Adlerian Theory and Orientation: What is Adlerian psychotherapy and who the heck is this white dude Alfred Adler?

All great questions! So, here’s a bit more for those I’ve truly confused or for you nerds like me…

Alfred Adler (1870-1937) was a world-renowned philosopher and psychiatrist who stressed the need to understand individuals within their social context. During the early 1900s, Adler began addressing such crucial and contemporary issues as equality, parent education, the influence of birth order, lifestyle, and the holism of individuals. Adler believed that we all have one basic desire and goal: to belong and to feel significant.

Adler developed the first holistic theory of personality, psychopathology, and psychotherapy that was intimately connected to a humanistic philosophy of living inspired by his personal experiences and medical training. His lectures and books for the general public are characterized by crystal clear common sense. His clinical books and journal articles reveal an uncommon understanding of mental disorders, a deep insight into the art of healing, and a great inspiration for encouraging optimal human development. According to Adler, when we feel encouraged, we feel capable and appreciated and will generally act in a connected and cooperative way. When we are discouraged, we may act in unhealthy ways by competing, withdrawing, or giving up. It is in finding ways of expressing and accepting encouragement, respect, and social interest that help us feel fulfilled and optimistic.

Adlerian theory and practice have proven especially productive as applied to the growth and development of children. Adlerians believe that “a misbehaving child is a discouraged child” and that helping children to feel valued, significant, and competent is often the most effective strategy in coping with difficult child behaviors.

Adlerian Psychology focuses on people’s efforts to compensate for their self-perceived inferiority to others. These feelings of inferiority may derive from one’s position in the family constellation, particularly if early experiences of humiliation occurred; a specific physical condition or defect existed, or a general lack of social feeling for others was present.

Adlerians are concerned with understanding the unique and private beliefs and strategies (one’s lifestyle) that each individual creates in childhood. This cognitive schema and lifestyle serve as the individual’s reference for attitudes, behaviors, and one’s private view of self, others, and the world. It is when we have looked at our early life experiences, examined the patterns of behavior that repeat themselves in our lives, and the methods by which we go about trying to gain significance and belonging that healing, growth, and change occur.

Alfred Adler was born in Vienna, Austria, and spent his childhood in the suburbs of Vienna. He remembered that when he was about five years old, gravely ill with pneumonia, the physician told his father that he doubted the child would recover. It was at that time that Alfred decided he wanted to become a doctor so that he might be able to fight deadly diseases. He never changed his mind, and in 1895 he acquired his M.D. degree at the University of Vienna.

He was very close to his father, who he remembered saying often during their walks through the Vienna woods, "Alfred, question everything." When we realize how in later life Adler always challenged statements unless he felt they could be accepted without reasonable doubt, his vivid recollection of this somewhat unusual admonition of his father is understandable. Another childhood recollection that stood out in his memory, and which he liked to relate to children having difficulty with their schoolwork, recalled an occasion when a teacher had suggested that his father take Alfred out of school and apprentice him to a cobbler, since he never would graduate anyway. His father only scoffed at the teacher and expressed his disapproval of him to his son. At the time, Alfred, having lost interest in school, had failed in mathematics. He now decided to show the teacher what he could do; in a short time he became first in his class in mathematics and never again experienced any difficulties in his studies.

In 1898, at age 28, Adler wrote his first book, which deals with the health conditions of tailors. In it he sets forth what later was to become one of the main tenets of his school of thought: the necessity of looking at each human as a whole, as a functioning entity, reacting to their environment as well as to their physical endowment, rather than as a summation of instincts, drives and other psychological manifestations.

In 1902, when Adler was one of the few who reacted favorably to his book on dream interpretations, Freud sent him a hand-written postcard suggesting he join the circle which met weekly in Freud's home to discuss newer aspects of psychopathology. At that time Adler had already started collecting material on patients with physical handicaps, studying both their organic and psychological reactions to them. Only when Freud had assured him that in his circle a variety of views would be discussed, including Adler's, did he accept the invitation.

Five years later, in 1907, Adler published his book on organ inferiority and its compensation. From then on, the difference between Freud's and Adler's views became steadily more marked. Adler had never accepted Freud's original theories that mental difficulties were caused exclusively by sexual trauma, and he opposed the generalizations when dreams were interpreted, in each instance, as sexual wish fulfillment. After prolonged discussions, during which each of the two men tried to win the other over to his point of view--attempts doomed to failure from the start-- Adler left Freud's circle in 1911 with a group of eight colleagues and formed his own school. After that, Freud and Adler never met again.

In 1912 Adler published his book, The Neurotic Constitution, in which he further developed his main concepts. He called his psychological system "Individual Psychology," a term that is sometimes misunderstood. It refers to the indivisibility of the personality in its psychological structure.

After returning from war duty in 1918, Adler founded several child guidance clinics in Vienna. These were soon visited by professionals from abroad, stimulating the development of similar clinics in other countries.

In 1926 Adler was invited to lecture at Columbia University, and from 1932 on he held the first chair of Visiting Professor of Medical Psychology at Long Island College of Medicine. During these years he spent only the summer months, from May to October, in Vienna, and the academic year lecturing in the United States. His family joined him there in 1935.

Adler's lectures were overcrowded from the beginning, and he communicated as easily with his audiences in English as he did when using his native German tongue. He was in Aberdeen, Scotland, to deliver a series of lectures at the university when, on May 28, 1937, he suddenly collapsed while walking in the street and died from heart failure within a few minutes.