Difference between revisions of "Alfred Adler" - New World Encyclopedia
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==Adler becomes a well known figure in psychiatry== | ==Adler becomes a well known figure in psychiatry== | ||
His efforts were halted by [[World War I]], during which he served as a doctor with the Austrian Army. Post-war his influence increased greatly into the 1930s, he established a number of child guidance clinics from 1921 and was a frequent lecturer in [[Europe]] and the [[United States]], becoming a visiting professor at [[Columbia University]] in 1927. Therapeutically his methods avoided the concentration on adult psyche by attempting to pre-empt the problems in the child by encouraging and promoting social interest and also by avoiding pampering and neglect. In adults the therapy relied on the exclusion of blame or a superior attitude by the practitioner, the reduction of resistance by raising awareness of individual behaviour and the refusal to become adversarial. Common theraputic tools included the use of humour, historical instances and paradoxical injunctions. Adler's popularity was related to the comparative optimism and comprehensibility of his ideas compared to those of Freud or [[Carl Jung|Jung]]. He famously commented ''The test of one's behavior pattern: relationship to society, relationship to one's work, relationship to sex''. | His efforts were halted by [[World War I]], during which he served as a doctor with the Austrian Army. Post-war his influence increased greatly into the 1930s, he established a number of child guidance clinics from 1921 and was a frequent lecturer in [[Europe]] and the [[United States]], becoming a visiting professor at [[Columbia University]] in 1927. Therapeutically his methods avoided the concentration on adult psyche by attempting to pre-empt the problems in the child by encouraging and promoting social interest and also by avoiding pampering and neglect. In adults the therapy relied on the exclusion of blame or a superior attitude by the practitioner, the reduction of resistance by raising awareness of individual behaviour and the refusal to become adversarial. Common theraputic tools included the use of humour, historical instances and paradoxical injunctions. Adler's popularity was related to the comparative optimism and comprehensibility of his ideas compared to those of Freud or [[Carl Jung|Jung]]. He famously commented ''The test of one's behavior pattern: relationship to society, relationship to one's work, relationship to sex''. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==Contributions== | ||
| + | Adler was a pioneer in creating a holistic view of human psychology. He explained human development in the context of the whole - how the human being exists and interacts within the family, society, nation, and cosmos. He definined mental health as a feeling of human connectedness, and a willingness to develop oneself fully and contribute to the welfare of others. When these qualities are underdeveloped, an individual experiences feelings of inferiority, or an attitude of superiority which may antagonize others. The perception of superiority leads to self-centered behavior and the individual may become emotionally or materially exploitive of other people. When the feelings of connectedness and the willingness to contribute are stronger, a feeling of equality emerges, and the individual will become more public-minded, self-transcending and behave more beneficially to others. | ||
| + | |||
| + | He was also a pioneer in the field of child guidance and opened the first child guidance clinic in Vienna in 1921. His work went beyond intervention as he designed parenting tools and education programs in an effort to prevent mental health problems in later life. The following are parenting education programs based on the work of Alfred Adler: | ||
| + | • Active Parenting | ||
| + | • Alyson Schafer's Principles, Rules, and Tools for Parenting | ||
| + | • Connexions Press, publisher of Raising Kids Who Can Series | ||
| + | • Cooperative Discipline | ||
| + | • Positive Discipline | ||
| + | • STEP | ||
==Emigration and early death== | ==Emigration and early death== | ||
Revision as of 19:43, 31 December 2005
Alfred Adler (February 7 1870 – May 28 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor and psychologist, founder of the school of individual psychology.
Education and studies
Born in Rudolfsheim, Vienna, Austria and raised in Vienna, he was the third child of a Jewish grain merchant and his wife. He trained as a doctor at the University of Vienna Medical School and qualified in 1895. He soon became interested in psychology as it related to physical disorders, and met Sigmund Freud in 1899, with whom he formed the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society with Adler as a president.
(According to Britannica, Adler was born Feb. 7, 1870, in Penzing, Austria)
Early career
Adler was influenced by the mental construct ideas of Hans Vaihinger and developed a theory of organic inferiority and compensation (hypertrophy, see inferiority complex), with the "masculine protest" as the natural outcome in male-dominated society. Adler came to disagree with Freud's theories: the divergence became public in 1911 at the Weimar Psychoanalytic Congress. Adler contended with Freud's belief in the dominance of the sex instinct and whether ego drives were libidinal; he also attacked Freud's ideas over repression. Adler believed that the repression theory should be replaced with the concept of ego-defensive tendencies - the neurotic state derived from inferiority feelings and over compensation of the masculine protest, Oedipal complexes were insignificant. Adler left the Vienna society and formed the Society of Free Analytic Research, renamed the Society of Individual Psychology in 1912.
Adler's rational approach to human personality
He wrote a book defining his key ideas in 1912: Über den nervösen Charakter (The Neurotic Character). He argued that human personality could be explained teleologically, separate strands dominated by the guiding purpose of the individual's unconscious self ideal to convert feelings of inferiority to superiority (or rather completeness). The desires of the self ideal were countered by social and ethical demands. If the corrective factors were disregarded and the individual over-compensated, then an inferiority complex would occur, the individual becoming egocentric, power-hungry and aggressive or worse.
Adler becomes a well known figure in psychiatry
His efforts were halted by World War I, during which he served as a doctor with the Austrian Army. Post-war his influence increased greatly into the 1930s, he established a number of child guidance clinics from 1921 and was a frequent lecturer in Europe and the United States, becoming a visiting professor at Columbia University in 1927. Therapeutically his methods avoided the concentration on adult psyche by attempting to pre-empt the problems in the child by encouraging and promoting social interest and also by avoiding pampering and neglect. In adults the therapy relied on the exclusion of blame or a superior attitude by the practitioner, the reduction of resistance by raising awareness of individual behaviour and the refusal to become adversarial. Common theraputic tools included the use of humour, historical instances and paradoxical injunctions. Adler's popularity was related to the comparative optimism and comprehensibility of his ideas compared to those of Freud or Jung. He famously commented The test of one's behavior pattern: relationship to society, relationship to one's work, relationship to sex.
Contributions
Adler was a pioneer in creating a holistic view of human psychology. He explained human development in the context of the whole - how the human being exists and interacts within the family, society, nation, and cosmos. He definined mental health as a feeling of human connectedness, and a willingness to develop oneself fully and contribute to the welfare of others. When these qualities are underdeveloped, an individual experiences feelings of inferiority, or an attitude of superiority which may antagonize others. The perception of superiority leads to self-centered behavior and the individual may become emotionally or materially exploitive of other people. When the feelings of connectedness and the willingness to contribute are stronger, a feeling of equality emerges, and the individual will become more public-minded, self-transcending and behave more beneficially to others.
He was also a pioneer in the field of child guidance and opened the first child guidance clinic in Vienna in 1921. His work went beyond intervention as he designed parenting tools and education programs in an effort to prevent mental health problems in later life. The following are parenting education programs based on the work of Alfred Adler: • Active Parenting • Alyson Schafer's Principles, Rules, and Tools for Parenting • Connexions Press, publisher of Raising Kids Who Can Series • Cooperative Discipline • Positive Discipline • STEP
Emigration and early death
In 1932, after most of his Austrian clinics were closed due to his Jewish heritage, Adler left Austria for a professorship at the Long Island College of Medicine. His death from a heart attack in Aberdeen, Scotland during a lecture tour in 1937, was a blow to the influence of his ideas although a number of them were taken up by neo-Freudians.
Nonetheless, there exists presently several schools dedicated to carrying on the work of Alfred Adler such as The Adler School of Professional Psychology which was founded as The Alfred Adler Institute of Chicago by Adler's protégé, Rudolf Dreikurs, and the Alfred Adler Institutes of San Francisco and Northwestern Washington, dedicated to Adler's original teachings and style of psychotherapy. There are also various organizations promoting Dr. Adler's orientation towards mental and social wellbeing. These include (ICASSI) and the North American Society for Adlerian Psychology (NASAP).
Publications
His key publications were The Practice and Theory of Individual Psychology (1927) and Understanding Human Nature (1927). The Alfred Adler Institute of Northwestern Washington has recently published the first nine of the ten-volume set of The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler, covering his writings from 1898-1937.
External links
- [1] school-based interventions
- [2] Adlerian Society UK, ASIIP
- [3] Alfred Adler Institutes of San Francisco and Northwestern Washington
- [4] International Committee For Adlerian Summer Schools and Institutes
- [5] Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago, IL
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