Adlerian Therapy Notes PDF

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | I. **Goals** | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ - To foster social interest - To encourage clients - **Encouragem...

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | I. **Goals** | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ - To foster social interest - To encourage clients - **Encouragement** - building client's courage to face difficulties; most powerful way to change client's beliefs; universal therapeutic intervention of Adlerian therapists - Courage - willingness to act in line with social interest even with the presence of fear - To help modify their cognitive map / schema/ style of life - Cognitive map/schema/style of life - our personality; what makes "us" us; includes our beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | II. **Human Nature** | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ - **Inferiority feelings** motivate us to either strive for success or superiority. - We have a **fictional final goa**l **(success/superiority)** that unifies our personality. - We all have the potential for **social interest** but some have underdeveloped social interest (due **to inferiority complex**). - It's not just biology & environment that influences personality. We also have **creative power** - freedom to choose or shape our personality. - Adler is the **first systemic therapist** (important to understand people within systems they live in). +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | III. **Concepts** | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ - Phenomenological - understand client's subjective view of reality - **Indivisible** psychology - People are unified and holistic. - Unified by a final goal - thoughts, feelings, actions, etc. reflect the final goal. - People are part of a social system. - All behavior has a **purpose (final goal).** - Teleological - **Fictional finalism** - fictional final goal; changed term to "guiding self-ideal"; "goal of perfection" - means striving for perfection not just for the self but for the common good - **Community feeling** - feeling of oneness with all of humanity - **Social interest** - more action-oriented; action line of community feeling; caring for others as you care for yourself ---------------------------------------- **Birth Order & Family Constellation** ---------------------------------------- - Less about actual birth order and more about psychological position (how the child views their order) - **First-born** - center of attention but then dethroned by younger sibling; high superiority, anxiety, and overprotectiveness - Style of life when sibling is born influences how they view dethronement - If already has a established style of life - will just incorporate dethronement in the style of life (ex: child with self-centered style of life will view sibling with hostility) - If no style of life yet - hostility & resentment will be unconscious - **Second-born** - shares attention with older sibling from the moment they were born; competitive but also in a better position to develop social interest; personality is also shaped by how they view their older sibling's attitude (ex: if they think their older sibling is hostile, they may become overly-competitive or have extreme inferiority feelings) - **Middle Child** - feels squeezed out; may become problem child; but in a family characterized by conflict, may become peacemaker - **Youngest Child** - pampered; overly-dependent, may also become problem child; but may also develop in ways not other person in the family did so may outshine everyone - **Only Child** - competes not with siblings but with parents; lives in adult world so has high superiority; pampered; difficulty developing social interest ---------------------------------- **IV. Psychopathology & Health** ---------------------------------- - **Growth model** rather than pathological model - Emphasis on strengths, health, & prevention. - Clients are not pathological. They are **discouraged.** - **Basic mistakes/ private logic** & self-absorbed goals lead to discouragement. - Basic mistakes/private logic are mistaken beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world, which get in the way of social interest; ex: selfishness - **Discouragement** leads to dysfunctional behavior because when we are discouraged, we act based on self-interest, rather than social interest. --------------------------------- **V. Therapeutic Relationship** --------------------------------- - Egalitarian & collaborative - Slightly confrontational (during interpretation) to discuss hunches and impressions - Therapist Role - Help correct client's **basic mistakes/private logic** - Help the client discover the **purpose of their behaviors/symptoms** (what life task it helps avoid) - Ex: depression may serve the purpose of avoiding people - Help client explore core fears; ex: fear of being vulnerable - Interpret the findings of the lifestyle assessment to promote self-understanding and insight - Self-understanding is only possible when **hidden purpose and goals** of behavior are made conscious - Disclosure and well-timed interpretations facilitates the process of gaining **insight** -------------------------- **VI. Theory of Change** -------------------------- - Addressing basic mistakes, private logic, and faulty assumptions ----------------------------------- **VII. Major Steps & Techniques** ----------------------------------- - Focus more on motivation modification than behavioral change - Phases do not proceed in a linear way - Rather than viewing them as steps, view them as **weavings** ----------------------------------------- **Phase 1: Establish the Relationship** ----------------------------------------- - Goal is to make person-t0-person contact rather than starting with the problem ------------------------- **Phase 2: Assessment** ------------------------- - Goal is to understand the client's style of life - **Subjective interview** - goal is to help the client tell their life story as completely as possible - Empathic listening, responding, & interest (interest is important because the question of therapist will flow from interest) - **The Question** - "If you were well, what would you do?"; asked at the end - Helps to identify which **life task** the person's symptom is helping them avoid - Helps in differential diagnosis - identify if the problem is psychological or biological (organic) - If the client answers "Nothing would be different" to the question - biological - **Objective Interview** - goal is to uncover information about precipitating events, medical history, social history, reason client chose therapy at this time, coping with life tasks, lifestyle assessment - **Lifestyle assessment** -develop a holistic narrative of a person's life + uncover private logic/basic mistakes - Family constellation - information about family, early recollections; includes birth order - Early recollections - stories of specific events that the client says happened "Tell me about something that happened one time"; thoughts & feelings associated with recollections; before age 10; reflects our style of life ----------------------------------------------------- **Phase 3: Encourage insight & self-understanding** ----------------------------------------------------- - Insight & self-understanding - understanding motivation behind behavior; true insight is insight with action - Disclosure - **Interpretations** - presented in the form of open-ended questions; "Could it be that...?" ------------------------------------------ **Phase 4: Reorientation & Reeducation** ------------------------------------------ - Putting insights into concrete action - Reorient & reeducate towards useful side of life (in line with social interest & community feeling) - Reeducate in new ways of viewing self, others, & the world - Reorientation - direct application of techniques to facilitate insight; transformed into action outside the therapy room - Commitment is an essential part - Real change happens between sessions not in therapy itself - Difference manifested through change in behavior, attitude and perception - Focus on motivation modification more than behavior change - **Important Techniques** - **Encouragement** - important in all phases but especially during reorientation & reeducation; emphasize client's strengths, increase hope that they can have new possibilities for themselves, increase the feeling that they belong - **Reflecting as if** - Before acting as if, think of what would be different if you were the person you want to be; reflect, plan, implement - **Acting as if** - acting as if they are already the person they want to be - **Catching oneself**- catching themselves if they are repeating old patterns - **Push-button** - ask client to push a certain button and think of unpleasant/pleasant images which will then lead to unpleasant/pleasant feelings - **Future autobiography** - done for assessment or for therapy (after assessment) - **Paradoxical strategy** - prescribe the symptom - **Creating new images** - therapist points out the image that they see of the client (to show inconsistency) or help them develop new self-images - **Advice** - in a friendly way - **Spitting in the soup** - confronting the client about the problem behavior