INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY

(ADLERIAN THERAPY)
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Alfred Adler

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View of Human Nature
Adler believed…

We are not determined by our environment,

or our instincts, or our early child-rearing—we
can change.

Every child is born with innate and unique

capabilities and is inherently moving toward the
future, not determined by the past.

We move toward the future to make ourselves

whole and complete and to fill our drive, our
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striving for Templates
perfection.

In attempting to overcome feelings of

inferiority, we all develop unconscious beliefs
or private logic that leads us to our subjective
final goal.

All behavior is goal-directed and is

purposeful
and is related to the drive to attain the image
held in our subjective final goal
We believe that our subjective final goal
will
bring us sense of mastery, superiority, and—
eventually—perfection, completion and
wholeness Powerpoint Templates
Individual develops a style of life that is
reflective of the person’s movement toward
his/her subjective final goal.

If unimpeded by feelings of inferiority, one

would naturally move toward meaningful
relationships, the best of interest of others,
the betterment of society and an
understanding of our place in the universe.

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Key Concepts
Uniqueness of the Individual

Each person is seen as unique,

with
innate abilities and personal
characteristics that interact with and
are affected by early childhood
experiences and the memories of those
experiences

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Feelings of Inferiority

Primary feelings of inferiority—are universal, such as when the infant and young child
struggle to overcome natural physical, cognitive and physiological hurdles of life.
Secondary feelings of inferiority—occur as a result of psychological strtuggles from
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poor parenting, child abuse or neglect, and cultural injustice.
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Feelings of Inferiority

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Private Logic vs Common Sense

Common sense tells us that despite the fact that we all have our own private logic, to
live peacably and constructively, we must findTemplates
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Pageus12to get
along with one another.
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Compensation

Compensation is a process through which individuals attempt to rid thmeselves of

feelings of inferiority. Powerpoint Templates Page 13
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Subjective Final Goal

•It is the person’s unique image of what
he or she want to be, and the person
imagines that attainment of this image
will lead to a sense of completion and
wholeness.

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Style of Life

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Style of Life is a unique repertoire Templates
of behaviors, cognitions, and values. Page 15
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Social Interest

Social interest can be defined as an Powerpoint

attitude of relatedness
Templateswith humanity in generalPage 16as an
as well
empathy for each member of the human community; community feeling or social concern
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Holism
Completion of Self and Perfection

Attempting to move toward

Holistic Entity

Individual

Even when such movement leadsPowerpoint

toward problematic behavior, Adler believed
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individual’s misguided attempt to strive the completion of self and perfection.
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Schema of Apperception

Developed
Schema cognitive
rules

Assimilation
Apperception of our
experiences

Schema of apperception is how we come to understand and make sense of the

experiences in our lives. Powerpoint Templates Page 18
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Birth Order
•Among the factors that lead to different
life-styles are the ordinal positions of
birth and different experiences in
childhood.

•Birth order can greatly affect how one

feels about oneself

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Birth order is the chronological order Templates
of sibling births in a family. Page 19
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Adler’s View of Some Possible Traits by Birth Order

Positive Traits Negative Traits

Oldest child
Nurturing and protective of others; good Highly anxious; exaggerated feelings of
organizer power; unconscious hostility; fights for
acceptance; must always be “right”; highly
critical of others; uncooperative
Second child
Highly motivated; cooperative; moderately Highly competitive; easily discouraged
competitive
Youngest child
Realistically ambitious Pampered style of life; dependent on
others; wants to excel in everything;
unrealistically ambitious
Only child
Socially mature Exaggerated feelings of superiority; low
feelings of cooperation; inflated sense of
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Courage
•For individuals who initially come for
counseling, courage means being willing
to take a look at how early feelings of
inferiority fueled their private logic, led
to compensatory behaviors, and were
partially responsible for the development
of their subjective final goals.

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Therapeutic
Techniques

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Therapeutic Techniques for Adults

Building a Trusting Socratic Questioning and use
Relationship of the Dialectical Method

Encouragement Teaching and Interpretation

Assessment Spitting in the Client’s Soup
Examining Early Recollections Guided imagery Exercises
Exploring the Family Role-Playing and Acting “As If”
Constellation
Dream Analysis Catching Oneself

Task Setting
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Encouragement Skills
Demonstrating concerns for clients through active listening and empathy
Communicating respect for and confidence in clients
Focusing on client’s strengths, assets, and resources
Helping clients generate perceptual alternatives for discouraging fictional beliefs
Focusing on efforts and progress
Helping clients see the humor in life experiences
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Watts and Peitzak (2000) suggest a broad range of encouragement skills as cited above
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Client-Therapist Dialogue:

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Basic Adlerian principles have been adopted for

children for a number of reasons:

Adler believed that feelings of inferiority experienced in

childhood are the main causes for maladaptive behaviors.
There is no clear separation between the unconscious
and conscious; thus, one can work directly with children’s
current knowledge base and do not have to “break
through” to some mysterious unconscious.
Adlerian therapy is optimistic and anti-deterministic,
and change can occur (or start) at any point in a person’s
life.
Adler stressed the importance that external changes and
interventions can make in inducing change. Thus, effective
parenting and teaching can all impact a child’s mental
health.
Adlerian principles can be easily understood, thus making
them easy to use by laypersons and by children.
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Therapeutic Techniques for

Children
Building a Trusting Limit-Setting
Relationship
Encouragement Natural
Consequences
Democratically Held Logical Consequences
Discussion Groups
Assessment Catching Oneself
Art, Play, and Task Setting
Creative Therapies
Responding to Commitment and
Identified Beha tviors t
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Practice Page 30
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BUILDING A TRUSTING RELATIONSHIP

Counselors should be good

relationship-
builders by using attending and empathy
skills, being nonjudgmental, being
optimistic,
questions infocusing on strengths,manner,
a nonthreathening asking
and fostering open discussion.

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ENCOURAGEMENT

Dinkmeyer and Dreikurs (1963)

suggested
four ways that encouragement is shown:

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