Major Adlerian Concepts:
7. Life Tasks

Adler held that each person is called on to successfully perform three major tasks in life: Society (in relationships and community), Work (in one’s contributions to society), and Sex and marriage (including procreation and responsible child-rearing). He alluded to two others: Self, and One’s Place in the Cosmos.

Adler noted that "all tasks which are put to the individual are social problems, for which the family is the exercise and training ground." (AA, Ansbachers, 1964, p. 52.) Thus seemingly individual (or personal) tasks are in fact social tasks, arising out of the community which sets the standards for successful accomplishment. To behave as a responsible member of society is not a "personal" choice, but is required by the community. To work at a job is not a "personal" thing, but is required by the community as a way to contribute to the betterment of all. Even sex is not a "personal" thing, but is set within the larger context of the community’s requirement having to do with procreation, responsible child-rearing, etc. And so on.

While Adler had very liberal views on many topics, in other ways he was traditional and a product of his times. He viewed sex as an activity that should take place only in marriage, and then mainly for procreation rather than, for example, recreation. He assumed marriage was the goal of every normal male and female. He saw homosexuality as a neurotic avoidance of one's responsibility to the community to reproduce another generation of human beings. Even so, at a time when social sex role definitions favored men, he asserted the equality of the sexes. He saw work as another way one defines oneself rather than as a labor one had to do to earn a living, and also as one’s contribution to the community which created him, or in the case of criminal activity, takes something away.

In LEAP we consider six important features of life, incorporating the Adlerian life tasks with core beliefs arrived at in childhood from experiencing specific events (Adlerian Early Recollections). LEAP presents them as concentric circles around the individual, beginning with self and going outward through love, others/community, work, the world, to mystery/limits. With Adler, we assume that one must deal adequately with all six in order to be said to have attained maturity as a human being. And following the concept of holism and personality-unity, we can also assume that a failing in any one of the areas suggests a weakness in all. Likewise, with Adlerians, LEAP assumes that dealing appropriately with all six areas is an indicator of mental or personality "health."