Adlerian Approach to

Counseling
 Alfred Adler (1870-1937)
 Born in Rudolfsheim, Austria, a small village near Vienna,
middle class Jewish family
 Converted and became a Christian
 3rd of six children
 His relationship with his mother was not so good. He
developed the idea of a “counterfoil” (i.e., the early image
against whom we struggle). For him it was his mother
 The experience of his younger brother dying and his own
weak physical condition made him come to the decision to
become a medical doctor in his early years
 He had a set goals to overcome his fear of death by
choosing the occupation of a physician
 Alfred Adler
 He had a very successful older brother, a younger brother and
sisters
 Felt in shadow of his older brother
 Invalid as child. He had rickets and pneumonia
 Very close to his father (no oedipal need)
 Came to USA in 1935 and lived there till his death
 Alfred Adler
1902: Joins Freud’s Wednesday evening meetings Together,
they formed the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, of which
Adler was the first president
1911: Leaves the circle and establishes Society of Individual
Psychology
1926: His most important book “Understanding Human
Nature”
1930: A medal of honor by the city of Vienna
 Alfred Adler
Reasons for why he broke with Freud in 1911
 Adler assumed that humans are motivated primarily by
social urges
 Perfection not pleasure was the goal of life
 Adler broke with Freud over the issue of sexuality
 Adler’s Theory of Personality (Individual Psychology)
 Individual as a whole, unified organism
 Individual’s interaction with the rest of society
 Stressed on a positive view of human nature
 Individuals can control their fate
 They can do this in part by trying to help others (social
interest)
 Early interactions help to determine the role of inferiority
and superiority in their lives
 Structure of Personality
 Organ Inferiority
 Feelings of Inferiority
 Striving for Superiority
 Style of Life
 Fictional Finalism
 Social Interest
 Organ Inferiority
 People are more vulnerable to disease in organs that are less
developed or ‚inferior‛ to other organs.
 These inferior organs develop biological deficiencies
because of stress from the environment.
 These inhibit the person from functioning normally.
 Feelings of Inferiority
 All children start life with feelings of inferiority because they are
completely dependent on adults for survival. This feeling of being
weak, inferior, and impotent stimulates an intense desire to seek
power, thereby overcoming the feelings inferiority.
 Adler did not consider feelings of inferiority bad. According to him,
it is normal among human beings and therefore not a sign of
weakness or abnormality. In fact, such feelings ate the primary
motivating forces behind all personal accomplishments.
 Striving for Superiority
 A fundamental fact of life, an innate need from the time of birth. It is
master motive that leads people to pursue a superior or perfect
society.
 Striving for superiority refers to the desire to be better, but also has
the idea that we want to be better than others, rather than better in our
own right.
 Adler later asserted that striving for superiority can be unhealthy or
neurotic
 Felt the central core of personality is striving for superiority
 Inferiority Complex
 Superiority Complex
 Inferiority
Inferiority: Feelings of inadequacy and incompetence that develop
during infancy and serve as the basis to strive for superiority in
order to overcome feelings of inferiority.
Inferiority complex: A strong and pervasive belief that one is not
as good as other people. It is usually an exaggerated sense of
feelings of inadequacy and insecurity that may result in being
defensive or anxious.
 Superiority
Superiority: The drive to become superior allows individuals to
become skilled, competent and creative.
Superiority complex: A means of masking feelings of inferiority
by displaying boastful, self-centered or arrogant superiority in
order to overcome feelings of inferiority.
 Style of Life
 How a person adapts to obstacles.
 Ways in which he creates solutions and means of achieving
goals.
 Develops in early childhood.
 Based on overcoming a series of inferiorities.
 Age 4 or 5.
 Style of Life
A way of seeking to fulfill particular goals that individuals set
in their lives. Individuals use their own patterns of beliefs,
cognitive styles and behaviors as a way of expressing their
style of life. Often style of life or lifestyle is a means for
overcoming feeling of inferiority.
 Mistaken Lifestyles: Lack/Insufficient Social Interest

Three types noted by Adler:

(1) The ruling-dominant type (aggressive and dominant)
(2) Getting-leaning type (develop a shell but they rely on others)
(3) Avoiding type (lowest levels of energy & only survive by avoiding)
If there is adequate social interest, there is the
(4) Socially useful type who confront problems and attempts to solve
them in a socially useful way.
Only the last type is healthy and will lead to a rich and purposeful life.
 Fictional Finalism
 Fictional future goal which a person aspires for.
 Adler called this a “Guiding Self Ideal”.
 This gave Adler’s theory a strong teleological
component, although it did not ignore past events.
 Social Interest
 The innate need of all human beings to live in harmony and friendship
with others and to aspire for the development of the perfect society.
 Social interest can be developed through tasks:
1. Occupational tasks or constructive work can be a means for a person to
help advance society.
2. Societal tasks require cooperation with fellow humans.
3. Love and marriage tasks help to perpetuate society.
The caring and concern for the welfare of others that can serve
to guide people's behavior throughout their lives. It is a sense
of being a part of society and taking responsibility to improve
it. It involves cooperation with people for social advancement.
 Stages of Development
 Adler did not propose stages of development; instead emphasized the
importance of family atmosphere and the family constellation.
 The latter refers to one’s position within the family in terms of birth
order:
 Older children
 Younger children
 Middle children
 Birth Order
 It could have an impact on how a child relates to society.
 Development of style of life.
 Perceived role is more important.
The idea that place in the family constellation (such as being
the youngest child) can have an impact on one's later
personality and functioning.
 Neurotic Person
Three childhood conditions can create a Neurotic Person:
(1) Organ Inferiority: Childhood illness can lead to a sense of
inferiority and an inability to compete. This leads to withdrawal from
society later in life.
(2) Pampering: Spoiled children never develop a strong sense of social
interest, because successfully manipulating the environment has always
come easily to them.
(3) Neglect: Never learns love or cooperation , so has difficulty in all
three life task areas in adulthood. Often become cold and hard as adults.
 Neurotic Individuals strive for personal superiority:
Psychological growth is seen as moving a person from a
position of personal superiority to collective superiority.
 Work: provides a sense of satisfaction and self-worth to the
degree we feel it helps others.
 Friendship: provide essential links to communities and
cooperation is necessary for work.
 Love: The closest union possible between 2 people.
 Theory of Human Motivation
He believed in the unique motivations of individuals.
He called the motivating force the striving for perfection. It is
the desire we all have to fulfill our potentials, to come closer
and closer to our ideal. It is, as many of you will already see,
very similar to the more popular idea of self-actualization.
 Aggression Drive
Striving for perfection was not the first phrase Adler used to
refer to his single motivating force. His earliest phrase was
the aggression drive, referring to the reaction we have when
other drives, such as our need to eat, be sexually satisfied, get
things done, or be loved, are frustrated
 Masculine Protest
One of Adler's earliest phrases was masculine protest. He noted
something pretty obvious in his culture (and by no means absent from
our own): Boys were held in higher esteem than girls. Boys wanted,
often desperately, to be thought of as strong, aggressive, in control i.e.
"masculine" and not weak, passive, or dependent i.e. "feminine."
The point, of course, was that men are somehow basically better than
women. They do, after all, have the power, the education, and
apparently the talent and motivation needed to do "great things," and
women don't.
 Striving for Superiority
The last phrase he used, before switching to striving for
perfection, was striving for superiority. The will to power the
basic motive of human life. Although striving for superiority
does refer to the desire to be better, it also contains the idea
that we want to be better than others, rather than better in our
own right. Adler later tended to use striving for superiority
more in reference to unhealthy or neurotic striving.
Adlerian Theory
of Counseling
 Goals of Therapy and Counseling
 Depend on the presenting problem
 Increase in the client’s social interest
 Social intelligence
 Encouraging insight and self-understanding by associating
early life experiences with presenting neurosis
 Goals of Therapy and Counseling
 To find out the life goal that a person has
 And give them the courage to change their lifestyle to
achieve it
 Moving from “felt minus” to “felt plus”: finding meaning in
life
 Stages in Therapy
Four stages of Adlerian counseling or therapy:
1. Building a trusting relationship
2. Assessment stage
3. Promoting insight stage
4. Reorientation
 The Therapeutic Relationship
 Collaborative relationship.
 Respect and mutual trust.
 Similar goals of therapist and client, otherwise,
resistance could occur.
 Encouragement.
 Assessment and Analysis
 Adler referred to birth order, first memories, and dream analysis as
the three ‚entrance gates‛ to mental life. He studied them extensively
to discern the origins of lifestyle and an individual’s approach to
problem solving
 Observations in the first session for comparison later.
 Informal assessment, projective techniques, lifestyle questionnaires,
standardized interviews.
 1-Family Dynamics and Constellation
 Dynamics of siblings.
 Child-parent interaction.
 Changes in the family over time.
 Person’s perception of childhood development.
 2-Early Recollections
 Memories of actual incidents that clients recall from their
childhood.
 The way a person remembers it.
 These are related to how we will live our lives.
 Starting from the earliest memory.
 “The eldest, spoiled son of a widow”.
Adlerians use this information to make inferences about
current behavior of children or adults.
 3-Dreams
 Indication of person’s lifestyle.
 Symbols do not have fixed meanings.
 One must know the individual dreamer.
 Movement in and attitude towards therapy.
 4-Basic Mistakes
Self-defeating aspects of an individual’s lifestyle that may
affect their later behavior.
1. Overgeneralizations.
2. False or impossible goals of security.
3. Misperceptions of life and life’s demands.
4. Minimization or denial of one’s worth.
5. Faulty values.
 5-Safeguarding Tendencies
Protects person’s fragile self-esteem from public disgrace.
Found in neurotics only and is partly conscious.
1. Excuses
2. Aggression (Depreciation, Accusation, Self-accusation).
3. Withdrawal (Moving backward, Standing still, Hesitating,
Constructing obstacles).
 Excuses
 Self-erected barriers in the way of success
 Yes, but or if only.
 Yes but excuses
 Aggression
People use aggression to safeguard their exaggerated
superiority complex which protect their fragile self esteem
1) Depreciation: Tendency to undervalue other people’s
achievement and to over value one’s own.
2) Accusation: Tendency to blame others for one’s failures and
to seek revenge, thereby safeguarding one’s own weak self
esteem.
3) Self-Accusation
 Self-destructive, self-defeating
 Marked by self torture and guilt.
 The child’s first attempt at aggression against one’s own
person originates from wanting to hurt the parents or wanting
to attract their attention more effectively.
 Withdrawal
 Neurotics often escape life’s problems by distancing
themselves from their problems.
1) Moving backward: Tendency to safeguard one’s fictional
goal of superiority by psychologically recreating a more secure
period of life. Moving backward to a more secure phase of life.
2) Standing Still: Not as severe as moving backward but
people stand still, simply do not move in any direction.
3) Hesitating: Some people hesitate when faced with difficult
problems. For example, saying “It’s too late now” or
indecisiveness
4) Constructing obstacles: Some people build a straw house
to show that they can knock it down. By overcoming the
obstacle, they protect their self-esteem.
 Assets
 Assessing the strengths of individuals' lifestyle
 What is right with the person?
 For countering discouragement
 Honesty, academic or vocational skills, relationship skills,
etc
 Insight and Interpretation
 The therapist interprets the materials so that patients can
develop insights into their actions.
 Mistaken goals and behaviors which interfere with achieving
goals.
 Reorientation
 Changes in beliefs and behaviors are made to accomplish
goals.
 Adopting new and more cooperative style of life.
 On the basis of insight.
 Action-oriented techniques…
 1-Immediacy
 Expressing your experience of what is happening at this
very moment.
 Communicates verbally or nonverbally.
 2-Encouragement
 Useful in building a relationship and assessing lifestyle.
 Helpful to bring about action and change.
 3-Acting As If
 Act as if the action will work.
 Take an action you are afraid of.
 4-Catching Oneself
 Catch yourself doing behavior you want to change.
 Catch before you initiate the behavior.
 ‘Aha’ response.
 5-Creating Images
 Therapist could suggest an image that can be used to help
accomplish something.
 Mental picture of doing something.
 Series of images.
 Guided visual imagery.
 6-Spitting in the Client’s Soup
 The counselor assesses the purpose of a client’s behavior
and makes comments which make it less attractive.
 7-Avoiding the Tar Baby
 The therapist becomes careful when discussing a sticky issue
which is significant for the client and causes problems for
him.
 Behaviors leading to greater psychological health are
encouraged.
 Others are ignored.
 8- Push-Button Technique
 Close eyes pleasant incident attending to the feelings
unpleasant image pleasant scene.
 Clients have the power to change their feelings.
 9-Paradoxical Intention
Prescribing the symptom to do it more often.
 10-Task Setting and Commitment
 Client and therapist plan to take specific actions about
problems.
 Then they determine the best way to implement the choice.
 If unsuccessful, evaluate the plan for changes.
 11-Homework
 Usually something relatively easy to accomplish between
therapy sessions.
 It is not directing the client’s life.
 12-Life Tasks and Therapy
 Five main tasks in life: (1) love, (2) occupation, (3) society,
(4) self-development and (5) spiritual development.
 To identify some issues to work on that the client has
difficulty in recognizing.
 13-Terminating and Summarizing the Interview
 Children - 30 minutes.
 Adults - 45 to 50 minutes.
 Summarize the session.
 Homework assignments may be discussed.
 Encouragement for applying materials in real-life situations.
THANK YOU