Theory and Practice of
Adlerian Psychology
FIRST EDITION
Edited By Dr. Rosalyn V. Green
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Theory and Practice of
Adlerian Psychology
First Edition
Edited by Rosalyn V. Green
Bowie State University
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Contents
Theory of Personality
By Dr. Henry Raymond
1
Basic Assumptions in Individual Psychology
Dr. Rosalyn V. Green
41
The Adlerian Tasks of Life
Dr. Kimberly M. Daniel and Dr. Jennifer M. West
49
Adlerian Group Counseling
Dr. Rhonda Jeter-Twilley
57
Adlerian Family Therapy
Dr. Rosalyn V. Green
65
Cultural Implications of Adlerian Theory
Dr. Otis Williams III
83
Adlerian View of the Child, Parenting, and Managing
Maladaptive Behaviors
Karina M. Golden, Jake A. Johnson,
and Audrey A. Lucas Brown
99
Process in Adlerian Psychotherapy
Dr. Cubie A Bragg and Dr.Jacqueline E. Somerville
111
Issues in Clinical Practice: A Case Study Approach
Dr. Frank Norton and John McIlveen
127
Basic Assumptions in
Individual Psychology
Dr. Rosalyn V. Green
A
dlerian theory is based upon certain assumptions that differ significantly
from the Freudian psychoanalytic view from which Adlerian psychology
emerged. Adler credited Freud for the development of a dynamic psychology.
In personality development, the influence of early childhood experiences is
in agreement with Freud. The idea that dreams were meaningful was also
acknowledged. While Freud emphasized the Oedipus complex and the role
of psychosexual development, Adler focused on the family constellation and
the children’s perception of that constellation and their struggle to find their
place within it.
The assumption underlying Adlerian counseling theory is that people are
social, decision-making, indivisible beings whose actions and psychological
movement have purpose. Each person is seen as an individual within a social
environment, with the capacity to choose and to decide.
Adlerian basic assumptions are:
1. All behavior has social meaning or occurs in a social environment.
One of the basic premises of the Adlerian theory is that man is primarily
a social being and that behavior can be understood only in a social
context. Man is born into an environment with which he must engage in
reciprocal relations. Adler’s contention is that people cannot be studied in
isolation.
2. The goal of belonging. Throughout one’s life term, the goal of belonging
is fundamental to human nature. We decide which groups are important
Basic Assumptions in Individual Psychology
41
3.
4.
5.
6.
42
to us and strive to gain their acceptance. Numerous formal and informal
groupings that exist in our society attest to our goal of belonging and
having a certain place that we value and where we are valued. If we are
not accepted or feel that we do not belong, problems and fears can
become a part of our everyday lives. If we perceive that we cannot make
the grade or do the job, we fear that we will not be accepted. Our sense of
belonging remains unfulfilled and we become anxious and unhappy.
Individual psychology is an interpersonal psychology. How individuals
interact with others is paramount. An interpersonal relationship with
others is a lifelong continuous process that begins in infancy, when we are
dependent upon others for survival. As we grow and develop, we need to
cooperate with others to fulfill our goals and function effectively in
society. Transcending interpersonal transactions is the development of
the feeling of being a part of a larger social whole, the willingness to
contribute and cooperate with others for the common good. It is the
feeling of being socially imbedded—the awareness of the universal
interrelatedness of all human beings. It is the capacity to develop what
Adler called Gemeinschaftsgefühl, or social interest.
Adlerian psychology rejects reductionism in favor of holism. Adlerians
study the whole person and how one moves through life. Conscious and
unconscious, mind and body, approach and avoidance, ambivalence and
conflict are all seen as the subjective experiences of the individual moving
in one direction. All part functions are subordinate functions of the
person’s goals and style of life.
Conscious and unconscious are both in the service of the individual
who uses them to further personal goals. Adler felt that which is
unconscious is non-understood, and that man knew more than he
understood. Conflict is defined as a “one step forward and a one step
backward movement,” thus the net effect being to maintain the individual
at a point “dead center.” Although the individual finds himself in the
throes of a conflict, unable to move, in reality, according to Adler, he
creates these antagonistic feelings, ideas, and values, because he is not
willing to move in the direction of solving his problems.
The human personality has unity and guiding themes. Individual
psychology suggests that human personality is integrated rather than in
conflict. The person is a system in which the whole is greater than the
sum of its parts. In this whole, Adler saw the unity of the person in whose
behavior there is a consistent theme and pattern. The individual is seen as
a dynamic, unified organism moving through life in definite patterns
toward a goal. An understanding of the person is based on the unity and
purposes of the individual’s behavior. No matter how much information
is gathered about an individual’s achievements, interests, and intelligence,
these data cannot speak for themselves. Until one is able to see the
relationship between behavior and data and observe the pattern and
purpose of the behavior, it is difficult to develop remedial and corrective
actions. This view requires that therapists take a holistic approach with
Theory and Practice of Adlerian Psychology
the client. It suggests that all actions in the individual’s chosen style of life
be looked at. The way people organize themselves as whole persons
influences their perception of life and their interactions and transactions
with others.
7. All behavior is purposeful. While an individual may or may not be
conscious of his or her motivation for an action, the behavior is still
directed toward a specific goal. From an Adlerian point of view, all of an
individual’s actions are seen in relation to their goal-directed nature. The
goal then gives direction to the person’s striving, and it becomes the final
cause—the final explanation. So, instead of always looking back to a
possible cause, therapists look to the future goal as the cause. Adler felt
that if the goal of the individual was known, then the psychological
phenomena—character traits, emotions, feelings, logic, morals, etc.—
could be understood and explained. Adlerians believe that man is not
pushed by causes, but move toward self-selected goals, which they feel
will preserve their self-esteem, will provide them with security, and will
give them a place in the world. Behavior that is seen as unexplainable and
inexplicable can become understandable once the goal and purpose are
known. The goals of behavior are always created by the individual, and
thus give the individual “creative power.” Therefore, behavior is
understood not only as a response to a stimulus, but also in terms of the
intervening variable of the person who makes a creative decision about
the stimuli. Individuals may appear to engage in behaviors that, according
to adults and peers, are destructive and negative. The premise is that from
the individual’s interpretation or point of view, this behavior has specific
kinds of meaning to him/her in terms of his or her personal significance,
self-esteem, and method of finding a place for him- or herself, and thus
he/she behaves in a way to achieve such. All forms of behavior are the
results of the creative choices made by the individual in selecting and
pursuing their goals. Behavior always makes sense to the person, if not to
others. The goal of the behavior may not always be fully known to the
individual; nonetheless, the person operates in the direction of the goal
and the interpretation given to the goal. Awareness of the goal, therefore,
provides the therapist with clues needed for corrective measures.
8. Behavior is a function of subjective perception. Individuals learn to
perceive life; that is, a perception of ourselves and the world around us is
acquired through a subjective point of view. In more recent terminology,
this is described as behavior being a product of how each person views
the external world through a subjective set of “filters.” To understand a
person’s behavior, one must first come to recognize the significance of the
inner subjective experiences and its influences on the decisions the
individual makes. For the Adlerian, it is important that the person be
understood in terms of the meaning a given event has for that person.
Individuals tend to behave according to how things appear to them, and
when that perception changes, then the behavior changes accordingly.
Seemingly, perception determines behavior perhaps more than reality
Basic Assumptions in Individual Psychology
43
does. When perceptions are vague and indistinct, behavior will be
similarly ambivalent. Conversely when perceptions are clear and accurate,
then behaviors are precise and efficient. The Adlerian therapist is always
attempting to see with the client’s eyes and hear with the client’s ears—to
get into the client’s world to understand how they perceive whatever is
going on in their environment. The best advantage point for
understanding the behavior of an individual is from the internal frame of
reference from the individual him- or herself. This implies that the
therapist must avoid as much as possible any personal bias. He or she
must have the capacity to comprehend what the client is really saying, and
help them clarify why they feel that way. Once the therapist helps the
client examine and become aware of their own points of view, then the
therapist can help them consider alternate views and different behaviors.
The more accurately the therapist can understand the client’s perception,
the more adequately he/she will be able to assist them in their healing
process.
9. The striving for significance explains motivation. The central striving of
human beings has been variously described as competence, completion,
mastery, perfection, self-actualization, self-realization, and superiority.
The striving for significance comes from the individual’s subjectively
conceived goal of success. Adlerian psychology recognizes the family as
the first group in which individuals strive to find a significant place. Our
inferiority feelings are usually the result of faulty self-evaluation. These
faulty self-evaluations are arrived at by incorrectly answering questions
such as: “Who and what am I?” and “How do I master the environment?”
Individuals have the capacity to give the wrong answers to these and
similar questions and then mistakenly conclude that they are worthless.
The striving for significance is a movement toward fulfillment of the goal
to achieve unique identity and to belong. Adler believed that each person
strove for self-improvement having an innate desire to become better, to
move forward and onward, to become superior. He felt that every
individual moved “from a perceived minus to a perceived plus.” Adler did
not feel that striving for perfection and superiority was a striving for
superiority or perfection over others, but rather that it was a movement
directed at self-improvement and greater competency. In this basic
assumption of striving for significance, Adler saw behavior as being
affected by feelings of inferiority or “inferiority complexes.” Feelings of
inferiority are common, normal, and functional, in that they serve as
motivators to movement. Because motivation is seen in the light of a
person’s striving for significance, as he/she perceives significance, it is
most important that the therapist recognize a person’s set of attitudes,
specific behavior, and series of relationships as a revelation of how that
person believes he or she fits into his or her social context. Most ways of
behaving that are accepted by the person reflect their current concept of
how they see themselves.
44
Theory and Practice of Adlerian Psychology
10. Moving through life, the individual is confronted with alternatives.
Since Adlerians are either soft determinists or non-determinists, the
conceptualization of man as a creative, choosing, self-determined
decision maker allows him to choose the goals he wants to pursue. The
goals may not always be real, but may be a fictional internal goal derived
from the individual’s subjective perception and process of “private logic.”
Private logic refers to the individual’s cognitive constructs that serve in
pursuit of a goal and represent a set of “personal truths” that guide the
individual.
11. Freedom of choice. Adlerians believe that people are self-directed,
creative, able to make decisions, and possess the capacity for coexisting
and interrelating with others. Far from being machines, the human
condition includes choice, even though the choice may be “contaminated”
by past experiences. Adler felt as though freedom to choose is an innate
feature of man. Recognition of humans’ freedom of choice is emphasized
in the purposive nature of behavior. It acknowledges that people evaluate
and interpret life according to the goals they choose for themselves.
12. The style of life. An individual’s characteristic approach to live was
viewed by Adler as the style of life. The term “lifestyle” refers to a person’s
basic orientation toward life. The unique way in which each person tries
to realize their fictional final goals, and meets or avoids the five main
tasks of life—work, community (society and friendship), love, spirituality,
and self—is their style of life. A lifestyle is formed early in childhood and
is unique; no two people develop the same style. A person’s lifestyle is
based on one’s private logic, develops out of one’s life plan, and is powered
by the fictional goal that an individual establishes for him- or herself.
Private logic refers to the thinking processes that a person doesn’t
recognize or prefers not to know, but nevertheless have a definite
influence on that individual’s actions. All of these thinking processes
which never reach the threshold of consciousness are a part of the private
logic. Individuals are not born to deal with the demands of life. To cope,
they must learn the rules of the game of the human community, which is
first experienced through the family. Difficulties and successes are
incorporated and interpreted into the person’s life. To find clarity and
predictability in their life, the individual develops safeguarding
mechanisms and fictional solutions to problems to orient themselves. The
person lays down a certain plan as a child in preparation for living. The
life plan grows out of the constant repetition of attempts to cope with real
or imagined difficulties. Out of this plan develops the lifestyle. Each
person, early in life, develops a fictional image of what he/she needs to be
like to be safe, to feel belonging, to be superior, etc. The actualization of
this image becomes the main goal of the lifestyle. The life plan and its
fictional goal are the outcomes of the individual’s assessment of his or her
experiences. This assessment is often inaccurate, because it is done when
the person is a child, and although children are excellent observers and
have extraordinary perception, they lack the experience and maturity to
Basic Assumptions in Individual Psychology
45
adequately interpret their observations. Thus, the style of life can become
misguided. What was felt needed as a child might no longer be
appropriate as an adult.
13. Living life demands courage. Courage refers to the willingness to
engage in risk-taking behavior when one does not know the
consequences, or when the consequences might be adverse. Life is bigger
than we are and is constantly providing challenges; living life demands
courage. Adler suggested that the concept of courage essentially consists
of two elements: activity (rate of movement toward goals) and social
interest. Consequently, the highly active person who has interest in others
is courageous—ready, willing, and able to act to achieve in terms of his or
her feelings of belonging to others. Adler encouraged persons to be
willing to engage in courageous behaviors. Willingness is dependent upon
many variables, internal and external, such as the lifestyle convictions, the
degree of social interest, the extent of risk as the individual appraises it,
and whether one is task oriented. Since life has few guarantees, all living
requires some extent of risk-taking.
The basic assumptions of individual psychology are that individuals are
seen as unique, coordinated, logically related, intact indivisible units. People
operate in terms of their phenomenology—concepts, ideas, memories, perceptions, and values. Their external behavior is a function of the aforementioned
internal elements. Emotions are not simply the results of outside events, but
rather are due to the interpretation of these events. Every human being is goaldirected. Human behavior is the result of the tendency of individuals to move
toward private goals.
Individual psychology gets its name from the basic notion of holism, that
a person is an individuum—an indivisible unit. Yet it is a social psychology, in
that it stresses that the individual is meaningless except in social terms, and that
the person operates in a social environment. While it is agreed that individuals are formed and directed to some extent by hereditary and environmental
factors independent of the individual, nevertheless, individual psychology
views people as responsible and creative. They see individuals as integrated,
responsible, self-directed, unique, moving toward private goals, and striving
for success.
References
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in Selections from His Writings. Edited and annotated by H. L. Ansbacher and R. R.
Ansbacher. New York: Basic Books.
Allport, G. W. (1955). Becoming. New Haven, CT. Yale University Press.
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Theory and Practice of Adlerian Psychology
Allport, G. W. (1961). Pattern and Growth of Personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston.
Ansbacher, H. L., and Ansbacher, R. R. (eds.). (1956). The Individual Psychology of
Alfred Adler. New York: Basic Books.
Dreikurs, R. (1953). Fundamental of Adlerian Psychology. Chicago: Alfred Adler
Institute.
Dreikurs, R., and Mosak, H. H. (1967). The Task of Life II. The Fourth Life Task.
Individual Psychology Psychologist, 4, 51–56.
Dreikurs, R. (1971). Social Equality: The Challenge of Children Today. Chicago:
Regency.
Ellenberger, H. (1970). The Discovery of the Unconscious. New York: Basic Books.
Hoffman, E. (1994). The Drive for Self: Alfred Adler and the Founding of Individual
Psychology. Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.
Horney, K. (1966). Our Inner Conflicts. New York: Norton Publishers.
Mosak, H. H. (1977). On Purpose (pp. 60–75). Chicago: Alfred Adler Institute.
Mosak, H. H., and Dreikurs, R. (1967.) The Life Tasks: The Fifth Life Task. Individual
Psychologist, 5, 16–22.
Mosak, H. H. (1995). Adlerian Psychotherapy. In R. J. Corsini & D. Wedding (eds.).
Sage Publishers.
Oberst, U. E., and Stewart, A. E. (2003). Adlerian Psychotherapy: An Advanced Approach
to Individual Psychology. New York: Brynner/Routledge.
Shulman, B. H. (1965) A Comparison of Allport’s and the Adlerian Concept of Lifestyle.
Contributions to a Psychology of the Self. Individual Psychologist, 3, 14–21.
Dr. Rosalyn V. Green is a full time tenured Associate Professor at Bowie State
University in Bowie, Md. with a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology. Her area of
expertise in the Counseling arena is with couples, families, and groups. Dr.
Green teaches Family Counseling, Group Counseling, and Marital Therapy.
She is also a licensed and ordained Reverend in her church and is thus able to
bring the relationship between theology and psychology into the therapeutic
setting. Besides teaching and preaching, Dr. Green also has her own private
practice and is very active within and outside her community by presenting
at workshops, seminars, retreats and other such environments. Her passion
is to empower and challenge herself and others to grow, change, and thrive to
live life to its fullest potential. Dr. Green has recently published her first book
entitled Our Father: Imprints That Shape Our Lives and has just completed her
second book Holy Molasses: I Am Stuck in Singlehood.
Basic Assumptions in Individual Psychology
47