Adlerian Therapy

Adlerian Therapy

View of Human Nature • Stress choice and responsibility, meaning in life, and the striving for competence or perfection. • Focus on inferiority feelings---motivate to strive for success (superiority) • Focus on subjective experiences

Adler’s Theory of Personality • Lifestyle • Social interest • Birth order • Inferiority and Superiority

Lifestyle • The lifestyles are based on social interest and degree of activity and energy. • Four types of lifestyles • the Socially useful type • the Ruling type • the Getting type • the Avoiding type

Social Interest • Social interest: a sense of identification and empathy with others. • Parent-child relationship as a model of social interest • Community feeling: a sense of social connectedness • Many problems are related to the fear of not being accepted by the groups we values. Then, anxiety is the result.

Birth Order • Oldest child • receives more attention, spoiled, center of attention • Second of only two • behaves as if in a race, often opposite to first child • Middle • often feels squeezed out • Youngest • the baby • Only • does not learn to share or cooperate with other children

Inferiority and Superiority • The striving for superiority or competence is nature, whereas the superiority complex is not. • superiority was a means of inflating one’s self-importance in order to overcome inferiority feelings. • People may try to present themselves as strong and capable to maintain their mistaken feelings of superiority, when actually they are feelings less capable than others.

Therapeutic Goals • Building a Collaborative relationship • Develop a sense of belonging • Encouragement is the most powerful method for a person to change • Changing the patterns of basic mistakes (private logic)

Therapist’s function and role • Identify the patterns of basic mistakes • Lack of confidence, mistrust, unrealistic ambition • Conduct an assessment • Gather information through family constellation, early recollections, or lifestyle assessment • Focus on clients’ interpretation of experiences • Develop alternative options

Client’s Experience in Therapy • Are not aware of the basic mistake • Help to discover the motivation of basic mistake • Do not know what to do differently • Fear of letting go the old patterns for unpredictable new alternative options • Cling to old patterns even though it is maladaptive

Relationship b/w Therapist & Client • Cooperation, mutual trust, respect • Making a contract with clients • Detail what they want • What is preventing them from reaching goals • How to change unproductive behavior into constructive behavior • How to make use of their strengths

Therapeutic Techniques & Procedures • 1. Establishing the relationship • Deeply care and involve • Identity personal issues • Focus on person not the problem • Increase the awareness of strengths • Focus on subjective experiences and core patterns (basic mistake or private logic)

Therapeutic Techniques & Procedures • 2. Exploring the individual’s dynamics • Client tells his or her story; clients as experts • The motivation behind basic mistakes • through • Family dynamics and Constellation • Early Recollections • Dream • Personality priorities • Basic mistake or private logic

Basic Mistake (Private Logic) • Overgeneralizations • There is no fairness in the world • Impossible goals • I must please everyone in order to feel loved by others • Misperceptions of life and life’s demands • Life is very difficult for me • Minimization or denial of one’s basic worth • I am basically stupid. • Faulty values • I must get to the top, regardless of who gets hurt in the process

Personality priorities (see handout) • Superiority (or significance) • Control • Comfort • Pleasing

Therapeutic Techniques & Procedures • 3. Encouraging self-understanding and insight • Insight: an understanding of motivations that operate in a client’s life • Disclosure and interpretations are techniques that facilitate the process of gaining insight.

Therapeutic Techniques & Procedures • 4. Helping with reorientation • Putting insights into practice • Increasing a sense of belonging and being valued • Decreasing withdrawal from life tasks or self-protection

Therapeutic Techniques & Procedures • 4. Helping with reorientation • Encouragement • No intervention is more important than encouragement • Help clients identify self-defeating patterns • Make use of assets, strengths, and resources • Search for new possibilities • Making a difference

From multicultural perspectives • Contributions to multicultural counseling • Social equality, sensitive to cultural and gender issues • Focusing on a person in a social context • Social interests, sense of belonging, cooperation (instead of competition) • Focus on family • Subjective experience (unique world of a person)

From multicultural perspectives • Limitations to multicultural counseling • Self as the locus of change and responsibility may be problematic for some clients • Detailed explorations of one’s early family experiences may violate some cultural value • Some clients may expect therapists to provide them with solutions to the problems

Adlerian Therapy