- Person
- Alfred Adler
- Lived
- 1870–1937
- Field
- Individual psychology
- From
- Austrian
The story
In classical psychoanalysis, the patient lay on a couch while the analyst sat out of sight behind them. Alfred Adler, who had broken with Sigmund Freud in 1911, was deeply concerned with overcoming the dynamics of superiority and inferiority, which he saw at the root of much human suffering. He thought the relationship between therapist and client should reflect equality.
He became one of the first psychotherapists to give up the couch in favour of two chairs, so that clinician and patient could sit together more or less as equals, face to face. Therapy became a conversation between two people working on a shared problem rather than an expert interpreting a passive subject.
His treatment of adults aimed to uncover the hidden purpose behind symptoms, using insight and meaning. He paid close attention to a person's earliest memories, which he believed were never chance recollections but chosen reminders that reveal the person's private logic and style of life. His goal was to help people meet what he called the three life tasks: work, friendship and love. Their success, he argued, depends on cooperation, and as he famously put it, they all throw cross-lights on one another.
Adler's practical, encouraging approach fitted the face-to-face setting. Adlerian therapists still use techniques such as Socratic questioning, the interpretation of early recollections and role-play, and they emphasise encouragement and the client's capacity to change.
Adler often wrote for the general public, in books such as Understanding Human Nature (1927) and What Life Could Mean to You (1931), and his popularity grew from the optimism and clarity of his ideas. From 1926 he lectured widely in the United States, taught at Columbia University and later held a chair at the Long Island College of Medicine. In his lifetime he published more than 300 books and articles.
The two-chair arrangement he helped pioneer has since become the ordinary setting for much of modern counselling and psychotherapy, a quiet reminder of his belief that healing begins with being treated as an equal.
Why it matters
Adler's face-to-face, collaborative style became the norm in much of modern counselling and psychotherapy.
About Alfred Adler
Viennese physician who broke with Freud to found individual psychology, coined the “inferiority complex” and opened the world’s first child guidance clinics.
More about Alfred Adler
- Alfred Adler showed how birth order shapes personalityAlfred Adler argued that a child's place among siblings, first, middle or youngest, influences personality, extending psychology beyond the parent-child bond.
- Alfred Adler coined the term inferiority complexAlfred Adler introduced the idea of the inferiority complex, describing how feelings of inadequacy can shape personality and how people strive to compensate.
- Alfred Adler founded the school of individual psychologyAfter leaving Freud's circle in 1911, Alfred Adler founded the Society for Individual Psychology in 1912, the first major independent school of psychotherapy.
- Alfred Adler's first book linked health to social conditionsIn 1898 Alfred Adler published a health book for tailors arguing that their illnesses must be treated in light of their social and economic conditions.
- Alfred Adler influenced Maslow, Frankl and EllisAlfred Adler's ideas shaped later giants of psychotherapy, including Abraham Maslow, Viktor Frankl, Albert Ellis and Rollo May.
- Alfred Adler linked mental health to caring for othersAlfred Adler made social interest, or Gemeinschaftsgefühl, the core of mental health: a sense of belonging and a desire to contribute to the welfare of others.
- Alfred Adler studied war neurosis among WWI soldiersAs an army doctor in World War I, Alfred Adler treated traumatised soldiers and lectured on war neurosis, a forerunner of what is now called PTSD.
- Alfred Adler championed parent education and equalityAlfred Adler urged that children be raised as equal members of the family, opposed corporal punishment, and argued early for women's equality in psychology.
- Alfred Adler opened Vienna's first child guidance clinicIn 1919 Alfred Adler started the first child guidance clinic in Vienna; he and his associates went on to open 28, making Vienna the first city to give schoolchildren free therapy.
Sources
- Alfred Adler Wikipedia
- Individual psychology Wikipedia
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.