Other Adlerian Concepts (Page 6)

30. Private Meaning
Understanding who one is, how to behave, how to fit in, etc., derives from living in community. One cannot create oneself as a social creature without others. Yet we also develop our personal ways of thinking, reasoning, and viewing the world. Adler said that some of these "private meanings" serve only personal goals rather than the community. When oriented only around the self, they are "socially useless" and do not contribute to the larger community. "The meaning they give to life is a private meaning; no one else is benefited by the achievement of their aims and their interest stops short at their own persons." (Adler, 1931, p. 8) He goes on to say that

The mark of all true "meanings of life" is that they are common meanings—they are meanings in which others can share, and meanings which others can accept as valid. A good solution of the problems of life will always clear the way for others also; for in it we shall see common problems met in a successful way. Understanding is a common matter, not a private function. (Ibid., p. 11)

Here again, however, we meet the "as if" function in life, in which we treat our own private, inner meaning of life’s events and our world view as if it were the true and only meaning. It is this inner meaning on which we base our behaviors, our feelings and emotions, and our further thinking. When we hear about something, or see something happen, inwardly we ask ourselves first, "What does this mean to me?" The more our inner meanings correspond with the meanings others have arrived at for the same event, the more our private meaning matches public meaning. The difference is clearest in the case of the schizophrenic individual, whose world view is entirely a private one, and whose behaviors are therefore bizarre to those who observe from a community standpoint. Similar discrepancies between private and public meaning are the basis for everything from lack of etiquette to criminal behavior.

31. The Problem
Adler held that each person has a problem in childhood which the child cannot solve as a child. The eventual solution to the Problem is then delayed, and passed along to the adult the child will become. This becomes the basis for the adult’s Fictional Final Goal, including the Guiding Goal and Guiding Lines. To solve the child’s problem had shapes the adult’s entire Life Style, giving it coherence and self-consistency by shaping everything else to it. This raises several questions, such as whether the adult should spend time trying to solve a child’s problem, what the adult "gets out of" solving that problem rather than those of adult living, and what can be done to move beyond such a mistaken goal for one’s life.

The Problem is the key to understanding the individual’s life style, life goal, and life plan. Individual events can be tracked, as Dreikurs put it, like "points on a line" to indicate the individual’s movement through life toward the ultimate goal, and those events are suggestive of what that goal may be. It is not as easy to determine the original Problem, however. Many, if not most, adults have long since forgotten the specific incident (or perhaps class of incidents) which gave rise to the idea that they had a problem they couldn't solve then, and must use the rest of their lives to solve. Adler was able to locate his problem as a time when he almost died, and its solution as being to become a doctor, "to solve the problem of death."

It may not be as necessary to recover the actual incident or Problem, as to realize that much of one’s life is aimed at solving it, and to decide that a child is not is a good position to know the real problems of life.

32. Psychology of Use
Adler viewed all thoughts, emotions, and actions as useful in the service of gaining goals. All behavior has a purpose. This contrasts with the then prevalent (and still dominant) concept of Psychology of Possession in which a person "possesses" certain traits, or is even "possessed by" mental illnesses which can be given a diagnostic label. So for example, a person may "be depressed" (by some outside circumstance or situation) or "have depression" (a diagnostic label). Adlerians might say that behaviors and attitudes associated with depression have a use in the individual’s larger style of life, e.g., serving the Guiding Fiction.

Adler’s term is similar and related to functionalism and functional disorder in psychiatric usage. The former describes a psychological approach which views behaviors in terms of the adaptation of the individual to the environment, and to the function such adaptive behaviors serve in personality. The latter describes disorders with no organic cause and are therefore assumed to be psychological or emotional in origin, and again, having a function or use for the individual. All psychoneuroses are considered functional disorders, as are the various "thought" (or cognitive) disorders such as phobias, obsessive-compulsive reactions, stress reactions, psychosomatic reactions, etc. Early on, Adler used "The Question" as a method to try to distinguish between patient problems with an organic somatic or origin, and those which were mostly or entirely a matter of mistaken thinking or other cognitive mechanisms.
The Adlerian therapist treads softly here. Clients have worked a lifetime to create their useful illusions, and resist suggestions that the symptoms they want to eliminate have a use they are loathe to surrender! "Why do I do this, when it gets me in trouble?" may be answered by, "Perhaps you do it in order to get in trouble." Which is followed by an objection such as, "Now why would I do that!" Or perhaps by a sly smile seeming to say, "so, you see through me!" One is reminded of the words of St. Paul, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." (Romans 7:15)

33. The Question
In approaching a patient’s presenting problem, Adler would often ask "What would your life be like if you didn’t have this problem?" and saw the patient’s answer as an indication of organic versus cognitive origins. Thus if the patient said of his diminished hearing capacity, "I’d be able to hear better," Adler would look for organic causes. But if the patient said something like, "My wife would be happier," Adler might suspect that the "purpose" of lessened hearing might be related to the social setting, and possible wife complaints that, "My husband never listens to me!" This is akin to the question we use at several points in LEAP to illustrate Psychology of Use, "What do you get out of it?" In psychiatric terms, Adler used The Question to distinguish between organic or physical illness, and "functional" disorders or real or imagined problems that "serve a function" in the individual's life, to gain sympathy from other people, for example.

34. Safe-Guarding Behaviors
These are often mistaken responses to threats to self-esteem, and are based on mistaken, that is, logically erroneous thinking. Adler identified a number of such behaviors. Four he called "distancing" behaviors (moving backward or retreating; standing-in-place, hesitating, and creating obstacles) by which a person can maintain a precarious psychological position rather than move forward. Such behavior may help a person to feel temporarily safe until better or more adaptive responses are learned. Other behaviors include excusing, aggression, and depreciation (that is, placing false valuation through idealization, solicitude, accusation, self-accusation/guilt) as well as anxiety and exclusion or a restricted sphere of action. Making a habit of such behaviors (for example, the "Yes-But" personality) is the opposite of striving with courage. Adler developed this approach as an alternative to Freud’s concept of ego-defense mechanisms. He viewed certain safe-guarding behaviors as strategically useful ("Psychology of Use") in maintaining a position of relative security until other, better behaviors can be developed.

35. Self ( or Ego-) Ideal
This is a person's mental image of Self as victorious, successful, superior; the Fictive Goal expressed in personal, idealistic terms: "When I win, I’ll be a Winner!" For Adler, the individual creates the Ideal Self as an image of one’s personality if it were perfect. It is the unifying principle of personality which strives courageously through life and moves confidently toward the Fictional Final Goal. Life Style is organized around this Ideal Self. There are additional ideals around Partner, Child, Career, etc. Adler’s development of this concept pre-dates and is the basis for what is now referred to as "self-esteem" and "self-image." It has been noted elsewhere that Adler also used this term to mean the "fictional final goal." (Also "Ideal Self" and "Personality Ideal". Not to be confused with Freud’s concept of the Ego Ideal, which results from the parents’ punishment and scolding of the child in childhood.)

36. Self-Talk
This is the idea that, when we think ("cognition") we are talking to ourselves. This concept is not from Adler himself, but is an extension of his observation that behaviors (actions, feelings) result from specific thoughts. The ability to carry on conscious mental conversations makes many things possible, including self awareness, learning from experience, memory of past solutions, application of previous solutions to future situations, visions of alternative futures, the ability to "change our minds" by debating our own thoughts, the ability to consider various options or viewpoints, and the ability to practice or rehearse statements to be made to others. Such "self-talk" can be seen as an important basis for the creation of our Self and the uniqueness which makes us human.

We can also think of "self talk" as talking to ourselves about ourselves. (There's a song we barbershoppers sing with a line that says, "Gonna have a little talk with myself.")