Zivit Abramson

The Theory of Alfred Adler

To the reader,

The following pages include some material relevant to the course on couple conflict which will
take place at Icassi Romania 2010. It includes the following:

1. In pages 2 - 4 there is the 8th chapter of my paper "Adler for beginners" meant to outline the
meaning of the concept "Style of Life" which is used when Adlerian ideas are discussed.
2. In pages 5 - 6 there is chapter nine of the same paper. It is about how we are goal directed.
3. The next is a presentation I gave at Icassi on our topic: Couple Relations. It is about the Couple
Contract which will be a central theme of our course. Page 7 to 11.
4. This one is for the counselors and therapists among you: pages 12 - 23 are my paper as it was
printed in the Journal of Individual Psychology on Family and Couple therapy. It deals mainly with the
differences between individual and family therapy.
5. Finally on page 24 there is the questionnaire for the first interview with a couple.

If you like, you can read some of this in advance. It will certainly give us a good start.

Zivit Abramson

Here it is:

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 Chapter eight: Life Style
or: The personal script

Life Style is how Adler called the sum of all the beliefs a person has of himself, others, life, the
path he must take and the goal(s) he must achieve, in order to feel that he belongs. This becomes the
idea which directs his movement throughout his life. The greater part of the life style in not conscious.

How does a lifestyle develop?

A child, whose mother always yells at his father who never talks back – draws conclusions. For
example, that women are loud, men suffer from it and a man should avoid the company of women as
much as possible. Or: that women are strong and admirable, men are cowards worthy of contempt, and
one should be a strong woman or marry one. Or: He could reach the conclusion that people are either
strong or weak and that he himself is this or that, that it is very important to be one of the strong, or not
to get into trouble with them when you are not one yourself, or that it is important to stand up to them.
It all depends on the child's subjective interpretation of the facts.
The views the child shapes about his place, his value and the conditions (or lack of them) that give
him a place (these discussed in the chapter on belonging) are only part of a great many conclusions he
arrives at during the years of his early childhood. At the beginning he knows nothing about how things
happen in this world. He has no opinions of what is good and what is bad, important or worthless, what
is being smart and what is being a looser, who decides what, how are things decided, what is a man and
what is a woman and what they do together if anything. The child, while developing within the family,
slowly creates for himself, from the way he interprets everything that happens around him – views about
life. It is as if a book or a script is being written inside his head, in which there are regulations and rules,
beliefs, opinions, value judgments and attitudes about everything.
What complicates matters is that, as Dreikurs used to say “A child is an excellent observer and a
lousy interpreter”. The reason for this is that he makes generalizations when he still lacks the necessary
intellectual and logical skills. This explains the great variety of absurd ideas that one can find in
people’s minds.
Here are a few typical examples for far-fetched and wrong ideas people form during their
childhood and the possible damage they can cause:
A baby feels that without his mother he is lost (which is true), can’t survive. He may mistakenly
arrive at the conclusion that for the rest of his life he will always need someone to look after his basic
needs or he will perish. Such a long term generalization can complicate his adulthood in a way that will
deprive him of a good life.
Or: the relationship with mother was bad and brought a lot of pain. The child concludes: It is not
worth being involved in a close relationship, it always ends in disappointment, rejection and heartache.
This overgeneralization may cost him a life of loneliness or a bad marriage (If he reconstructs the
relationship with his mother).
A child who adopts the idea that (as was the case in his family) it is important to excel in
absolutely everything one does, may find that he suffers from problems of impotence when he applies
this rule in his sex life.
A child who does not understand the arithmetic his big brother understands concludes that he is
stupid, unsuitable for schoolwork and should not even get involved in this area. Such a conclusion may
prevent him from actualizing some of his abilities.

Is it possible to influence the views a child forms of himself and life? In other words, is it possible
to influence a child’s developing life style?

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 Three main factors influence (not determine!) the ideas a child forms that eventually become his
lifestyle: The family constellation, family atmosphere and methods of education. The last two parents
can influence.

Family constellation
This concept describes the place of the child in the family in terms of birth order (firstborn, only
child, middle child, youngest etc) and gender. Adler pointed out that the world of a first child and first
grandchild for whom everybody was waiting and to whose every utterance everyone responded with
enthusiasm as if it was a miracle that happened for the first time in history, is totally different from the
world of a second child who arrives into a family as the “little one” (who sometimes becomes the middle
one), when all the qualities the family respects are “taken” by the big brother and the parents are already
experienced. And the situation of these two is different from that of an only child, a girl after several
boys, or one who is born ten years after the previous one and these are just examples.

The Family Atmosphere

This expression stands for the way the family lives its life. What are the things the parents care
about? What is perceived as important, what is worth an effort? Who, and in what way makes the
decisions, what is the general mood? Is there much shame and guilt, or is there pride and pleasure? What
are the values the family acts upon, and what are the relationships with the outside world? All these and
everything else that characterizes the family is called by Adlerians the Family Atmosphere and has a
great influence on the impression the child gets of human society and the rules that operate it.

Methods of education
This is the third factor that influences a child and it is the one most given to the control of parents.
For example, a child that gets a lot of encouragement for his acts, efforts, investment and consideration,
tends to develop a positive self image and belief in his abilities, unlike with the child who gets constant
criticism. The latter may arrive at the conclusion that something is wrong with him, that he was
supposed to be perfect and that only a faultless person deserves respect.
The influence of education methods on lifestyle is what made Dreikurs formulate a set of practical
rules recommended for parents and teachers who want to aid children in the task of developing a
lifestyle that includes an unconditional sense of belonging, self respect and social interest.1

Gradually, a child stops collecting proof for his conclusions and from then on, for the rest of his
life, he behaves as if the private ideas he had constructed for himself, are reality.

Everyone is totally convinced that the way he sees things is : a: The objective truth, hence
b: agreed upon by all.

An interesting process begins. Everything a person experiences he interprets according to the

beliefs he formed in his childhood. They constitute a closed system of arguments which are very hard to
break and they often become self fulfilling prophecies.
Example: If a person believes that power is what matters, that decisions are made by the strong
ones, that everyone wants to make decisions and therefore must use power – then he constantly
demonstrates power with which he tries to control everything. People who use a lot of power tend to
receive reactions of power – and thus their assumptions are confirmed. Someone who does not use
power is perceived by this person as weak. It never occurs to him that the other might, for example be
strong and sure of himself but still refrain from using power because he believes in settling things
peacefully.
1
The practical rules can be learned from many of the books of R. Dreikurs such as “Children the Challenge” and
“Coping with Inadequate Behavior of Young Children”.
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 Another example: A person believes the most important thing is to be right. He gets into a lot of
arguments. He never lets go until everyone agrees that he is right. He is sure that all the others also want
to be right more than everything else. When someone does not argue with him he is sure it must be
because that other knows that he is not right and therefore has no chance of winning the argument. It
never occurs to him that maybe the other does not argue because he does not care about being right, but
he does care about being liked or maintaining harmony.
No-one lets facts confuse him. Assumptions created in childhood do not change.
Everyone always behaves according to his lifestyle which is partly unknown to him. What is
usually called “character” is really the consistency of behavior according to one’s “private logic” as
Adler called it. The one who believes it is important to be “good” and that this is the only way to find a
place is always “good” or tries to appear so. One who believes that it is important to enjoy oneself and
that he has a place only when everyone is pampering and serving him – will always look for people who
do just that and if he can’t find them he will feel discouraged and may give up.
The person who believes everyone is clever while he himself is stupid will always behave stupidly.
A man who believes men should dominate women will always look for women he can dominate and try
to do so.

A person, who does not like the way his life is going, may assume that this is closely connected to
his lifestyle. Often something is “written” in his script which makes him (or life) fail. For instance, let us
take the young woman who feels unhappy because her husband does not take care of her the way she
thinks he should. When she was a child her parents constantly cared for her needs and occupied
themselves with her. She concluded that everyone must do the same. Or maybe the parents did not take
care of her enough (in her eyes) and she concludes her place is that of a poor person who is and will be
neglected by everyone. Both possibilities may have been true but the conclusion is irrelevant for a
grown-up who can take care of him/herself, and assume responsibility for his life and for his well being.
If and when there is someone around who is willing to help and take care of some of his/her needs –
that’s nice but when this expectation is a condition for a sense of belonging – being miserable is almost a
certainty. Or: Someone who is convinced he must always excel (in his family atmosphere there was over
ambition) and believes he must never make an effort (his parents pampered him and did everything for
him) is certainly going to find himself in a catch.

In such cases it is worth while to try and change some of the early convictions and this is not a
simple task.
Sometimes it happens when a person finds himself in a real crisis, like the man who felt he must
always be and look perfect, elegant, and impressive. He was an admired director, was treated with
caution and great respect. Then, in his late years, he got bladder trouble, lost control of it and there was a
leak. The old conditions of his life style could not be fulfilled. Elegance and dignity collapsed with the
constant stain on his trousers. The crisis made him realize that he still had a place as a human being. He
developed modesty and was rewarded by possibly a little less admiration but much more affection...
This is one way a real change can come about in one's lifestyle. A difficult and painful way.
Of course, another way is psychotherapy. During therapy one understands the assumptions and the
rules one has created that guide one's life. The person learns they are the outcome of subjective
interpretation and discovers that everything can also be interpreted differently. If, for example, he had
believed before that he must be loved by everyone in order to find a place, he understands through
therapy that this expectation is not only unrealistic but is also exacting a heavy price – that of always
putting aside his own wishes and inclinations for the sake of pleasing the other. He learns that he has a
place even if there are only two friends who really like him, and maybe, if he is lucky, his partner as
well...

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 Following the new insights, one can change the goal (make it a little more flexible is a good
enough change). Feelings change, behavior changes – life changes.

Chapter nine: Man is goal oriented

or: what motivates people is a goal

The most important question Psychology must answer is:" what makes us run?”.
Adler says: The thing that motivates us, everything we do in our lives:
Our thoughts
Our feelings
Our behavior
is not a reason, it is a goal.
Everything we
do
think
even feel
is not because something made us act but ‘in order to...” for the purpose of... towards a goal which
we ourselves create and then choose.
Our behavior and acts are goal directed, but that is not all. What we think is also goal directed.
Even what we remember and no less what we forget. Whatever serves our goal – we remember,
whatever doesn’t – we forget.
And the most difficult idea of all: feelings too serve the goal. Feelings, says Adler, are our way of
mobilizing the kind of energy we need in order to achieve the goal. When a person wants to make his
friend stop what he is doing, he needs to summon anger. Anger, enables him to shout, become red in the
face and look threatening in which case there is a better chance the friend will obey (or so he believes).
Only, we must remember that our goals are mostly unknown to us.

Understanding behavior with all its components as goal directed is a crazy, revolutionary idea that
changes everything. Victor Frankel said that what Adler did was no less than a Copernican revolution.
He presents man not as a product or victim of heredity, drives, instincts, past events, or circumstances,
not as having been determined by all these, but as a creature that shapes itself though influenced by
given data, using it for the achievement of his goal.

This idea leads to all the optimism in the world. It opens up possibilities, since reasons are by
nature past events that can’t be changed while goals are about what will happen in the future and
therefore changeable.
A person can decide to change the goal he had set for himself in childhood and for which he had
been striving until a certain moment in his life. He can replace it with another new, different (or less
extreme) goal which he chooses when he is an adult and can see things in a different perspective. This
means freedom! This means choice! What is given is given, what happened – happened, but what we do
with it – that depends on the goal which we choose ourselves. Whatever happened to us in the past, does
not determine what we do in the present.

Obviously, one must admit it is not that simple and easy. Precisely because of the fact that in so
many cases we are unaware of our goals. How can one change what is not conscious? It must first
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become conscious. Only after a person discovers that he, for example, constantly strives to demonstrate
his superiority over others, he can decide that this goal is too tiring and does not bring him (and certainly
not others) that much joy, so he chooses instead a more modest goal. We shall return to the subject of
changing the goal.

Since we are dealing with human relations it is important to emphasize that among the things that
do not determine our behavior, among things that have an effect on us but do not determine how we
react - is the behavior of the other (wife, husband, child etc). That is, if someone is yelling at us, that
does not mean we must yell back. The yelling of the other is a “reason”, something that has happened,
but our reaction is determined by our goal, by the question of whether our goal is to fight, win, or make
peace. The other side has no way of determining our reaction. When someone puts pressure on us, asks
or demands that we do something we don’t want to do, what determines our reaction is whatever serves
our purpose. Example: if it is to please the other – we will do what he wants us to do, if our goal is to
annoy him and show him he is not going to boss us around, we will not do it. Never will his behavior
determine what we will do.

All of this is optimistic and encouraging but at the same time extremely scary, for it means that we
ourselves are very much responsible for everything we do. Once we accept the principle that says our
acts are goal directed and we ourselves create the goal then there are no more excuses. One can no
longer “rely” on an unhappy childhood, a headache, hereditary tendencies – all these become useless as
excuses.

This idea of Adler is very, very, very difficult to digest especially for those (all of us?) who tend to
use reasons or the behavior of others, to justify, explain and continue their harmful, defeating (them and
the others) behavior.
They may fear the thought that it is directed towards a goal which they themselves have set. But
they are not to be blamed!

The goals and the means of achieving them, which govern our conduct, says Adler, are mostly
unknown to us. We invented them when we were very young but we can’t remember how it happened.
We do not know exactly what our conclusions were and how we arrived at them. Therefore, when we
recognize a harmful goal of a person, one which makes him behave in a way that hurts both him and the
people around him we do not blame him, we do not make him feel guilty and we do not expect him to
choose otherwise and change his behavior before he learns the process which had led him to choose the
old goal and before he finds out that he has other options. This issue is discussed in the next chapter.

Cooperation in Couple Relationship

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 Zivit Abramson – Icassi 2007

1. Some Theory: child development. Creating a style of life

Good morning. We are here this morning to talk about cooperation in couple relationship but to do
this we must begin with a quick look at childhood which is where it all begins. Parents often forget that
what they do when raising children does not only influence their present behavior, like weather they
brush their teeth or do their school work but also the kind of partner they will be when they are
grownups involved in a partnership and as parents.

During childhood two things can happen (as a scheme) :

*******************************************************************************

Possibility A
A harmonious family atmosphere characterized by social equality (man and women, adults and
children, young and old) and cooperation.
Democratic methods of education which include opportunities for making contributions, sharing,
consulting (with the child) and asking for help (Achi Yotam’s ideas).
The message: “you are o.k. just as you are, you are worth and have a place without conditions”.
Result
(High probably of):
* Child develops a sense of belonging and a positive self image, feels loved,
wanted, needed and actualizes his/her abilities.
* Develops Social interest
* Has the “four crucial C’s”: connect, capable, count, courage (Bettner and Lew)
The child’s focus is on overcoming life problems and coping with them in a way that is useful for
himself and for others.
* The child creates his unique style of life, his individual way of participating in a cooperative
way in all life areas, his special way of making a contribution.
*******************************************************************************
The life style we then call his personality, or his character. All this is strongly connected to what I
call “couple capability”, a term which we will soon arrive at.

*******************************************************************************

Possibility B:
A family atmosphere of competition or even animosity.
Autocratic, humiliating methods of education.
The child is accepted only if he meets specific or high expectations of the parents.
Result
(high probably of):
* Child may develop a high or a low self-image with fluctuations between inferiority and
superiority feelings, which strongly depends on meeting some criteria. These criteria often are “being
more…” or “the most…” in contrast and comparison to others.
* His focus is on overcoming others, raising the self above “them”.
* Child develops a competitive attitude to social living and a lack of Social Interest.
* When the individual will construct his/her life style, the fictional goal in it’s center will be being
the best, or better, or number one, or perfect, or all of these in some ways, in order to feel he has a place.
Only if and when he reaches this goal he feels he has a place.

7
 *******************************************************************************

A wonderful illustration of the development of the style of life you can find in the book of Betty
Lou Bettner: "The Creative Force".
No need for us to ask ourselves which group we belong to. It is not a matter of either or. We all
have some of this and some of that. We are all human. Only when everybody is Adlerian and raises his
children in a democratic way people may choose to be cooperative and friendly and put all their energy
into overcoming life’s difficulties and not other human beings. Meanwhile, we are all in-between.

2. Some more theory. The couple "signs" a contract (What do I give? What do I get?)
Eventually children become grownups and get to the point in which they want to create a family.
Make a couple. Then, one day, they meet someone and believe they “fell in love”, as if while walking
along the road they bumped into something, or someone and fell. They believe that if they were lucky,
they fell for the “right” person, like finding the right lid for the pot that they are. They think if they were
not lucky, and “fell “ for the wrong “lid” then it will not work and when they realize their bad luck they
should go look for the right one. This is not really the way it happens. There is no coincidence there.
We choose. We make a decision of whom we want as a partner and, as Dr. D. said "In order to
produce the fuel necessary for action in the chosen direction" – we fall in love. When we meet a person
we first do a kind of processing and filtering of data like social, cultural, racial, socioeconomic, details
that are connected with beliefs passed through parents to children. There are also elements like the
looks, height, age etc which are all connected with social attitudes and with the way the members of the
family of origin look, but all these factors are secondary to the personal goal. The personal goal is
usually unknown to the individual but:
The partner must be someone who according to my interpretation will enable me to act
according to my style of life and constantly strive for my personal goal. When there is a
contradiction between cultural beliefs or attitudes and the personal fictional goal the later will always
come first. Example: A popular attitude or expectation is that we choose a person who belongs to the
same national, racial, cultural, socioeconomic group. But! All this will be put aside when the goal is to
be very special, or to defy everything the parents expect of me or be the idealist of my family. In these
cases a Jewish girl in Israel might marry an Arab.
How does it work? when two people meet and find each other suitable They sign a contract. They
are not aware of doing this, but they do. Right at the beginning there is an understanding. How do they
know so soon? The answer can be found in the principle of holism: The fact that our style of life is
expressed by our behavior every single moment of our life.

3. Some examples of how it happens.

ACT 1
ACT 2
ACT 3
ACT 4
ACT 5

4. What is competition?
You may be surprised that I said he is competing. What is the meaning of it when she couldn’t care
less about being morally superior? on the contrary: her goal is to put him down! this is a very
unfortunate way of fighting her own inferiority feelings. In terms of Adlerian theory people who are
really competitive do not compete over the same thing. Unlike people involved in sports competitions -
they lack the courage to risk being less than number one, and in order to make sure they will be number
one – they choose areas in which they are the only one around in their group – their family or class at
8
school. This is why siblings are so different when they are competitive. They choose to develop areas of
ability and excellence, which are “free zones” territories not yet occupied in their family since the other
siblings are not good at them. If the big brother is good at school the younger one who is competing may
choose to be cute, or good at sports . The same thing happens in couples. Competitive partners never try
to enter a territory in which they are not the best and they do not let the other step over and try their
ability in the area which is their territory. This maybe the explanation to a discussion that took place in
my presence between Edna Nash and the late Achi Yotam. He said every competition including sports
games is bad and Edna said she clearly remembered Dr. D. saying that he thought sports games were a
good thing. I think this has to do with the fact that sport competitors take the risk of being not only
number 2 but even the last out of 20, which shows they put the emphasis on developing their abilities
and performing the sport.

Now I ask you to keep in mind that the question we are interested in is: Will there be cooperation
in these couples? Will they be friends? Will they be a good team that can solve life’s problems together
for a long period of time?

Let us look at another couple:

One more example:
ACT 6

5. How is all this connected to childhood?

6. What happens to these couples when time passes?

Obvoiously all these couples had a quite imbalanced, non equal relationship with no reciprocity in
the areas that drew them together.
Now let us look at these couples and see what happened to them after a while: you will be
expected to guess which couple that you are going to see now is which couple you saw before. Here is a
clue: Dreikurs said: when you look carefully into what is disturbing to the partners now – you will
realize it is the same thing that drew them towards each other at the beginning. To put it in a different
way will be to say that they are slowly beginning to feel and pay the price for the imbalance – or lack of
equality and reciprocity between the partners in terms of specific behaviors. The very behaviors they
repeat in a compulsive way because they assume it is leading them toward achieving their fictional goal.
They came for couple therapy.

ACT 7
ACT 8
ACT 9
ACT 10

In therapy, we first elicit the initial couple contract by using a series of questions about the first
time they met and then look at the present complaints. Usually we can see then what went wrong with
the non equal non cooperative contract, which was based on their mistaken goals. This therapeutic
process is actually the second step of the Dreikurs model of conflict resolution (pinpointing the real
issue).

7. What is a good contract? What does cooperation look like?

They are, all of them, right. They are entitled to what they want. They want a person who can both
please and initiate what he wants. Sometimes do this and sometimes that, someone who can be happy
9
sometimes and unhappy too, someone who knows what they want but can also live with it not happening
exactly as they wish, someone clever and interesting who can also listen and appreciate the other's
cleverness, who can be worm and loving, also a partner one can count on to act responsibly when the
need arises.

This is exactly the direction in which all these contracts must change. This is the contract of people
who live together on the basis of equality, people who act with S.I.
These people cooperate instead of compete. The meaning of it is that they are not afraid to enter
each other’s “territory”. Cook if it is necessary and let the other do it too. The magic word is
"sometimes", meaning flexibilty and reciprocity, for a couple that is competing it may sound like this:

ACT 11
ACT 12
ACT 13
ACT 14
ACT 15
ACT 16

decisions are made according to who feels how, who has the capability or ability, who is free at the
moment, who likes to do what, and these things change. They are not stiff. It is flexible and when one
looses his/her job that person does the house chores and when one is feeling like getting a bit of spoiling
they get that too.
Both sides give and get:

******************************************************************************
Characteristics of A “Good” contract:
Flexibility

Both sides:
 Show respect
 Appreciate the other
 Care about themselves and the other
 Take responsibility for the families affairs
 Show warmth and empathy
 Give and get support
 Express their wishes clearly
 Listen to the other

Neither of them is interested in who: (the most popular areas of competition)

 Knows better
 Says the last word
 Is Nicer
 Is smarter
 Is better
 Is right
 Is stronger
 Is doing more dish washing

*************************************************************
All this is possible when they have:
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 *************************************************************

"couple capability"
Includes things like:
 Willingness to accept that not everything is going to be as you want and that you will not get
everything you want.
 The ability to see things from the point of view of another (involves the understanding that
perception of situations is subjective and therefore different for each of us).
 Acceptance of others as they are and a tendency to focus on the positive and encourage it.
 Autonomy. The ability to be self-supportive in terms of:
- making a living
- doing the necessary technical work or getting it done
- finding meaning and content in one’s life.
- finding inner sources of joy, satisfaction and
- self soothing

*************************************************************
All this in contrast to a competitive couple in which these tasks are strictly divided and the other is
expected to supply the missing parts.
I am sure you can see the connection to the child we visited at the beginning.

I believe it is clear that couple capability is strongly connected (hardly to be differentiated from)
with
Social interest which in it’s turn is strongly connected with mental health.

8. FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE

When there is this autonomy on both sides, when both sides can supply whatever is necessary and
there is much less dependency, the relationship is not any more a give and take of psychological
merchendize, it is not based on the instrumentality of one for the other. It is based on friendship and
love. Only then, I believe can it become as Dreikurs described a good partnership: The well being of the
other becomes more important to a person than one’s own.
And for this I would like to give two examples of couples, both Adlerian who happen to be parts of
Icassi’s faculty.
1. Richard Kopp, who decided they were going to have a house on the beach because this is
what his wife wanted so much although for him it would mean a long way to go to work in the
city.
2. Gadi getting sick at Icassi and saying: "look how lucky we are that it was me and not her
(who is on the faculty) who got this. Imagine if she had gotten it, how could she teach?!"

Adlerian Family and Couples Therapy 2

2
.Printed for Vilnius Congress 2008. Taken from 'The Journal of Individual Psychology', Vol. 63(4), winter 2007
11
 Zivit Abramson
Tel-Aviv, Israel
Abstract

The author describes the points in which Adlerian Family Therapy differs from Adlerian Individual
Therapy and the ensuing differences in therapeutic technique, whilst providing examples to illustrate
these points. The "Four Phases of Therapy" as formulated and described by Rudolf Dreikurs serve as a
starting point for the above comparison. The observations and recommendations presented in this article
are based on experience gained at the Clinic for Family and Child Therapy, at the Alfred Adler Institute
of Tel Aviv, Israel, over the past 3 decades.

Adlerian Family and Couples Therapy

Background:
Parent education has vastly developed in Israel ever since a small group of Rudolf Dreikurs'
students founded the Alfred Adler Institute of Tel Aviv in 1963. This development can be attributed to
the work of Achi Yotam, whom Dreikurs had asked to take upon himself to construct a Parent Education
Unit.3 Open centers took place every week, and later study groups were added. The notion that parenting
today could be an acquired skill became increasingly popular. Still, children were seen professionally
only on occasions when they and their parents were interviewed in the open center. After a while it
became clear that this method of intervention did not suffice for some children and a lengthier, more
profound connection with the child was necessary. In other words – therapy was needed.
In the summer of 1976, during Icassi in Oberlaa, Vienna, my teachers, Mika Katz, Judith Elul
and Achi Yotam, assigned me the task of adding a child guidance clinic to the Institute. It became
apparent to me that in contrast to what I have been taught as a child clinical psychologist, this was not to
be another clinic where children would be diagnosed and treated as a separate unit. As an Adlerian
psychologist, two basic assumptions stood before my eyes:
1. Man is a social being. No thought, feeling or act can be understood without its social
context.
2. Everything (thoughts, feelings and behavior) is goal-directed, and everything has an
“address” in the social arena written on it.

Thus, it became clear to me, that in order to understand children and to influence their behavior,
one needed to see them in the context of their relations with their significant others. Parents and
siblings are the most significant and are also usually available for therapy. Broader social circles such as
teachers, youth leaders and peers are significant as well but are usually not available for therapy.
The study groups too did not always prove themselves to be adequate. One of Achi Yotam’s
guiding principles was that when a mother in a study group told the group leader: “I understand what
you are saying and I agree, but I can’t do it,” it indicated the need to move on to the next stage, therapy. 4
This saying was interpreted that the mother's private goal unknowingly led her to behave in a way that
contradicts the rational goal of doing the best for her child and for the family.
We introduced a two-stage program. The first stage, the "school for parents" was suitable for
everyone. The second stage was conducted in the clinic in which interrelations between private goals of

zivitabramson@hotmail.com
.”This unit is commonly referred to in Israel as the “School for Parents 3
.At the beginning it was almost only mothers who participated in study groups 4
12
all family members were also investigated. In other words, the clinic gradually became a Family
Therapy clinic.
In the following years, the structure and techniques of our work were developed. Meanwhile,
Family Therapy became an increasingly popular concept in Israel and its application spread quickly.
More and more professionals became interested in it until eventually, if one wanted to practice family
therapy, one had to be a certified family therapist. We then decided at the Adler institute to open a
training program where clinicians could specialize in Adlerian Family Therapy. Today, both the Child
and Family Therapy Clinic, as well as the training program are fully active.

Adlerian Family Therapy

In contrast to the Hebrew version of the training program textbook, this current paper is written
under the assumption that the reader is familiar both with Adlerian theory and Adlerian individual
therapy, it will therefore concentrate only on those points in which family therapy differs from
individual therapy.5

Intake
People who voluntarily seek individual therapy usually expect to receive treatment that will bring
about a change in them. To achieve this goal they are willing to look into their own feelings, beliefs and
actions in order to alleviate their suffering or eventually eliminate suffering altogether. In contrast, it is a
general tendency for people to begin family therapy – whether concerning the couple or the children -
with the expectation that someone else will be treated and consequently change. This expectation should
be addressed at the beginning. It should become clear that the only change each family member is able
to control, is his or her own attitudes and behavior, and that no change will occur unless they (or at least
one of them) are willing to take a fresh look at their own contribution to the difficulties the family is
experiencing.

The Therapeutic Contract

An additional difference between individual and family therapy lies in the process of agreeing on
the goal of therapy, or in other words, agreeing on a therapeutic contract.
In terms of Adlerian Psychology people seek therapy for several reasons: 6
1. People who cannot achieve personal goals.
An illustrative example would be a person who strives for control but seems to have lost it.
This person would be interested in therapy in order to regain control.
2. People who achieve a fictive personal goal, but are unwilling to pay the price.
We see people who strive for superiority, are admired by everyone, but put so much effort
into it that they seek help due to exhaustion. In this group one may also find those who believe that
they came to therapy because they are at a crossroad, and cannot decide which course of action
they should follow, each of which has its benefits and costs. The Adlerian therapist understands
that in fact their wish is to have the benefits of both alternatives, without paying the price for
either.
3. For some individuals, undergoing therapy represents in itself a striving for their goal. For
example: a person striving for moral superiority wants to be in a position where s/he can say: “I am
doing everything I can to help the family/ to try to avoid divorce. I am good, I am doing the right
thing”.

.Unless stated otherwise, the expression Family Therapy refers also to Couples Therapy 5
6
The examples given in this paper are simplified versions of situations which occur during the course of therapy,
.for reasons of clarity and brevity
13
 When a family comes to therapy usually a mixed combination of these motives is present. For
example, a mother who is very strict and controlling feels lonely in her family. The children comply with
her wishes, but she complains that they do not share their personal life with her - she does not want to
pay the price for achieving her goal. The elder daughter does not achieve her goal of being the center of
attention, since her sister was born - she wants to reach her goal through therapy. The father, who derives
a sense of belonging from being a martyr, enjoys coming to therapy and complaining about his
controlling wife - in this way therapy in itself enables him to achieve his goal.
To all of these, therapists must add their own Adlerian educational goals.7
The therapeutic contract must then be an integration that all parties can agree on. It can be
formulated through a certain generalization such as "the family wants to reach a better harmony,
cohesiveness, better relations etc." Therapists often will suggest broadening the practical goals which the
clients have presented. For example they may suggest replacing the goal that the child will do his or her
schoolwork with the goal that he or she will develop into a more responsible individual, or, may suggest
that the husband will not only participate more in house chores, but that the couple will attempt to foster
a more equal sharing of responsibility between them in all areas of life.

Resistance
The resistance in therapeutic settings seems to work almost like a mathematical formula: the more
participants in the therapeutic process, the higher the probability that someone will be unsatisfied and
show resistance.
Bearing in mind Dreikurs’ definition of resistance as “a discrepancy between the goals of the
therapist and those of the patient” (p.7) it becomes clear that compared to individual therapy, in family
therapy the potential of any member to feel this way is much higher.
As long as there is a power contest, a rivalry or a conflict in the family, family members may feel
that improving one of the members’ self- image and understanding their motives and private logic, or, in
fact, any progress towards the achieving of someone else’s practical goals contradicts those of another.
Resistance may arise in the other person, and this may bring about a decision to terminate therapy
in its entirety. These cases often are expressed in sentences such as “I will have to cancel our
appointment. My husband doesn’t want to continue” or “the teenager refuses to come back”. For this
reason, therapists need to be very attentive and sensitive to everybody’s feelings and needs. They must
keep an equilibrium at all times, showing each participant the same amount of understanding. They must
also help the family members gradually reach the point where there is more solidarity and friendship
among them, so they understand that what is good for one is good for the others.

Who participates?
We see no reason to insist on the participation of all family members at all times or any time for
that matter.8 Family members can participate in large or small subgroups, or even in singles, in different
meetings. The therapist and family together decide who comes when, according to the needs of the
situation, as well as practical considerations.
It is certainly an advantage for the therapeutic process when as many members of the family as
possible participate actively.
The presence of both partners when it is couple therapy, or all the children when a child is the
Identified Patient is certainly preferable. Many of the difficulties of the partner can be understood
7
As is described by Dreikurs (1957) in the relevant chapter entitled “Psychotherapy as Correction of Faulty Social
Values", (pp.37-47).
8
This is in contrast to what is practiced in System Family Therapy. See Minuchin, S. and Fishman, C.H. (1981).
Family Therapy Techniques. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, (pp 6.).

14
through becoming acquainted with the spouse, and similarly, many of those of the child can be
understood in the presence of his siblings. Therefore, we often ask those who do not want to participate,
to come even for one single session, in order to facilitate the therapeutic process with those who come
regularly, by giving us a more complete story. This is often phrased as a request to help the therapist or
the other family member(s).
Still, the belief that each family member has a great influence on the behavior of others enables the
therapist to perform “family therapy” even when only one person is present.
It is often sufficient, and certainly better than nothing, if only one family member decides to
change his/her behavior, as this change may produce a “domino effect” within the family. The goals of
the additional family members may slowly lose from their perceived value, especially since nobody can
fight or compete alone. The one who is making the change gives the other(s) respect and dignity, and
enables them to feel a sense of belonging. Therefore their previously destructive behavior is no longer
necessary, and they may be willing to consider and practice new priorities.
This effect is more influential in the case of children, and most of all the very young ones. Children
collect impressions and observations and draw conclusions of their own from whatever happens in their
world, which consists mainly of their family. Therefore, changes in the attitudes and behavior of their
parents and siblings, (and even only one of them), as well as changes in the general atmosphere of the
family, (the parents change their methods of training, which they learn in a parent education setting) will
influence the children, their conclusions and consequently their behavior and future lifestyle.
The relationship between partners usually also includes quite a strong element of dependency. This
is why each partner is a most significant factor in the decision of the other to make a change, and in the
continuity and resilience of their new learning, insights, growth and development. In couple therapy;
when both partners are present, the influence is mutual and therefore has a double effect. But once again,
one partner getting couple therapy is more than none.
The most powerful means of a single family member who wishes to support change in other family
members is encouragement.
In the cases in which only one family member is willing to participate, s/he still has the choice of
family or couple therapy, which is different from individual therapy. In these cases the interaction and
interrelations between the client who is present and those absent are the targets of the therapeutic
process and therefore at the center of attention.

Using Paradoxical Assignments

In addition to using this technique with individual members of the family, it can also be used for a
family as a whole. For example, the family will obey one of its members (indicated as “the tyrant”), do
everything he or she says, and only what he or she allows until the next meeting.

The Four Phases of Therapy

In his book “Psychodynamics, Psychotherapy and Counseling,” Dreikurs (1957) describes four
components of therapy that serve as the basis for the present comparison.

15
 Phase One: Relationship

Dreikurs states that it is absolutely necessary to create “a relationship of mutual trust and respect”
(p.7) with the patient. In the case of Family Therapy this can become a complex task for two reasons.
First, people who come for individual therapy most often initiated the therapy themselves. In Family
Therapy it is quite often the case that while one family member initiated the decision of going for
therapy, the others came with less enthusiasm or even full of anger and hostility, feeling that they have
been forced to join.
Naturally it is one thing to create a positive, trustful relationship with clients who have come of
their own accord, not to mention that the individual is often the one who chooses the specific therapist,
and another thing to make a connection with a child who was nearly forced to come, or a spouse who is
antagonistic to psychology, and only came because the partner threatened with divorce.
In the latter case, it is the task of the therapist to gain the person’s trust, to create motivation
where it is absent. Therapists must show the resisting persons that in contrast to what they might expect,
the therapy will be beneficial for them, and not only for the persons who came to “complain” about
them. For this, the therapist must first discover what it is that bothers them so he or she will be able to
make them realize that their private logic will also be heard and that their point of view will also be
understood and respected.
An additional difficulty arises when family members arrive with conflicting or totally different
wishes. Satisfying the wishes of one can be at the risk of alienating the other, if the therapist is not
careful. A typical example of such a situation is an angry parent who brings a rebelling and very angry
adolescent. The slightest understanding the therapist shows towards one of them may cause total
mistrust on the part of the other. In such cases it may require adding a second therapist to the therapeutic
process, or meeting with some family members separately, until a combined meeting seems advisable.
An additional problem which might arise is that many people seek family therapy with the image
in their minds that they are going to a kind of court, where there is a judge who will determine who is
right and who is wrong, in which case of course there are clear winners and losers. Again, one of the
first missions of the therapist is therefore to clarify the essential difference between going to court and
committing oneself to therapy. This is already part of the educational-therapeutic process the family is
going through.
In his book Dreikurs states that "winning the patient’s cooperation for the common task is a
prerequisite for any therapy […] the process of maintaining a cooperative relationship is part of an
educational process" (p.7).
In family therapy one strives to achieve an atmosphere of a cooperative relationship not only
between the family members and the therapist, but also amongst the different family members. A
cooperative relationship solely with the therapist would signal a failure. A more important goal of the
therapist is to create a cooperative atmosphere amongst the family members themselves.

Phase Two: The Psychological Investigation

Dreikurs wrote:
“To know the premises on which the patient operates his life style…and to understand the
present area of his field of operation, which will explain his difficulties…" (p.8)
This is the task of the therapist in this phase.
What is being investigated? In addition to the task mentioned above, in family therapy the
therapist also wants to find out about the interactions between life- styles, beliefs, goals and behaviors of
the different family members. We want to know which goals are compatible (e.g., a wish to have
everything one wants happen his or her way and a wish to please) and which goals contradict others
(e.g., two persons who seek superiority in terms of knowing better or suffering more). Also, we need to
16
know who pays the price for the family members’ goals. For example, the parents who stay home and
never go out are the ones who pay the price for the child’s fears, the price for the child’s goal to have
them under his or her control. If they do not give in and decide to go out anyway, leaving the child alone
and terrified, then the child pays the price. A second example would be if a person is extremely
compulsive about cleanliness and order, then it would be the other family members paying the price
through taking extra care all the time to put everything in its place. If it is the same individual who is
doing all the cleaning and rearranging, then s/he is the one who pays a high price for their own ambition.
Those who pay the price themselves obviously also gain something, and this gain should be clarified.
In summary, the investigation in family therapy is aimed at finding the answers to the following
questions:
What is the goal of each family member? Which family members succeed in reaching their goal
and which ones do not? Which family member frustrates other family members? What are the cost and
benefit in achieving these goals, and who pays the price for achieving them?
In addition, Dreikurs says that the therapist must investigate and understand “the present area of
the patient’s field of operation” (p.8). This end is clearly much easier obtained when the patient’s field of
operation is right there in the therapy room.
Investigation in Couples Therapy Achi Yotam frequently reminded his students how Dreikurs
used to say: “Don’t beat around the bush”. This was probably the reason we – Achi Yotam’s pupils - in
Israel tend to concentrate on pinpointing the issue as soon as possible. Following along these lines, in an
analysis of difficulties in couples’ lives we concentrate on a number of central concepts. First, we want
to know the original “marriage contract” 9, by this we mean the agreement that is partly unknown to
them, partly implicit and partly explicit, which the couple had made when they were first drawn to each
other, and decided to make a commitment to be together. The assumption is that when they met, in
addition to sociological screening, each partner sensed that the other would enable him or her to attain
their goal, to live according to their life style. 10
Another crucial question concerns the level of equality between the partners, in terms of
responsibility for themselves and the others, patterns of decision -making, giving and receiving support,
warmth, encouragement, understanding and love.
A third issue we are interested in is the level of Social Interest in the relationship. It is called here
–and is almost equivalent to - “capability of partnership”. 11 The therapeutic investigation aims at
finding out how much of it the partners have.
Having established the “marriage contract”, we attempt to clarify what was it that led to the point
in which the contract no longer functioned.
There could be several reasons to this:
1. Refusal to pay the price: In this case one or both of the partners discovered the
metaphorical “price tag” attached to the qualities for which they had chosen the other, and they
have difficulties accepting this. As Dreikurs wrote, “[t]he complaints which anyone voices
against his mate indicate exactly the qualities which stimulated attraction and love before
marriage.”12 This can be illustrated by a number of examples. At the beginning of the
relationship, the husband needed the wife to fulfill the role of “the little wife”, to have no
knowledge of the outside world, so that he could maintain his sense of superiority at minimum
effort. Gradually, however he finds himself asking: “But why can’t she take responsibility and
spend a little less money when our situation is not good, and why can’t I count on her to help us

The term “marriage contract” does not exclusively refer to married couples, and is used to denote a committed 9
.relationship between two partners
10
The process of creating the “marriage contract”, its development, the difficulties that may appear and ways to
approach them according to Adlerian principles are described and illustrated by examples, in a book published by
the author of this article. Abramson, Z. (2004) Lomdim Zugiyut [Learning Couples] Tel Aviv: Modan.
.This is a concept developed in Abramson, Z. (2004) 11
.Dreikurs, R. (1962). The Challenge of Marriage. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, p 80 12
17
 get through these hard times? I feel alone. I don’t have a partner”. This sentiment is justified
inasmuch as there was no equality and little “Partnership Capability”, right from the beginning,
on both sides. A second example would be a domineering woman who needed her partner to be
passive and compliant, and now complains that “He never initiates anything. I asked him a
hundred times to surprise me with something nice to show me he cares about me, but nothing!”
2. Unparallel growth and development of one of the partners. A typical case of this kind
would be the same “little wife” from the previous paragraph who slowly “grows up”. 13 As a
result, she no longer gives her partner the sense of superiority she gave him when they had met
and she was holding a non-demanding low-paying job. She now studies, or has found an
employment in which she is appreciated and slowly gains more knowledge and experience, and
consequently is more self-assured. Her partner no longer seems so smart to her any more. The
investigation in such a case must also find out whether the partner is willing to grow up, too, and
to accept an equal as a wife.
3. Changes of life situation. Sometimes, when circumstances of life change, it becomes
clear that a partnership, which does not have two responsible adults in it, is based on inequality
and inadequate “partner capability,” cannot cope with life tasks satisfactorily when these become
more complex and demanding. A young couple with hardly any responsibilities can get along
with almost any kind of contract. For example, a contract according to which he is creative,
interesting, surprises her all the time, and makes her feel like a princess, but on the other hand is
totally impractical, may still hold somehow when the couple has one child. Often the wife can
still manage if she is an efficient hard-working person. But once there is a second child, this
contract can no longer function. The wife can no longer accept the husband’s refusal to help care
for the children, and the husband, on his part, is unwilling to do so, since he feels it was not part
of his contract.

How is the Investigation Done? Most of the tools and sources we have for performing this
investigation in individual therapy are used in a similar fashion in family therapy. The principle of
holism enables us to draw conclusions or at least make educated guesses on the basis of the following:
1. Observation of verbal and nonverbal behavior and communication beginning with the
telephone call to make an appointment and continuing in the therapy room.

2. Content of information given by the family

3. Feelings of the therapist in response to various family members. Knowing his/her own
lifestyle, considering his sensitivities concerning children, men and women, the therapist can use
his/her reactions to make tentative assumptions.
4. Patterns of behavior that are known to have a high probability of being connected with
certain types of life style.

5. Behavioral assignments given to the family as a whole, can serve as an excellent

diagnostic tool when they are not performed as agreed upon. This occurs although these
assignments were discussed and agreed upon by the therapist together with the active
involvement and cooperation of all the family members. One can derive important clues for the
investigation by knowing when, how and through whose actions the plan was sabotaged.
Statements such as “I had totally forgotten”, “we were too tired”, “we were simply too busy”, or
“I didn’t believe she was actually going to make time for us and there was a lot to do at the
office, so I did not bother to come home early”, enable a better understanding of the family
dynamics. Whenever these things happen there is a hidden goal to be revealed. Pinpointing the
13
Because modern society is still undergoing a transitional period from clear superiority of men -towards gender
.equality, a great number of couples go through this process together
18
 mistakes and obstacles that caused the failure of the assignment helps us understand the
dynamics of the family and enable us to draw tentative conclusions.

6. The confirmation or negation of the therapist’s guesses is an important tool in the

investigation. In individual therapy, we use a Recognition Reflex for children, and for adults a
short spontaneous laughter or a reaction of “Doesn’t everybody?” In family therapy we have an
additional useful source of confirmation, namely the other family members. It happens very
often that a suggestion made by the therapist is rejected by the patient to whom it is addressed,
while enthusiastically confirmed by his or her partner who also brings in information to prove
the point., A dialogue between therapist and family could be similar to the following: Therapist:
“Could it be that you get extremely impatient at the moment things don’t go exactly your way?”
Patient: “That is not the case”. His wife: “Oh, yeah, that is exactly him!” Or: “Could it be, that in
your family of origin whatever you said was given a lot of attention and taken very seriously?”
Patient: (shaking his head in rejection); Wife (not letting him answer): “It is still like that. His
mother and his sister, they treat his words like they were God’s words”. In such cases the
therapist knows that their guesses were probably true, but the way they were expressed was
unacceptable for the patient because accepting them at this point in time would have disturbed
his self-image and perturbed his goals.

7. The marriage contract is elicited by three questions,14 or can be clearly observed from the
sources of investigation listed above.

The two final tools in the investigation are techniques commonly used in individual therapy, but
are infrequently used in family and couple therapy .

8. A full lifestyle analysis and the use of early recollections of some or all of the
participating family members.

9. Dreams and fantasy as sources of investigation are used less in family therapy than in
individual therapy, since people have a lesser tendency to share them, especially when their
children are present. In the presence of only their spouses they might be more willing.

Phase Three: Interpretation

Investigation and interpretation take place simultaneously, as it is with individual therapy.

Interpretation is suggested in every session, whether only part(s) of the family or the family/couple as a
whole is/are present. Clients learn about their individual goals, how they fit together, or fitted in the past.
For couples, goals are discussed in terms of when the partners met and created their couple contract, and
in what ways they clash and cause conflict in the present. Partners slowly understand the manner in
which the way they act in order to enhance or guard their own self-esteem puts down the other, since the
other’s conditions for self-esteem are attacked.
Interpretation in family therapy often corresponds to the second point of Dreikurs’ four points of
conflict resolution, namely, the pinpointing of the real issue which is at the core of the family conflict. 15

The three questions used to elicit the psychological marriage contract can be schematically presented as: 1. 14
What is it that bothers you most about your partner now? 2. When you first saw your partner, what did you see? 3.
?How did you reach the decision to make a commitment or to get married

15
On this point, see Dreikurs, R., Grunwald, B.B. and Pepper, F. C. (1971). Maintaining Sanity in the Classroom:
Illustrated Teaching Techniques. New York: Harper and Row.
.
19
 Interpretations that are given to a certain family member in front of the other(s) help them
understand the way the same individual interprets the family interactions, as well as the individual’s
needs and behavior. Having learned this, the family can better encourage this individual, if and when it
is congruent with their goals. If it is not so, if their goal is to win a competition and guard an upper
position, they may use the information to further put him down. Therefore, until some work has been
done to address basic mistakes and attitudes, the therapist must be careful about giving interpretations to
one person in front of others.
Yet giving interpretations in front of others can be very useful in several ways. Clients realize
that behavior they interpreted as an act that is meant to hurt them is the other’s way of trying to establish
his/her place among them and to be accepted and appreciated. For example, the mother learns that her
son’s misbehavior is not directed against her but is done with the purpose of making her notice and
respect him, when he has despaired of winning a place in her heart by constructive conduct. A second
example would be a wife who learns that during his childhood, her husband concluded that to win his
mother’s positive regard he must at all times please her. The wife understands that the over-
generalization of this conclusion is what makes him put so much effort into still acting in this manner
not only with his mother, but also with the neighbors…. Following this realization, this behavior no
longer angers her. She also understands how his need to please everyone at all times is exactly what
drew her, a pampered child, to him in the first place.
When individuals listen to the interpretation of other family members’ feelings and behavior, this
helps them learn how their own behavior, aimed at enhancing their self-esteem, makes those others feel
humiliated and lower their self esteem. If this is not their goal, the person is ready to start making
changes. For example, through therapy the husband can reach the understanding that his tendency to
deliver very long, clever and sophisticated explanations, were originally meant to impress his over-
ambitious mother and to show her that he is smarter than his brother. Now, however, listening to
interpretations given to his wife, he realizes that these explanations make her feel humiliated, for she
interprets them as his effort to show her how stupid she is, a suspicion she holds anyway.
It may certainly be concluded that interpretations in family therapy serve many purposes and often
have a double and even triple effect.

Phase Four: Re – orientation

Similarly to the case in individual therapy, Adlerian family therapists do not only give
interpretations but perceive themselves also as teachers and guides. They inform the clients about
general rules of human relations and communication, which constitute prerequisites for a more pleasant
and harmonious family life (and life in general). They try to guide the family members away from an
atmosphere of competitiveness, criticism, and mutual humiliation towards a family life based on mutual
respect, equality, encouragement and cooperation.
In family therapy the process becomes a kind of group learning. The “students” in the group
discuss the new ideas they have heard in therapy and remind each other to apply them.
The following is an example of the effect of a combination between interpretation and teaching
in couple therapy: One couple argued incessantly prior to commencing therapy. During therapy they
accepted the idea that in different ways, they both mistakenly believed that they must always be declared
right. In therapy, the subject of striving for prestige was discussed and contrasted with striving for a
friendship in which each partner is interested in each other’s opinion and thoughts, and in which they
can respectfully listen to each other, even if they do not agree. During a subsequent meeting, they
described how this changed their behavior, stating : “We did start an argument this week but then we
reminded each other what you said about how it is a choice of what is more important, the relationship
or being right, and we stopped the argument. We decided we would like to have a pleasant relationship
and really we do feel we are equals.”

20
 In order to facilitate the reeducation and learning of a different worldview, and to introduce the
theory which is the basis and rationale of their therapist’s work, our clients are often encouraged to read
relevant material and to participate in groups and courses in which parent education, couple enrichment
and/or Adlerian theory are taught. 16

Training

Following the clients' understanding of their basic mistakes and goals, as well as their agreement
to accept new values and attitudes, family members are ready for training.
Here once again an advantage of family therapy becomes evident. The possibility it provides for
the development of a stable change grows with the number of family members who participate in the
therapeutic process.
Training people to make the changes they had decided on is done in a similar way as in
individual therapy, except that the assignments are also given to the family or the couple as a whole.
Suggestions for change can be simple and small, like: “instead of watching T.V on your separate
armchairs, how about doing it together on the sofa? You could maybe even put your arms on the other’s
shoulder from time to time, or do you like holding hands?” Or, the assignment can be a complex one,
like the family will go for a trip or a picnic, or the couple will go away for a weekend. Such instructions
can help families do things in a way they had not experienced for a long time, or perhaps never before.
When the time is right, such plans may bring a very happy family back to the next session. When
difficulties emerge, as was already mentioned, details of the problems are analyzed, mistakes are
corrected, and with the therapist’s encouragement, optimism can continue. One way the therapist may
encourage the family is to say that this was exactly what s/he had expected, and that the experiences of
the family were very useful, since making mistakes is the best way to learn. Encouragement is a central
factor in the entire process.

Encouragement

Dreikurs stated that the: “Success of a therapist depends entirely on his ability to provide
encouragement” (p.13). In family therapy, the therapist encourages not only the individual members, but
also the family or couple as a whole. In addition to encouraging each person through any possible way,
the therapist emphasizes the strengths and assets of the family as a unit, and encourages each member to
express his feelings about the positive sides they see in each other, despite the difficulties. The therapist
stresses the ways in which family members do in fact answer the needs of each other, and helps the
family members foster pride in the unit to which they belong. Much reframing is done for these
purposes. For example, in a dialogue between a couple, she is mad at him for criticizing her. This can be
reframed as follows: “You seem to care a lot about what he thinks of you. That is because he is so
important to you”. A second example would be a couple in the following situation. She is angry for his
coming late from work, and he wants to skip some visits at her parents’ during weekends and stay at
home. This is reframed: “I noticed you are fighting about the wish of both of you to have more time with
each other. This indicates a positive prognosis.”
Nevertheless, in family therapy encouragement given only by the therapist is never enough. If
people who make a change, albeit small, in their behavior do not get encouragement from the other(s),
then no matter how high the encouraging skills of the therapist, the change will gradually dwindle. For
example, in the following case the mother decided to diminish the amount of criticism she was used to
giving. When arriving at the next session, she is well aware of how often she nearly made a critical
remark and refrained from doing so, but her husband says: “I did not notice any difference”. Or: “I don’t
believe this will last. She is only capable of short term efforts but then she goes back to her real self”.

.At the Adler Institute in Tel Aviv 16

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Or: “Let us wait and see. I am not going to say anything until it is totally different”. People have various
reasons not to encourage each other. The practice of saying only what is wrong is deep-seated in our
culture. When there is no encouragement; it is highly probable that the person who had decided to
change will despair. No amount of encouragement from the therapist will help in this case. The family is
the central factor in a person’s life and family members must learn mutual encouragement.
Many times family members are willing to adopt the attitude of encouragement once they
understand not only that the other needs to receive it, but also that through encouragement, they can
more effectively bring about the changes they were formerly trying to effect through scolding and
criticizing.
Obviously, readiness to provide encouragement assumes that the family members have altered
the vertical striving in terms of relative prestige and success, to the horizontal goal of cooperation and
love. Encouragement in the Adlerian sense involves building a sense of community and cooperation
(horizontal striving) and not competition (vertical striving). Thus, as a general rule, a family therapist
must carefully avoid attempts at encouragement of one family member through words that lower the
self-esteem of another. (“You are right! What your wife has done is enraging. Nobody would accept such
behavior” or worse: “Your parents are unfair to you, your outburst was perfectly understandable”).
However, there is one exception to this rule. This is in the often-encountered cases in which all
family members blame one person (adult or child) for all the problems and difficulties of the family,
believing that the family would have been perfect without this person. In these cases, usually referred to
as cases of a “scapegoat”, the identified patient expects the therapist to join the others by telling him/her
how bad his/her behavior is. This is of course the last thing the therapist wants to do with such a
discouraged person. On the contrary, in such cases, it is necessary that the therapist show understanding
to the I.P., even if it means taking away some of the glory from other family members. For example, the
individual perceived as the family’s “angel” may feel quite upset as a result of the therapist’s acceptance
of the “bad” one, and if the attitude of the therapist is accepted by other family members, that “angel”
may experience some deterioration of self esteem and start behaving “bad” him/her self. Such a
development is interpreted by the therapist as positive, because it demonstrates the fact that the family
problem is not one “terrible” child or adult in their midst. Understanding this may help the family see
that there are some undesirable elements which characterize the family atmosphere, and can appear
through anyone of its members. It helps the family learn that the real solution is not to get rid of or
control the I.P., but rather to create an atmosphere in which every family member is accepted and has a
place.

Checking

Dreikurs states that “An examination of the patient’s function in life indicates whether he still
continues to operate in his old concepts and premises, or whether he has changed them” (p.13). In order
to achieve this examination, Family Therapy enables the therapist to use the additional testimony of
other family members. It usually becomes very clear that people often judge themselves according to
their own intentions, while judging others according to the result. Very often people report that they have
made enormous changes in everyday functioning, while parents or spouses hardly agree.
Family members can also correct mistakes of clients who misunderstand the real significance of
the new ideas. A person who used to be domineering can, in seeking change, may become too
submissive and stop expressing wishes and preferences altogether. A person who used to ignore his own
feelings and wishes for the sake of pleasing others may suddenly exhibit unbearable egoism. Through
the reactions of other family members it becomes clear that he has yet to learn the difference between
pleasing for the sake of being accepted, and doing so out of a caring involvement in the needs of the
other i.e., the wish to make the others happy. In family therapy such misconceptions are easily detected
and corrected. This is not so in individual therapy. Often families come for couple or family therapy with
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the starting point of one of them undergoing individual therapy, and while this individual feels much
better, the family reports that their conduct has now become unbearable. 17
In such cases, working with the system as a whole is the only way to restore a balance before the
damage is too extensive.

Concluding Remarks

Adlerian family therapy is a powerful and effective tool for achieving change in people’s lives.
The suffering and difficulties people experience are not intrapsychic, nor do they occur in a
vacuum. Rather, they take place in the social arena, and are expressed first and foremost in the
individual’s family life and intimate relations. Therefore, misconceptions, mistaken interpretations, and
feelings or behavior that need to be changed are best treated in the context of the group which shares a
common field with the individual on a daily basis.
It was only natural that Adlerian family therapy should evolve from individual therapy, and indeed
this occurred in Israel, as in many other Adlerian centers around the world. The author has presented the
outcome of this process, as it took place at the Adler Institute in Tel Aviv, and demonstrated how it
differs from individual therapy, as structured by Rudolf Dreikurs. These differences were elaborated and
developed both in terms of principles and techniques, in order to provide a useful framework for
practitioners.

References

Abramson, Z. (2004) Lomdim Zugiyut [Learning Couples] Tel Aviv: Modan.

Dreikurs, R. (1962). The Challenge of Marriage. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.
Dreikurs, R. (1973). Psychodynamics, Psychotherapy, and Counseling. Chicago: Alfred Adler
Institute of Chicago.
Dreikurs, R., Grunwald, B.B. and Pepper, F. C. (1971). Maintaining Sanity in the Classroom:
Illustrated Teaching Techniques. New York: Harper and Row.
Minuchin, S. and Fishman, H. C. (1981). Family Therapy Techniques. Cambridge and London:
Harvard University Press

First interview – Couple

He She
Name____________________________ Name____________________________
Age_________________ Age___________________________
Profession________________________ Profession________________________
Present employment________________ Present employment_________________
Family constellation________________ Family constellation_________________
17
In individual therapy, therapists are often not familiar with the patient’s behavior in daily life, since they hardly
.ever meet him or her in situations in which his or her sense of belonging is threatened
23
________________________________ __________________________________
The couple
Married /not married: years together
First marriage? Yes /No First marriage? Yes /No
If not:
Previous marriage lasted _____years Previous marriage lasted _____years
When and how did it end_________ When and how did it end______________
_____________________________ __________________________________
_____________________________ ___________________________________
Children
His__________________________ Hers______________________________
_____________________________ __________________________________
Theirs___________________________
________________________________
Previous therapy/ies and medication
Yes / No Yes / No
When?_______________________ When?_________________________
Until when?___________________ Until when?_____________________
Background_____________________ Background_____________________
_______________________________ _______________________________

Present request for therapy

Who initiated? He / She
What made you seek therapy? (use extra page)
Why now?

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