Chapter 5: Adlerian Individual Counseling Flashcards
Basic Principles of Adlerian Individual Psychology
Holistic View Social FActors Choice Social Motivation Teleological and Goal Oriented Subjective and Phenomenological
Holistic View
A person must be seen holistically, as a unified personality or individual
Social Factors
Emphasis on a person’s social environment as a determining factor influencing personality development
Choice
People have choices in how they approach their lives and that their past does not determine their future
Social Motivation
People were motivated primarily by social connections, rather than innate instinctual drives; high levels of social interest and prosocial behavior were signs of psychological health
Social Interest
Motivation by social connections
Teleological and Goal Oriented
Behavior was purposeful and goal oriented and that people strive toward meaningful activity, success, and achievement
Subjective and Phenomenological
Understanding and valuing a person’s subjective reality
Striving for Superiority
Betterment of self
Style of Life/Lifestyle
Characteristic set of attitudes and assumptions that help a person make sense of life; emerges in the first 6 years of life; later development and events also shape a person’s lifestyle
Style of Life
Template through which all life events are interpreted; faulty interpretations and mistaken notions cause problems and difficulties
Aim of Adlerian Counseling
To help people correct these basic mistakes or faulty notions, enabling them to consciously choose a new style of life
Length of Adlerian Counseling Process
Generally fewer than 20 sessions
Adlerian Counseling Process
Present- and Future-Oriented; Counselor’s primary role is educational; Counselor uses encourangement to help clients move in the direction of their goals; Understanding early recollections, the family contellation, sibling position, and style of life for the lcient to gain insight and self-understanding
Social Interest
Refers to a person subjectively experiencing a sense that he or she has something in common with other people, is a part of a comminity, and benefits from cooperating with others in the community; ideal expression is the ability to play the game [of life] with existing demands for coorperation and to help the group to which one belongs in its evolution closer toward a perfect form of social living; implies progress without creating unnecessary antagonism
Primary Areas of Social Life in Which Social Interest Plays a Role
Communal Life Work Love Relationships Self-Acceptance Spirituality Parenting
Goal of Perfection
Becoming one’s best self in each of these realms (communal life, work, love relationships, self-acceptance, spirituality, and parenting)
Goal of Personal Superiority
Trying to be better than others
Forms of Individual Superiority
Biological Inferiority
Cosmis Inferiority
Personal Inferiority
Biological Inferiority
Based on the need to form groups for physical survival; form of inferiority which promotes social interest
Cosmis Inferiority
REcognizing the inveitable death and the limitations of human existence; this form of inferiority also promotes social interest
Personal Inferiority
Feeling less powerful, able, or valued than others; this form of inferiority inhibits social interest because one does not feel as if he or she belongs to the community
Inferiority Complex
A person who labors under a sense of inferiority always tries to obtain power of some kind in order to cancel the supposed superiority of other people, his feeling of inferiority impels him to strive for significance
How people respond to inferiority
To gain significance by acnievement
To avoid obligation, risky decisions, and connections with ohters
General Types of Social Interest
High Social Interest (What am I doing? Sharing, enjoying, creating)
Low social Interest “Successful Person (How am I doing? Power, position, possessions)
Low Social Interst “Failure” (How am I doing? complaining, blaming, fears, excuses)
Rudolf Dreikurs
Continued promoting individual psychology after Adler’s death and is credited as the prinicpal person who promoted Adler’s work in the US; Used individual psycology principles to improve children’s learning in the classroom
Heinz & Rowena Ansbacher
Their work preserves and explicates Adler’s original writings and helps translate and clarify them for everyday practice
James Bitter
Influential Adlerian counselor who has developed Adlerian counseling as a brief approach and family approach
Jon Carlson
Develped Adlerian Counseling for couples, families, and diverse populations
Don Dinkmeyer, Gary McKay & Joyce McKay
Developed the Systematic Parenting for Effective Parenting (STEP) Program; an evidence-based parenting program based on Adlerian principles
Harold Mosak
Written numerous primers and texts that offer practical descriptions of how to use Adler’s approach in modern contexts
Thomas Sweeney
Developed a modern Adlerian approach that integrates elements of positive psychology and includes for career, couple, family, and group counseling
Overview of Counseling Process
Phase 1: Establish an egalitarian relationship
Phase 2: Assess lifestyle and private logic
Phase 3: Encourage insight and self-understandings
Phase 4: Educate and reorintate
Establishing an Egalitarian Relationship
Involves making a positive, warm connection with clients in which the counselor focuses on strengths and abilities; Help client find better ways of coping, improve their sense of belonging, and beocme meaningful contributors to the community
Adlerian Assessment Period Involves
Reviewing: Level of social interest, style of life and private logic, family constellation and sibling position; early recollections; DSM Diagnosis
Encourage Insight and Self-Understanding
Helping clients gain better self-understanding and promote insight; counselor offers possible interpretations of behavior by identifying underlying motivations for problems, such as feelings of inferiority motivating a person’s avoidance of commitment in a love relationship
Insight
Used as an impetus and source of positive motivation to take action and make changes rather than being an end in itself
Education and Reorientation
Challenge clients to develop courage it takes to make life changes based on their insights; involves motivating the client to take action based on education regarding more accurate effective approaches to life;
Reorientation
Referring to the fact that a person must reorient life by correcting basic mistakes in his or her style of life;
Adlerian Encouragement
Comes from a philosophical presupposition that life problems are not the result of personal failure or innate character flaws, as it may seem to a person experiencing a sense of personal inferiority, they are actually the result of mistaken beliefs about life
Strategies for Conveying Encouragement
Curiously asking about unique hobbies, abilities, or interests
Verbally saying “This is something you can do
Complimenting and commenting on existing coping abilities
Hopeful comments when discussing new behaviors
Correcting mistaken impressions in a hopeful way
Directive
Teaching style that is encouraging and nonheirarchical;
Lifestyle/Style of Living
How a person characteristically responds to others and the environment; the individual’s characteristic way of thinking, seeing, and feeling towards life and is synonymous with what other theorists call personality; individual’s characteristic way of thinking, seeling, and feeling towards life and is synonymous with personality
Approaches to Lifestyle Assessment is an evaluation of
Parenting Style Family constellation and birth order Early recollections Basic mistakes Organ inferiority or physical weak points The question: function of the symptom Dreams
Parenting Style
Pampering
Neglect
Pampared children
Accustomed to getting what they want and demand whatever they want and thus develop low levels of social interest and not thrive as adults
Neglected Child
May suffer but is more likely to develop social interests and to pursue self-improvement; children and parents mutually shaped their behavior; Adler believed that it was the child’s subjective perception of the parenting style that ultimately most affected a person’s style of life
Assessment Questions for Parenting Styles
Describe your relationship with your parents as a child; were they indulgent? strict? Inconsistent? Supportive?
How did you get what you needed? How did you get what you wanted?
Did you have favorite strategies for getting your way?
Which child was able to influence your parents the most? The least?
Family Constellation
Socio-psychological configuration of a person’s family with an emphasis on birth order
Oldest Child
Begins life as the center of attention and typically learns to take the newcomers in stride if the parents provide encouragement for them to recognize their place in the family structure; tend to relate well with adults, assume social responsibility; develop socially appropriate forms of coping; lifestyle includes striving for superiority
Second Child
Pursue opoosite position than the first because it is the role most readily available to them; less responsible, more independent or more demanding; strives to be number one creating sibling rivalry; motivated by the mistaken belief that their value comes from their achievement
Middle Child
Feel squeezed between others; feel like they have no clear or unique role to play in the family; tend to define themselves in the opposite direction of their older siblings; may be more independent, sensitive, or even rebellious, some may ask parents for reassurance of their love; may elarn to be skilled meditators, cope well with social stress, and learn from mistakes of others
Youngest Child
Baby of the family; tends to enjoy being the center of attention and indulgence given that there are so many people in the family to take care of their needs; often grow up to be charming or even manipulative and often avidly seek life’s pleasures; if parents emphasize achievement, they may become the hardest working of all to prove their place and ultimate worth
Only Child
Much like older children but are never dethroned and do not have the pressure of a close competitor; tend to e inducted into the adult world early, becoming responsible, cooperative, and mature for their age; may have difficulty relating to their peers, especially in the area of sharing
Assessment of Birth Order & Family Constellation
Do you have any siblings? Who and birth order?
Can you describe the role of each child in the family? How did your parents encourage or discourage these roles?
Describe your parents’ relaionship as a couple and as a coparenting team?
Who was most like your mother/father? Which siblings were most similar/dissimilar? Were there favorites or teams? Did the roles change over the years?
Do you remember your attitude toward your siblings at various points in your childhood: preschool, school age, high school, and adulthood?
What are the favorite family stories, sayings, or nicknames around sibling rivalry and differences?
What do you think you learned from your role in your family?
Early Recollections
Refers to a person’s memories of an event or situation; reveal source of fundamental beliefs about one’s value, others, or life more generally; tend to be definitive moments that often play a mythic role in a person’s life; depending on themes, may be necessary to get to obtain a clearer understanding of various elements of the lifestyle were developed
Questions for Assessing Earliest Recollections
When you think back over your childhood, what are your earliest recollections? Describe what you believe to be your earlier memory from when you were a child, perhaps before you entered school and preschool
What were you feeling at that time? What were others feeling?
What did you understand or not understand about what was going on? What were others thinking?
What is the most vivid part of the memory? Why do you think that stands true?
What do you think you learned from this experience?
Basic Mistakes
Faulty assumptions that develop in childhood as children make sense of their experiences, such as loneliness, parental aner, disappointment, traumas, and loss; involve seeing life in the either black and white terms in which one side is balued better than the other
Types of Basic Mistakes
Overgeneralizations
False or impossible goals of security
Misperceptions of life and life’s demands
Minimization or denial of one’s basic worth
Faulty Values
Overgeneralizations
People who do this tend to exaggerate contextual truths into grobal all-or-nothing truths
False or Impossible Goals of Security
Finding ways to remove all risk from life; often making unreasonable demands on others
Misperceptions of life and life’s demands
Not really understanding theinescapable rules of life
Minimization or denial of one’s basic worth
Owning their sense of personal inferiority and denying their own intrinsic worth
Faulty Values
Coping with life by identifying faulty values, those which are not in line with social interest but instead self-promotion
Organ Inferiority/Physical Weak Points
What organ inferiorities are to the bady, basic mistakes are to the mind,; actual physical problems or the belief that one is physically inferior can have significant impacts on one’s style of life
Dream Analysis
Provided insight into a client’s inner proceses; themes of dreams are used as clues to help analyze a client’s style of life and to help identify potential solutions to problems;
Question: Purpose of Symptom
What would be different in your life if you didn’t have this problem?
General Categories for clients in their pschodynamic formulation
Enncouraged Person
Person with Neurotic Symptoms
Persons with Psychotic Symptoms
Persons with Personality Disorders
Encouraged Person
Can do attitude; able to take needed action without worrying about what others think
Persons with Neurotic Symptoms
Yes But Attitude; I would take action if I didn’t have this problem; Use symptoms to get away with doing what they want (avoid social interest) while still receiving social approval (my symptom is the problem)
Persons with Psychotic Symptom
Escapist attitude; They live in fantasy rather than reality to escape life’s demands; they say no to society’s demands
Persons with Personality Disorders
My way or the highway attitude; they try to convince others that their way is the right way regardless of what others want or evidence to the contrary; I’ll cooperate if we use my rules
Adlerian Assessment & Identifying level of Social Interests in LIfe’s Tasks & Writing Goals for Each Area
Work Communal Life & Friendship Love Relationships Self-Acceptance Spirituality Parenting
Work
Not limited to gainful employment; refers to a person’s primary means of being a contributing member of society and can include education, household chores, child care, homemaking, and volunteer activities
Communal Life & Friendship
Connecting socially with others and enjoying connection with others, important life task and measure of a person’s social interest
Love relationships
Require courage and the greatest level of social interest to sustain
Self-Acceptance
Developing an accepting relationship of the self as well as self awareness
Spirituality
Developing a relationship to something greater than the self as a critical life task
Parenting
Requires a particular set of social skills and functioning that should be assessed separately from others
DSM Diagnosis
Proactive Approach with DSM
Approach to Pathology: Explanatory Explains Causation
Language: Encouraging; positive
Focus: Subjective Experiences
DSM IV Diagnosis
Axis I: The Arrangement (How client has arranged the symptoms to cope; corresponds to clinical syndromes and areas of clinical focus)
Axis II: The lifestyle (Corresponds to personality disorders and personality features)
Axis III: Organ inferiority/Organ Jargon: Corresponds to physical disorders relevant to psychological treatment
Axis IV: The shock (corresponds to psychosocial stressors)
Axis V: A Barometer of Life Tasks (corresponds to 100-point scale for assessment of functioning)
Normal Adjustment
Having enough energy and courage to meet the problems and difficulties of life as they come along
Life Difficulties
Can occur within any of the six life tasks: work, love, friendship, spirituality, self-acceptance, or parenting
Wellness
Refers to a state of physical, emotional, and social well-being that is achieved through conscious effort and health referring to a more neutral state in which one is not ill and does not require effort
General Principles of Adlerian Therapy
Early Phase Goals: Address initial crisis symptoms
Working Phase Goals: Reduce symptoms related to presenting problem; increase social interest and functioning in life tasks most closely related to the problem
Closing Phase Goals: Increase social interest and functioning in other key areas of functioning
General Principles of Adlerian Therapy
Early Phase Goals: Address initial crisis symptoms
Working Phase Goals: Reduce symptoms related to presenting problem; increase social interest and functioning in life tasks most closely related to the problem
Closing Phase Goals: Increase social interest and functioning in other key areas of functioning
Examples of Early and Working Adlerian Phase Goals
Reduce insecurities that lead to depressive thinking
Reduce insecurities that fuel jealousy in a relationship
REduce insecurities that lead to underfunctioning at work
Develop more realistic expectations of performance at work
REduce the tendency to overgeneralize that leads to arguments with spouse
Increase ability to take risks in relationship to increase sense of intimacy
REduce tendency to calculate self-worth based on work performance
Examples of Early and Working Adlerian Phase Goals
Reduce insecurities that lead to depressive thinking
Reduce insecurities that fuel jealousy in a relationship
REduce insecurities that lead to underfunctioning at work
Develop more realistic expectations of performance at work
REduce the tendency to overgeneralize that leads to arguments with spouse
Increase ability to take risks in relationship to increase sense of intimacy
REduce tendency to calculate self-worth based on work performance
Examples of Closing Phase Goals
Increase intimacy and connection with family of origin
Increase sense of connection with friends and local community
Increase sense of connection to divine by reconnecting with spiritual practice
Increase self-acceptance related to sexual orientation
Increase emotional connection and redefine relationships with adult children
Take steps to pursue line of work (or volunteering) that is personally satisfying
Examples of Closing Phase Goals
Increase intimacy and connection with family of origin
Increase sense of connection with friends and local community
Increase sense of connection to divine by reconnecting with spiritual practice
Increase self-acceptance related to sexual orientation
Increase emotional connection and redefine relationships with adult children
Take steps to pursue line of work (or volunteering) that is personally satisfying
Psychoeducation and Task Setting
Phase 1 Establish an Egalitarian Relationship
Phase 2 Assess Lifestyle and Private Logic
Phase 3: Encourage Insight and Self-Understanding
Phase 4: Education and Reorientation
Psychoeducation and Task Setting
Phase 1 Establish an Egalitarian Relationship
Phase 2 Assess Lifestyle and Private Logic
Phase 3: Encourage Insight and Self-Understanding
Phase 4: Education and Reorientation
Homework
Tasks to be completed between sessions; may include calling an estranged relative, going on a date with spouse, develop detailed list of things one is afraid of that hold him or her back at work
Homework
Tasks to be completed between sessions; may include calling an estranged relative, going on a date with spouse, develop detailed list of things one is afraid of that hold him or her back at work
Interpretation of Symptoms
Interpret purpose of symptoms to provide client’s insight into their situation; identify the purpose of the symptom and its role in the client’s life
Interpretation of Symptoms
Interpret purpose of symptoms to provide client’s insight into their situation; identify the purpose of the symptom and its role in the client’s life
Adlerian Interpretation of Symptoms
Purpose Focused: Interpretation should focus on the goal or purpose of a behavior and avoid globally labelling the person
Tentatively Offered: Interpretations should be offered tentatively rather than an unquestionable truth
Open to Revision: Encourage and allow the client to rephrase or even correct the counselor
Strengths Emphasis: Highlight potential strengths, hope and resilence
Adlerian Interpretation of Symptoms
Purpose Focused: Interpretation should focus on the goal or purpose of a behavior and avoid globally labelling the person
Tentatively Offered: Interpretations should be offered tentatively rather than an unquestionable truth
Open to Revision: Encourage and allow the client to rephrase or even correct the counselor
Strengths Emphasis: Highlight potential strengths, hope and resilence
Self-Concept Statements
Statements the clients make that reveal how they see themselves
Self-Concept Statements
Statements the clients make that reveal how they see themselves
Types of Self-Concept Statements
Inferiority-Based Self STatements: the client’s self-concept falls short of his or her personal self-ideal
Iadequacy-Based Self Statements: Client’s self concept falls short of what client believes is the worldview or cultural values
Guild-based self statements: client’s self concept falls short of ethical or moral beliefs
Types of Self-Concept Statements
Inferiority-Based Self STatements: the client’s self-concept falls short of his or her personal self-ideal
Iadequacy-Based Self Statements: Client’s self concept falls short of what client believes is the worldview or cultural values
Guild-based self statements: client’s self concept falls short of ethical or moral beliefs
Natural Consequences
Require no conscious human intervention; occur as part of the physical or social environment;
Natural Consequences
Require no conscious human intervention; occur as part of the physical or social environment;
Logical consequences
Used to encourage client to make better decisions
Logical consequences
Used to encourage client to make better decisions
Antisuggestions
Type of paradoxical technique that involves the counselor taking the paradoxical position of ciscouraging change and/or encouraging the symptom, particularly when the client claims that a symptom is uncontrollable
Antisuggestions
Type of paradoxical technique that involves the counselor taking the paradoxical position of ciscouraging change and/or encouraging the symptom, particularly when the client claims that a symptom is uncontrollable
Spitting in the Soup
Refers to making overt the covert benefits and hidden power of having a smptom
Spitting in the Soup
Refers to making overt the covert benefits and hidden power of having a smptom
Adlerian Checklist for Case Conceptualization
Social Interest and Inferiority Parenting Style Family Constellation and Birth Order Basic Mistakes Organ Inferiority or Physical Weak Points Life Tasks
Adlerian Checklist for Case Conceptualization
Social Interest and Inferiority Parenting Style Family Constellation and Birth Order Basic Mistakes Organ Inferiority or Physical Weak Points Life Tasks
