMEINSCHAFTSGEFUHL
- Feeling of oneness with all humanity.
- SOCIAL INTEREST
- Attitude of relatedness with humanity in general
as well as empathy for each member of the
human community. It manifests itself as
cooperation with others for social advancement
rather than for personal gain.
- is the natural condition of the human species and
the adhesive that binds society together.
Origins of social interest
- It originates from the mother-child relationship during
the early months of infancy.
Adler believed that marriage and parenthood is a task for
two. However, the two parents may influence a childs
social interest in somewhat different ways.
IDEAL MOTHER: A genuine and deep-rooted love for her
child a love that is centered on the childs well-being,
not on her own need or wants.
IDEAL FATHER: Cooperates an equal footing with the
childs mother in caring for the child and treating the child
as a human being.
Adler defined a successful father as the father who avoids
the dual errors of emotional detachment and paternal
authoritarianism.
If a father is emotionally detached from his child, this
may influence the child to develop warped sense of
social interest, a feeling of neglect, and possibly a
parasitic attachment to the mother.
 If a father shows himself as a tyrant, the child may
learn to strive for power and personal superiority.
importance of Social Interest
- Social interest was Adlers yardstick for measuring
psychological health and is thus the sole criterion of
human values. To Adler, social interest is the only
gauge to be used in judging the worth of a person.
- Social interest =/= social charity and unselfishness
STYLE OF LIFE
- Used to refer to the flavor of a persons life. It
includes a persons goal, self- concept, feelings for
others, and attitude toward the world.
Psychologically unhealthy individuals:
- Have inflexible lives that are marked by an inability to
choose new ways of reacting to their environment.
Psychologically healthy individuals:
- Behave in diverse and flexible ways with styles of life
that are complex, enriched, and changing.
People with a healthy, socially useful style of life express
their social interest through action. They actively struggle
to solve what Adler regarded as three major problems of
life:
1. neighborly love
2. Sexual love
3. Occupation
Creative power
- Responsible for their final goal, determines their
method of striving for that goal, and contributes to
the development of social interest.
- Creative power makes each person a FREE
INDIVIDUAL
Abnormal development
- Underdeveloped social interest
- One factor underlying all types of maladjustment
- Neurotics tend to :
Set their goals to high
Live in their own private world
Have rigid and dogmatic style of life
External factors in maladjustment
1. Exaggerated Physical Deficiencies
- People develop exaggerated feelings of inferiority
because they overcompensate for their inadequacy.
2. Pampered style of life
- Pampered people have weak social interest but a
strong desire to perpetuate the pampered, parasitic
relationship they originally had with one or both of
their parents.
3. Neglected style of life
- They have little confidence in themselves and tend to
overestimate difficulties connected with lifes major
problems. They are distrustful of other people and are
unable to cooperate for the common welfare. They
have many characteristics of pampered ones, but
generally they are more suspicious and more likely to
be dangerous to others.
SAFEGUARDING TENDENCIES:
- Enable people to hide their inflated self-image and to
maintain their current style of life
- Could be compared to Freuds defense mechanisms
- Protection against anxiety
- Freuds defense mechanism unconscious
- Adlers safeguarding tendencies conscious
1. EXCUSES
- These excuses protect a weak but artificially inflated
sense of self-worth and deceive people into
believing that they are more superior than they really
are.
2. AGGRESSION
- This is used to safeguard their exaggerated superiority
complex, that is, to protect their fragile self-esteem.
a) DEPRECIATION tendency to undervalue other
peoples achievements and to overvalue ones own.
b) ACCUSATION tendency to blame others for ones
failures and to seek revenge , thereby safeguarding
ones own self-esteem.
c) SELF-ACCUSATION marked by self-torture and guilt.
3. WITHDRAWAL
- Personality development can be halted when people
run away from difficulties.
a) MOVING BACKWARD tendency to safeguard ones
fictional goal of superiority by psychologically
reverting to a more secure period of life.
b) STANDING STILL they avoid all responsibility by
ensuring themselves against any threat of failure.
c) HESITATING a mode of safeguarding through
withdrawal which allows people to hesitate or
vacilitate when when faced with difficult problems.
d) CONSTRUCTING OBSTACLES people build a straw
house to show that they can knock it down.
Masculine protest
- Origin
- Men and women place an inferior value on being
a woman
Adler, Freud, and the Masculine Protest
- Freud
- Anatomy is destiny
- Women the dark continent for psychology
- Wife: Martha Bernays Freud subservient
housewife
- Adler
- Assumed women want more or less the same
things men want because they have the
physiological and psychological needs
- Wife: Raissa Epstein Adler independent and
communist
APPLICATIONS
HEURISTIC
FAMILY CONSTELLATION
A. Firstborn Children
Intensified feelings of power and superiority, high
anxiety, and overprotective tendencies.
It holds that the firstborn children often have the
greatest number of problems as they get older.
B. Secondborn Children
Begin life in a better situation for developing
cooperation and social interest.
The personalities of second born children are highly
dependent by their perception of their older childs
attitude towards them.
C. Youngest Children
Like the firstborn, may be more likely to experience
personality problems later in life.
Grows up with the least amount of power in the
whole family.
Pampered and protected which results to them
having strong feelings of inferiority and lacking the
sense of independence
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS
Adler believed that recalled memories yield clues for
understanding patients style of life but he didnt
consider these memories to have a causal effect.
Recollections of early experiences are simply shaped
by their present style of life.
EARLY RECOLLECTIONS
- According to Adler, dreams cannot foretell the future,
they can only provide clues for solving future
problems.
- Dreams are disguised to deceive the dremer, making
self-interpretation difficult. The individual himself has
to be consistent with reality and his goals in life so he
wouldnt be a victim of elf-deception.
DREAMS
- According to Adler, dreams cannot foretell te future,
they can only provide clues for solving future
problems.
- Everything can be different.
- Dreams are disguised to deceive the dremer, making
self-interpretation difficult. The individual himself has
to be consistent with reality and his goals in life so he
wouldnt be a victim of elf-deception.
PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC
- The Adlerian theory suggests that psychopathology, a
mental or behavioral disorder, results from lack of
courage, exaggerated feelings of inferiority, and
underdeveloped social interest.
MAIN PURPOSE OF ADLERIAN PSYCHOTHERAPY?
Enhance ones courage
Lessen feelings of inferiority
Encourage social interest
Everybody can accomplish everything.
(with the exception set by heredity.)
What people do with what they have is more
important than what they have.
Adler believed that a warm, nurturing attitude by the
therapist would help the patient to expand their social
interest to each of the three problems of life:
1. Sexual love
2. friendship
3. Occupation
Adler innovated a method of therapy with problem children
by treating them in front of an audience of parents, teachers,
and health professionals.
Adler didnt blame the parents for a childs misbehavior he
instead worked to win the parents confidence and to
persuade them to change their attitudes toward the child.