Rudolf Dreikurs

Rudolf Dreikurs (February 8, 1897, Vienna – May 25 1972, Chicago) was an American psychiatrist and educator who developed psychologist Alfred Adler's system of individual psychology into a pragmatic method for understanding the purposes of misbehavior in children and for stimulating cooperative behavior without punishment or reward.

Life's Work

Rudolf Dreikurs was born in Vienna, Austria on February 8, 1897. His made numerous contributions to society until his death on May 25, 1972 in Chicago, Illinois.

Rudolf Dreikurs was Alfred Adler's close colleague and student. Upon his death in 1939, Dreikurs completed Adler's lecture tour in Scotland. Dreikurs then began his own mission to promote Adler's individual psychology through lectures in prisons, schools, and health care settings. Dreikurs continued the work that Adler had started, seeing the need for systematic organization and techniques of applications in order to teach others how to use Adlerian principles effectively in counseling, psychotherapy, parent education and in the classroom. He simplified and applied many of Adler's ideas for use by parents and educators. In 1964, along with a nurse named Vicki Soltz, he wrote Children: The Challenge, and in 1968, he and Loren Grey wrote A Parent's Guide to Child Discipline.

Adler and Dreikurs firmly believed that encouragement was essential to improvement of behavior and human relationships. Their basic assumption was that human behavior is not predetermined by genetics, or merely the result of outside forces beyond our control. Behavior is a result of a search for significance within a social setting.

Adlerian Parent Education aims to give children the skills to meet life challenges in a constructive, positive way and the courage to circumvent the many pitfalls and dangers that confront children in society. It supports parents by providing them with tools to ease and handle the stress of being a parent, and to raise children with courage and compassion.

Dreikurs believed that "all behavior has a purpose." He constructed what is often considered the most effective tool in helping to understand our children's behavior: the Four Goals of Misbehavior and the techniques of effectively revealing these to a misbehaving child. The development of the system of natural and logical consequences, and the application of these techniques, may well be Dreikurs' finest contribution to the betterment of human society.

Roots of misbehavior

Dreikurs suggested that human misbehavior is the result of not having one's basic need of belonging to, and contributing to, a social group. The child then resorts to one of four mistaken goals: attention, power, revenge, and avoidance of failure.

Dreikurs' main theory dealt with misbehavior of pre-adolescents. He reasoned that these students will “act out” based on these four, principled "mistaken goals." The first reason for their misbehavior is that they desire attention. If they do not receive the attention they crave through their actions (good or bad, e.g. doing well on a paper or throwing a tantrum), they move onto seeking power (e.g. they may refuse to complete a paper). If their power struggle is thwarted, they try to get revenge. If even revenge does not achieve the desired response, they begin to feel inadequate.

His books list many ways to combat these behaviors. The first step is for teachers to identify the mistaken goal, noting their own response to the misbehavior, and observe the students reactions. Secondly, a teacher should confront the mistaken goal by providing an explanation of it together with a discussion of the faulty logic involved. By doing so, students are given an opportunity to examine and change their behavior. Thirdly, Dreikurs emphasized the importance of avoiding power struggles with students. One way is simply by withdrawing as an authority figure; teachers can also redirect students’ ambitions for power by having them participate in making decisions or giving directions. This was called "democratic teaching." Dreikurs also recommended taking positive steps against revenge seeking behavior. The teacher is instructed to set up situations where the students can exhibit talents and strengths and ultimately experience acceptance. Lastly, teachers should encourage students who display inadequacy, by offering these students encouragement and support for even minimal efforts. His overall goal was that students would learn to cooperate reasonably, without being penalized or rewarded, because they would feel that they are valuable contributors to the classroom.

Logical and Natural Consequences

Dreikurs described two types of consequences: logical and natural. Logical consequences referred to “reasonable results that follow behavior either desirable or non-desirable.” They typically require students to make right of what they have done wrong. For example, if students do not complete their work during class, they are required to do it for homework. In a democratic classroom, the students would know in advance the consequences of their misbehavior because as part of the classroom they helped formulate the consequences.

Natural consequences differ from logical consequences in that the results following the behavior occur naturally. For example, if a student tips his chair backward and falls, leaving him hurt or embarrassed would be a natural consequence, because the hurt and embarrassment alone is sufficient consequence for his misbehavior.

Dreikurs did not consider punishment an effective method of discipline. He viewed punishment as an action taken by the teacher as an act of revenge and to show the students who is in charge. He believed that punishment was humiliating and offensive to students.

Dreikurs believed in prevention, and his main focus was on constructive behavior rather than coercive discipline. He recommended that teachers have a democratic classroom and teaching style, in order to help students gain a sense of belonging (genuine goal). In this manner students would have a social interest: a condition in which students would realize themselves that it is to their advantage to contribute to the welfare of a group. Therefore, to understand children, they must be observed in a social setting, in relationship to others, to discover the reasons for their behavior.

Legacy

In 1952, Dreikurs founded the Alfred Adler Institute, now called the Adler School of Professional Psychology, in Chicago. As part of the Institute's mission, Dreikurs and his colleagues traveled the United States and Canada, establishing Adlerian training programs. Dreikurs' wife, Sadie "Tee" Dreikurs, combined her passions for art and Adlerian psychology and created one of the first art therapy training programs in the country. Her student, Judy Sutherland, took over the direction of the Adler School's Master of Arts program in art therapy, which became one of the school's most successful programs.

The Adler School has continued to apply Adler's principles and concepts to attempt to solve social problems. The school's curricula prepare professionals to alleviate social and global concerns as well as to address the needs of marginalized and underserved populations. The Dreikurs Center offers training to students, as well as providing services to the community through its Chicago Loop clinic, through prisons, schools, and other settings. Dreikurs also established the first Adlerian Child Guidance Center in the United States and trained counselors from many countries, who subsequently established Adlerian-Dreikursian Family Centers in many parts of the world.

Publications

• Dreikurs, Rudolf. 1958. The Challenge of Parenthood. New York, Duell, Sloan and Peirce. ISBN 0801511836.
• Dreikurs, Rudolf. 1968. Psyhology in the Classroom. Publisher: Harpercollins College Div; 2nd edition. ISBN 0060417560.
• Dreikurs, Rudolf and Loren Grey. 1968. Logical Consequences: A New Approach to Discipline. Publisher: Meredith Press, 1st edition.
• Dreikurs, Rudolf and Vicki Soltz. 1991. Children the Challenge. Plume; Reissue edition. ISBN 0452266556.
• Dreikurs, Rudolf. 1998. The Challenge of Marriage. Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group, 3rd revised edition. ISBN 156032662X.
• Dreikurs, Rudolf., Grunwald, Bernice., and Floy Pepper. 1998. Maintaining Sanity in the Classroom: Illustrated Teaching Techniques. Publisher: Rutledge; 2nd edition. ISBN 1560327278.
• Dreikurs, Rudolf. 2000. Encouraging Children to Learn. Publisher: Behavioral, 1st edition. ISBN 1583910824.

External links

• Dreikurs Classroom Management
• Lecture by Rudolf Dreikurs
• Principles of Adlerian Parent Education
• Rudolf Dreikurs at WikEd

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