Adlerian Theory Overview

Psychoanalytic Theories: Alfred Adler

• Tendency to Withdraw: People stand still and avoid responsibility, often with the intention of doing nothing, and may even create obstacles to overcome, thereby protecting their self-esteem.

• Masculine Protest: The belief that men are superior to women, but Adler believed that men and women share the same psychic life and desires.

• Family Constellation: Emphasizes the importance of birth order, gender of siblings, and age spread between them, influencing personality development and behavior.

• Personality Types:

  • Eldest child: Nurturing, protective, and organized, but also anxious and competitive.
  • Middle child: Highly motivated, cooperative, and competitive.
  • Youngest child: Moderately competitive, easily discouraged, and realistically ambitious.
  • Only child: Socially mature, but may have an exaggerated sense of superiority and be pampered.

• Dreams: According to Adler, dreams cannot predict the future, but provide clues for solving future problems; no single interpretation can define a person's dream.

• Early Recollections: Reflect a person's style of life, are consistent with their final goals, and can be used to encourage social interest.

• Psychotherapy: Aims to enhance courage, reduce feelings of inferiority, and promote social interest; patients are encouraged to expand their social interest to friendship, love, and occupation.

• Adlerian Theory: Strives for success or superiority, with all motivation based on one drive; people strive to compensate for feelings of inferiority.

• Final Goal: Reduces the pain of inferiority and points towards either personal superiority or success for all humanity; it is fictional and has no objective experience.

• Fictionalism: Based on Hans Vaihinger's philosophy, fictions are "ideas that have no real existence yet influence people as if they existed."

• Unity and Self-Consistency of Personality: Each person is unique, indivisible, and motivated by present perceptions of the future; erratic behavior is an attempt to achieve superiority over others.

• Physical Inferiorities: Stimulate subjective feelings of inferiority and the need to strive for completion; people compensate through a useful style of life or psychological health.

• Organ Dialect: A deficient organ affects the entire person, expressing the direction of a person's goal.

• Conscious and Unconscious: Cooperating parts of the same unified system, not a dichotomy; conscious thoughts are understood and helpful in striving for success.

• Social Interest: The feeling of oneness with all humanity, implying membership in the social community; it is the gauge used to judge a person's worth.

• Style of Life: Includes a person's goal, self-concept, feelings for others, and attitude towards the world; it is a unique and dynamic concept.

• Creative Power: Each person has the freedom to create their own style of life, within certain limits.

• Maladjustment: Due to underdeveloped social interest, which can be caused by exaggerated physical deficiencies, neglect, or pampering.

• Safeguarding Tendencies: Intended to protect a person's weak and artificially inflated sense of self-worth, and may take the form of depreciation, excuses, aggression, or withdrawal.

• Critique of Adlerian Theory: While it has generated research and provides guidance to psychotherapists, it lacks precise operational definitions for some concepts and is difficult to falsify.