Theory In Brief

Adlerian Therapy

Basic Premises and Philosophy:

- Human relations are based on social equality and emphasizes the influence of con-textual
factors. Adlerian ideas can be applied in individual, group, couples, and family counseling as
well as in the classroom.

Founders:

- Alfred Adler

Counseling Goals:

- reducing the feeling of inferiority, redirecting the striving for significance and increasing the
feeling of community.

Role of the Counselor:

- Assist clients in better understanding, challenging, and changing their life story.
- Therapist make a comprehensive assessment of the client’s functioning.
- The counselor uses early recollections as an assessment procedure.

Role of Client:

- Clients maintain their lifestyle.

- Clients focus their work on desired outcomes and a resilient lifestyle that can provide a new
blueprint for their actions.
- Clients explore private logic, the concepts about self, others, and life that constitute the
philosophy on which an individual’s lifestyle is based.

Useful with What Populations and Types of Problems:

- Establish the proper therapeutic relationship.

- Explore the psychological dynamics operating in the client.
- Encourage the development of self-understanding.
- Help the client make new choices.

Examples of Techniques:

- Establish the relationship

- Explore the individual’s psychological Dynamics
- Encourage self-understanding and insight
- Reorientation and reeducation
Terms:

- Short Term / Goal-oriented / Feelings / Inferiority / Superiority / Discouragement /

Encouragement / Community / Society / Belonging.