ADLERIAN

COUNSELING
ADLERIAN COUNSELING
Alfred Adler’s
KeyBiography
Concepts in Individual
Psychology
Adlerian Counseling
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1
Alfred Adler’s
Biography
ALFRED ADLER
￮ Born: February 7, 1870
￮ Died: May 28, 1937
￮ He founded the school of
Individual Psychology

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 ALFRED ADLER
￮ at age 5, he almost died from
pneumonia
￮ several of Adler’s earliest memories
were concerned with the unhappy
memory of being compared with his
older brother 5
 Individual
Psychology
￮ Adler named his approach INDIVIDUAL
PSYCHOLOGY, from the Latin word
INDIVIDUUM

￮ “that which is whole and cannot be

separated into parts”

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 Individual
Psychology
 Holds that the main motives of human
thought and behavior are individual
man’s striving for superiority and
power

 Every individual is unique and his

personality structure finds expression
in his lifestyle 7
 Individual
Psychology

￮ The neurotically disposed person is

characterized by his increased inferiority
feelings, underdeveloped social interest,
and an exaggerated, uncooperative goal
of superiority.

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2 MAIN
CONCEPTS
of

Individual
Psychology
 HOLIS
￮
M
Views man as a unit, a self-conscious
whole that functions as an open system,
not a collection of drives and instincts

 INDIVIDUAL – word used to describe an

indivisible unit
 Individuals are always more than the
sum of their parts 10
 SUCCESS
 Adler was struck by the importance
of the hunger for success in human
life
 He reduced all motivation to a single
drive – striving for success or
superiority
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SUCCESS
 Psychologically healthy people seek
success for all humanity
 Psychologically unhealthy people
strive for personal superiority

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TELEOLOGY
 An explanation of behavior in terms
of its final purpose or aim

 It is usually concerned with future

goals or ends

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TELEOLOGY
 According to Adler, all forms of life
are characterized by a trend
toward growth and expansion
 People can best be understood by
looking at where he/she is going
and what he/she is striving to
accomplish
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 SELF
 The concept of creative self places
the responsibility for the individual’s
personality into his own hands

 All people are responsible for who

they are and how they behave
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 STYLE OF LIFE
 A person’s behavior must be studied
from a holistic viewpoint
 The style of life, unique for each
individual, is the pattern that will
predominate throughout that
person’s life
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 SOCIAL INTEREST
Gemeinschaftsgefuhl
 “social feeling” or “community
feeling”
 Feeling of oneness with all humanity

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 SOCIAL INTEREST
A person with a well-developed social
interest strives not for personal
superiority but for perfection for all
people in an ideal community

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3
ADLERIAN
COUNSELING
 Counseling
 Adlerian counseling views humans as
holistic, creative, and responsible
beings
 Feelings of inferiority may lead to
faulty convictions about oneself,
others, and the world
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“ In Adlerian view,
maladjusted people are not
sick but DISCOURAGED

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Adlerians not interested in curing "sick" individuals, groups,
communities, but in reeducating individuals and in reshaping
society so that all people can live together as equals
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 Counseling
 Adlerian counseling theory affirms
that humans are characterized by
unity across the broad spectrum of
personality-cognitions, affect, and
behavior

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 Counseling
 Style of life, is a cognitive blueprint
containing the person's unique and
individually created convictions,
goals and personal beliefs for
coping with the tasks and challenges
of living.

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 Counseling
 It organizes and simplifies coping
with the world by assigning rules
and values; it selects, predicts,
anticipates; its perceptions are
guided by its own "private logic"

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 Counseling
 HUMAN AGENCY
 According to Adlerian theory,
humans are proactive -in regard
to the development of the style
of life

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Counseling
Adlerian counseling is a
growth/wellness model. It is an
optimistic perspective that views
people as unique, creative, capable,
and responsible.

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Counseling
Focuses on human wellness,
individual growth and expansion,
and social interest

It is aimed at helping the client lead

a socially useful life by encouraging
the re-alignment of individual
interests with that of society
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Counseling
Adlerian counseling is a
growth/wellness model. It is an
optimistic perspective that views
people as unique, creative, capable,
and responsible.

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Counseling
Adlerian counseling emphasizes
prevention, optimism and hope,
resilience and growth, competence,
creativity and resourcefulness,
social consciousness, and finding
meaning and a sense of community
in relationships.
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Counseling
Adlerians are not about “curing”
anything; counseling is a process of
encouragement.
￮ Encouragement is not a
technique, but rather an attitude
and a way of being with clients

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Counseling
Dreikurs (1967) noted the essential
necessity of encouragement in
psychotherapy. He stated that presenting
problems are “based on discouragement”
and without “encouragement, without
having faith in her/himself restored, [the
client] cannot see the possibility of doing or
functioning better”
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Practice
Consideration
MALADJUSTMENT
 Adlerian counseling embraces a
nonpathological perspective. Clients are
not viewed as sick and in need of a
cure.

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Practice
Consideration
MALADJUSTMENT
 all persons are striving to move from a
perceived minus position to a
perceived plus

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Practice
Consideration
CLIENT HESITANCY TO CHANGE

Adlerian counseling espouses a "self-

protective" view of client reluctance to
change

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Practice
Consideration
CLIENT HESITANCY TO CHANGE

When these core style of life convictions

are challenged (in life or in therapy), the
client often responds by use of
compensation

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Practice
Consideration
CLIENT HESITANCY TO CHANGE

Adlerians view client reluctance to change

in terms of the client self-protecting or
safeguarding his or her sense of "self"

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THE FOUR PHASES
OF ADLERIAN
COUNSELING

1
2 3 4

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 Client-Worker
Relationship
 Counseling occurs in a relationship context

 Client-Counselor relationship is described

as cooperative, collaborative, egalitarian,
optimistic, and respectful

 Success in other phases predicated on the

development and continuation of a strong
client-counselor relationship
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 Worker
Relationsh
ip
 Success in other phases predicated on the
development and continuation of a strong
client-counselor relationship

 Client-counselor relationship in Adlerian

counseling is an encouragement-focused
one 40
“ All together in every step
of the treatment, we must
not deviate from the path
of encouragement“
- Adler
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 Worker
Relationsh
ip
 Clients present for counseling because they
are discouraged and lack the confidence
and "courage“ to engage successfully in the
tasks or problems of living

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 ASSESSME
NT
 Adlerians do not see assessment as an
event that categorizes clients with static
diagnostic labels

 most Adlerians do some from of style of

life analysis as a part of their assessment

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 ASSESSME
NT
 This assessment occurs in the second phase
of Adlerian counseling-the analysis/
assessment phase-and usually includes
eliciting information about the client's
childhood family constellation and asking
the client for early recollection

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INSIGHT/INTERPRETA
TION

 Having gathered all the aforementioned

data in the analysis phase of Adlerian
counseling, the counselor has sufficient
information to create tentative hypotheses
about a client's style of life

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INSIGHT/INTERPRETA
TION

 In this third phase, the Adlerian counselor

helps the client gain self-understanding and
insight by communicating hypothesis
interpretations of basic themes that are
self-defeating and impede client growth

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 ON/
REEDUCATIO
N
 This last phase of Adlerian counseling is an
action oriented one in which clients are
encouraged to put feet to their insight

 Clients must be encouraged and

challenged to courageously engage the
tasks of living and the relationships therein
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 WHAT IS THE GOAL OF
ADLERIAN COUNSELING?

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Aid the client to realize his priorities and to detect
whether or not it is worth paying the price
behaviorally to change his present style of life
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Thanks!
Prepared by:
ERIKA MORALES
SETOSTA
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