INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY

CHAPTER 4

INDIVIDUAL THERAPYSSIT3112015

BACKGROUND

Alfred Adler: was a very sickly child and almost died in childhood – profoundly affected his desire to become a physcian and his later developmental theory.

First became a physician and later joined Freud’s group of psychoanalysts.

Early on in their relationship there was conflict over differences in theory. For Freud, pleasure motivated behaviour, while for Adler, interpersonal/social factors were more important.

Adler and Freud parted ways and Adler established the Society for Free Psychoanalytic Research (later named the Society for Individual Psychology).

After WWI, Adler established child guidance clinics in Vienna, where he taught teachers and other laypersons about his theory and how to understand the behaviour of children.

With the rise of the Nazi movement, Adler immigrated to the USA in 1929. He was offered a Professorship at Columbia University, where he was teaching upon his death in 1937.

BASIC PHILOSOPHY

Theory about human growth and innate tendency to strive for perfection = optimistic about human behaviour.

Human beings are also considered to be intensely interested in the ‘social’ – we cannot survive without one another.

The tendency towards growth and the ‘social’ is balanced with the innate tendency towards feeling inferior. The ways these influences are balanced determine psychological health.

Holistic = in order to achieve our goals as individuals we need to be able to integrate thinking, feeling, behaving and physiological functioning.

Soft determinist = although behaviour can be understood in relation to general laws and principles, as individuals we create our own path.

“The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment”.

Individuals can overcome physical challenges and that through these struggles, we can grow and become better, leading to significant contributions to society.

Adler can be considered one of the early social constructionists = we construct our versions of reality. This was fundamentally tied to his being a social activist and the fact that he believed we needed to change society in order to improve the health of mankind.

HUMAN MOTIVATION

As human beings we are constantly striving for superiority = “will to power”, “striving for significance” and “wish to overcome”

People are pulled towards achieving their goals (superiority) rather than by their instincts (in the Freudian sense).

At the same time, we are also filled with feelings of inferiority – we enter the world in a vulnerable state, underdeveloped and defenseless. This means that children feel naturally weak and inferior and therefore strive to overcome this feeling.

Another innate need is the desire to belong. This is what helps us to survive as a species.

Human behaviour is motivated by how the individual is able to reconcile their need for significance (overcoming inferiority) with their need to belong.

The way in which we reconcile these needs is highly individualistic and relies on personal creativity.

CENTRAL CONSTRUCTS

LIFESTYLE

By the age of 5/6 we have all developed a plan for life = lifestyle.

This plan guides our entire lives, including our perceptions and behaviours.

Ego / Self / Personality / Individuality / Attitude towards life.

Lifestyle: child’s way of adapting to the environment.

Always has a goal:

Individual is basically unaware of the goal

The goal is fictional (not based in external reality)

The goal arises out of:

The need for significance (overcoming inferiority)

The desire to belong (interest in the social)

The individual will use his/her creative powers to interpret and combine their environment, genetic inheritance and experiences into the lifestyle and associated goal.

The way in which we strive to meet our lifestyle goal is unique to each person.

The influence of parents (or significant others) was highlighted by Adler as being important in the development of the lifestyle. However, parental behaviour does not singularly cause the development of a particular lifestyle.

SOCIAL INTEREST

The measure of the individual is the degree to which they are embedded in and care about their society.

Anyone who alienates themselves from their community or does not wish to be part of a community/broader society would be considered dysfunctional by the Individual Psychologist.

Being interested in the ‘social’ does not mean one is an extrovert. Rather Adler saw true social interest in terms of what one contributes to his/her community.

We are born with the potential for social interest – this must be nurtured and grown in childhood.

Faulty development of social interest can arise as a result of:

Physical disability in childhood.

Faulty parenting or social factors such as racism/sexism/classism.

Health children are those who are encouraged to empathise with others and contribute to society as a whole.

INFERIORITY FEELINGS

Although Adler later used the term ‘inferiority complex’, he was not the orginator of this.

Inferiority feelings are a normal part of life – “to be human means to feel inferior”.

In order to grow and develop, we need to move upwards, from a place of feeling inferior, incompetent, unknowing, ignorant, etc.

Inferiority feelings begin in infanthood, when the baby realises that he is much smaller and weaker than those around him.

The response of others to these inferiority feelings in the child are crucial:

If others demand too much of the child, then he is repeatedly confronted with is inferiority.

If he is treated like a precious object that must be protected and mollycoddled, then he will never feel like he has to grow or improve (narcissism).

In some instances, the individual can appear to have no inferiority feelings = superiority complex.

In this case the individual has developed a false sense of significance, devoid of social interest.

Not used very often – people who display this form of behaviour are defending against feelings of inferiority.

In a sense we all have an inferiority and superiority complex.

The person who is being a “show-off” or an arrogant teenager, could be considered to be displaying a superiority complex.

BASIC TASKS

Three major tasks of life: to love, to work and to contribute to communal life.

All of these can be achieved through either more or less socially useful ways.

The task of communal life is achieved through cooperation. We cannot exist as a society if individuals do not work together to achieve the goals of society.

Working together as a society naturally leads to the task of work/occupation, as society cannot function without the division of labour.

Most of us succeed at the task of work/occupation. We are mostly able to find an occupation, although the social usefulness of different occupations varies.

For Adler, the choice of an occupation is often linked to the individuals lifestyle (life plan).

The task of love is described by Adler as “the most intimate devotion towards a partner of the other sex, expressed in physical attraction, comradeship, and the decision to have children”.

Later Adlerians have added two furtherlife tasks:

Coping with the self: “being” task – getting along with the self. Related to the notion of dualism – our ability to embody opposites: good and evil, strong and lazy, etc. Our task here is to find ourselves worthy, despite our imperfection and our innate dualism.

Existential task: finding one’s place in the cosmos. Related to religion and spirituality, this task involves coming to term with the existence or non-existence of an afterlife, human nature and the meaning of life.

BASIC MISTAKES

Six classes of mistakes or faulty beliefs that lead to problems in living:

1. Distorted attitudes about the self: I am a worthless person.

2. Distorted attitudes about the worl and people: Everyone hates me and the world is dangerous.

3. Distorted goals: I must be perfect in everything.

4. Distorted methods of operation: Overdoing things in order to compensate for feelings of inferiority.

5. Distorted ideals: this is what is means to be a ‘real man’.

6. Distorted conclusions:

Pessimism

XXX conquers all (love, reason, money)

Cynicism (I can’t trust anyone)

Fanaticism

THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT

We all begin life as a weak and vulnerable being, thus we all have significant inferiority feelings.

The child begins to form impressions of the world around him (interpretations of life) and this is the beginning of the development of the lifestyle.

The child learns the ways of the adults and forms impressions of how to gain power within the system they exist in.

The child’s physical condition and experience of family life impact on this process, but it is the individual’s creative abilities in how to solve problems (related to how to gain power – overcome inferiority feelings) that is most important.

Because young children do not have common sense, they use their own interpretations (private logic) which are indiosyncratic.

The kinds of mistakes in using private logic lead to mistaken goals of superiority (lack of social interest), e.g. the person thinks they always need to be taken care of or that they always need to defeat others.

The opposite of this may also happen – the person may overcome difficult life circumstances by becoming socially responsible individuals.

Thus, the influence of family is important for IP and this is captured by the general term: family constellation.

Birth order: the position of the child in the family has a profound impact on her development.

First, we can look at ordinal position: were you born first, second, last, etc.

Second, we can look at the psychological birth order: first, middle, last or only. This is the more important form of birth order.

Sex of the child and the size of the family may also influence borth order tendencies.

Depending on your birth order, there are a number of characteristics thought to be unique to that birth order:

First-borns:

Monarchs - bask in the undivided attention of their parents.

Generally good at interacting with adults due to so much attention.

They are ‘dethroned’ when the next child arrives. This leads to them concluding that power is a very important thing.

Often given a lot of responsibility in the family (taking care of siblings).

These factors lead first-borns to often seeking positions of power later in life.

Love rules and often conservative.

Have propensity towards being problem children – often rebel when they are dethroned if they cannot accept their changed position.

Second-borns:

Usurpers: spend their lives trying to catch up to the first-borns.

Live in opposition to first-borns.

Often leads to them surpassing everyone else in the family.

Sometimes they give up and become discouraged if the first-born is too oustanding.

Middle-borns:

Often feel ‘squeezed’ between older and younger siblings.

They often feel disadvantaged (lack access to resources like adult attention).

They are likely to react to the older, rather than younger, siblings, much like second-born children.

Last-borns:

Although they get a lot of attention, they are always the smallest, leading to constantly striving to gain power and be the best.

Sometimes, they give up altogether and becomes cowardly and evasive – believe it is too difficult to surpass anyone in the family.

Sometimes becomes a pampered child due to having too many parents (siblings).

Only-borns:

Grow up in the world of adults and like being the centre of attention.

They may not learn how to co-operate with other children.

Often very sophisticated, using advanced language and interacting well with adults.

Often overprotected, leading to difficulty in becoming independent.

Can lead self-centred and socially useless lives.

HEALTH AND DYSFUNCTION

Healthy individuals have well developed social interest and contribute to society as they go about solving the tasks of life.

They are able to meet problems head on, with courage and are able to creatively solve problems.

The healthy individual is able to be imperfect as this is the normal state of human life.

The dysfunctional individual has the goal of personal superiority and his lifestyle is therefore aimed at protecting self-esteem = safeguarding.

They have underdeveloped social interest and strive for power and superiority in ways that are socially useless.

Psychological symptoms are nonconscious forms of safeguarding.

Conscious forms of safeguarding include making excuses, being aggressive, distancing oneself from tasks that appears threatening and restricting choices in life.

NATURE OF THERAPY The Adlerian counsellor is certain that the client can change

and is guided by three factors: love, hope and faith.

The therapeutic relationship in Adlerian counselling is egalitarian: the counsellor must avoid any semblance of being superior.

The client and the counsellor are two experts who work together in a learning process. The client is an expert on themselves and the counsellor is an expert in being able to help the client in relating themselves to theory.

The counsellor is an educator and an encourager.

The counsellor needs to be active and directive (educator), as well as warm and human (encourager).

TECHNIQUESINTERPRETATION

Key technique – counsellor uses all of the information collected about the client’s lifestyle and the associated goals and then offers these insights carefully.

Intended to create awareness of:

Lifestyle

Current psychological movement and its direction (how the client is trying to achieve their goals).

Goals, purposes and intentions

Private logic and how it works

ENCOURAGEMENT

This helps the client to find their own strength and recognise their power in being able to effect change through choice.

This is not the same as praise – ideally, encouragement happens before the client attempts the desired change or action.

This is about giving client hope, even when feeling discouraged.

NATURAL AND LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES

In order for client’s to learn to take responsibility for their choices, the counsellor can allow the client to experience the consequences of their behaviour.

Natural consequences = these are consequences which naturally follow on from a given action. They originate in the world. This combats the tendency to want to save a client from experiencing negative consequences.

Logical consequences = these result from the intervention from another person. These are not punishment, because they are based on social rules which are logically related to the undesirable action. Using logical consequences should highlight that the consequence is the result of the person’s choice.

ACTING AS IF

This technique is used when clients try to excuse their behaviour: “If only…”

The counsellor would ask the client to act as if whatever they thought would be the case is in fact true.

Example: a client says they could do better at school if only they were not so lazy. The counsellor tells them to act as if they were not so lazy over the next week. This allows the client to experience themselves in a different way and to try previously unexplored behaviours.

PUSHING THE BUTTON

This is used with clients who believe they don’t have control over their emotions.

The client is first instructed to imagine/visualise a pleasant experience and to think about how they might be feeling.

Next they are told to visualise a scene/experience that leaves them feeling a negative emotion (anger, frustration, embarrasment, etc) and to be aware of the emotion.

Finally they are told to revert to the earlier positive feeling.

This process allows the client to learn that they create their emotions by choosing what to focus on.

CATCHING ONESELF

After giving an interpretation, which the client accepts as true, the client can learn to catch himself in behaving in the way that has been pointed out to him.

With a little practice, he may be even able to catch himself before he carries out the behaviour.

CREATING IMAGES

Here the client is taught to use imagery to capture his faulty goals.

These images can sometimes be used in a humorous manner, allowing the client to laugh at herself and to remind them that they are choosing to behave in ways that promote their faulty goals.

PLEASING SOMEONE

The client is advised to confront their faulty lifestyle/goals by thinking each day about how to please someone.

If the client does this immediately, then the counsellor has succeeded in improving the client’s level of social interest.

If the client refuses to undertake this, then their real motivations (purpose) behing their faulty lifestyle/goals begins to become apparent. Instead of confronting these motivations, the client is continuously told that they must think of others.

Example: client reacted to being told to please others by saying that he won’t because others did not please him. Adler told him that he must not worry about others, but merely accomplish the task of pleasing others for his own sake.

PARADOXICAL INTENTION

This is a counterintuitive technique (antisuggestion) in which the counsellor tell the client that they must intensify their symptoms.

By doing so, Adler believed that the function of the symptom would be exposed.

This technique allows the client to become more aware of the symptom and its consequences.

Sometimes, paradoxical intention can help the client to give up their symptom because the symptom (through exaggeration) begins to look absurd.

EVALUATION OF THEORY

Similar to Psychoanalysis in its attempts to explain all of human behaviour.

It too suffers from the inability to test all of its assumptions.

Much of the theory has entered into everyday understanding of human behaviour and many subsequent theorists have been heavily influenced by Adler, including Rogers (Person-Centred), Ellis (CBT) and Maslow.

Probably the greatest contribution is the fact that Adler provided a theory which recognised and emphasised the impact of social class, racism and sexism on the behviour of individuals.

IP has been criticised for being too simplistic and that many of it’s theories are based on common sense understandings of human behaviour.