Other Adlerian Concepts (Page 3)

9 .Conflict Neurosis

Adler’s term referring to the specific compulsion neurosis in which a person gets into quarrels and conflicts within their environment. "To maintain such a position of belligerence they may resort to all kinds of suspicions and accusations . . . (but) the cause is always a cowardly withdrawal from the real problems of life." (Ansbachers, 1964, p. 306.)

10. Consequences

Adlerians speak of natural consequences which result from activities in the physical/natural realm. More important are logical consequences which result from activities in the social realm, and arising from the logic of relationships. (See Purpose, above.) Adlerians view all activities as problem-solving, so the question becomes how the consequences of one’s actions are related to the goals one seeks. The basis proposition is, "What you have is what you intended, because if you’d wanted something else, you’d have done something else. Since you did not, what you have must be the result you intended." This follows Adler’s concept of the Psychology of Use. The importance of "natural" and "logical" consequences became especially important in Adlerian ideas about raising children (as an alternative to punishment, scoldings, etc.) and was amplified in the work of Rudolph Dreikurs and, more recently, the STEP programs of Donald Dinkmeyer and Gary McKay.

11. Courage in striving

To strive with courage is to act with Social Interest when tempted to act on Private Logic. It takes courage to tell the truth rather than lie, to stand up for what’s right when the crowd says otherwise, or to do something constructive instead of wallowing in self-pity. Adler knew that life can sometimes be hard, and can seem to provide insurmountable obstacles. One can give in to life’s challenges, or one can strive to overcome them. He encouraged his clients to find courage within themselves to move forward in life.

Thus courage in striving can mean seeking and attaining goals which seem to be beyond one’s mental or physical limits. For me, a perfect example is Grace Layton, whom I knew in North Dakota. She and I were members of the same church, and attended college together. As a teenager, she became paralyzed from the neck down by polio. In college, she learned to draw holding a charcoal stick in her teeth, creating beautiful scenes of North Dakota. These she used to illustrate greeting cards, the proceeds of which went to the March of Dimes. She met a man in college whom she married. Unable to have children, they adopted 22 children, each with a handicap. Grace was honored by both the national March of Dimes, and by the state of North Dakota as one of its outstanding citizens. Grace died in 1997.

12. Creative Self

Nineteenth century psychology saw personality as governed by fixed influences: heredity and environment, as well as traits, instincts, and similar mechanisms. Thus personality was also fixed to a great degree, and very nearly impossible to change. Adler did not believe this view did justice to the dynamic aspects of personality. (See "Soft Determinism," "Ideal Self," as well as Adler’s abandonment of trait theory in general). His described the creative self as fundamental to behavior and to character improvement. While he only sketched the idea, he saw it as an "active life principle" similar to the concept of soul, and its function as being to guide the individual in actively seeking experiences which would enable the full development of one’s unique life style. As part of his insistence that the individual creates his or her own life and is not merely driven buy inborn forces, this concept formed an important step in the development of Ego Psychology.

13. Early Recollections

An Early Recollection (or "ER") is not a general memory ("When I was a kid we went to the carnival every summer") but a specific childhood incident that represents an event from which the person learned something basic about life. ERs form one’s fundamental approach to life, the life style, and become the recalled framework by which all subsequent similar events are judged. Adlerians ask for the first half dozen specific ERs a client can recall. Progress in therapy is sometimes marked by changes in ERs, in the diminishing or "forgetting" of some ERs and the strengthening or "remembering" of others.

In contrast with Freud’s view that important memories are repressed to the Unconscious and cannot be recalled, Adler believed important early recollections were relatively easily recalled because they were so central to the Guiding Line, and were constantly being used to assess progress in movement toward the Life Goal. Adler made clear that ERs need not be entirely factual to be useful.

We do not believe that all early recollections are correct records of actual facts. Many are even fancied, and most are changed or distorted at a time later than that in which the events are supposed to have occurred. But this does not diminish their significance. What is altered or imagined is also expressive of the patient’s goal, and although there is a difference between the work of fantasy and that of memory, we can safely make use of both by relating them to our knowledge of other factors. (Adler, 1929, p. 118)

This relates to Adler’s idea that the meaning of an event, more than mere facts, is what is important to an individual, and that the Life Style is a unity, made up of many factors, including how a person may "remember" something according to his personal psychology of use.

ERs serve a similar purpose for individuals as "myths" do for cultures and religions. That is, while they may be historically inaccurate, they carry necessary information needed to support some present belief and its consequent actions. It represents the difference between "truth" and "fact."

14. Family Atmosphere

This is the emotional climate of the childhood home, set by the parents and reflected in sibling interactions. It is remembered by the adult as, "This is what my family was like." It forms the basis for what one expects, desires, fears, or dislikes in one’s own marriage, parenting, and family life. In later years there is a tendency among people to deny, exaggerate, or minimize certain aspects of family life in order to create a kind of "fictive" or "fictitious" family history which will be consistent with what one wishes the family had been like. Individuals, relationships, and specific events may be radically changed to provide this "better view." The therapist looks on such changes as adaptations which now support the client’s Guiding Fiction. For example, the often-absent father is transformed into "the man who worked hard to support us," or the alcoholic mother is changed to a "saint who loved us," and family poverty is viewed as "building the character needed in a cruel and unfeeling world."

15. Felt Minus, Fictional Plus

"Minus" (inferiority) is the position of childhood, in which children are, in fact, less strong, less able, etc., compared with the adults and older siblings. But to grow up feeling minus leads to mistaken thinking, inferiority feelings, and Private Logic. Plus is the goal of striving from a felt minus, seen as ideal mastery or success. Adler said, "The whole of human life proceeds along this great line of action." (Ansbachers, 1964, p. 90.) Adler sometimes used these twin concepts interchangeably with inferiority/superiority.

The basis for feeling minus is a sense of incompletion, of being less whole or complete, less capable, less worthy. It is like early childhood’s inferiority feelings. Plus becomes a fictional goal, an ideal future in which one is more whole, more complete, more capable, more worthy, etc., in a word, superior, if not over others, at least over the original life-view.