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.

Explore key concepts of Adlerian Theory, such as style of life, striving for success or superiority, and social interest. Compare and contrast Adlerian Theory with Freud's classical psychoanalytic theory.