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