Alfred Adler, The Founding Father Of Individual Psychology Essay

If the Adlerian therapy is summarized, it can be added here that the therapy is more of a growth plan. One of the main facts that is stressed by the theory is that human beings are in control of their own nature and that there should be a positive view towards the nature. Views that an individual has towards his nature leads him in having a good or bad faith. Being a child, a certain kind of lifestyle is adopted by an individual and this kind of lifestyle goes on in a consistent manner throughout his life (Carlson, Watts, and Maniacci, 2006, p. 45).

The personality theory that I have chosen to focus on will be Identity Theory. It was developed by Erik Erikson in the nineteen hundreds. Erik Erikson believed that every individual goes through a certain number of stages to reach his or her full development or potential (Erikson, 1994). He theorized that a human being goes through eight different stages ranging from birth to death (Erikson, 1994). Identity Theory focuses on eight psychosocial stages of development, and an epigenetic principle of maturation (Schultz, 2008). The stages of development are

Explain the reasons for the development of psychology as an academic discipline in the 19th and 20th centuries, making explicit the important turning points and breakthroughs.

A person who views history as the actions of individuals is what brought about history believes in personality views, whereas a person how believes the culture and intellectual environment of a particular history era believes in the naturalistic history (Goodwin p. 10)

In psychology, there are four major theories of personality: psychodynamic, trait or five-factor model, humanistic, and social-cognitive. The psychodynamic theory primarily focuses on the role of the unconscious mind. The social cognitive theory focuses on the effect of the environment on behavior and is based on theories of learning. Whereas, the humanistic theory emphasizes conscious life experiences and choices. The trait or five-factor model focuses on characteristics themselves and not the roots of personality.

Alfred Adler was born in 1870 in Austria and developed his own theory on Individual Psychology in 1912. Adler’s theory is closely related to Humanistic Psychology. Influenced by Freud, Smuts and Vaihinger, Adler based his theory on the client’s ability to live as a fully functioning adult in society. Adler’s holistic theory views each person as unified. Adler discussed birth order personality traits. Adler’s theory also discussed the roles therapists should take and the techniques that should be used in Individual Psychology therapy sessions.

Adlerian theory, also known as individual psychology, was developed by Alfred Adler in the twentieth century (Hess, Magnuson, & Beeler, 2012). He had been conceptualizing and finalizing his theory until about 1931 (Dunn, 1971). This was approximately around the same time Freud was working and becoming popular (Dunn, 1971). Adler is known as the father of the humanistic movement and created his theory in resistance to psychoanalysis and Freudian thinking (Dunn, 1971). Individual psychology asserts that the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts” (Dunn, 1971). More specifically, people cannot be understood without understanding them in a social context (Dunn, 1971; Hess, Magnuson, & Beeler, 2012). Further, behavior cannot be understood in fragments, but needs to be understood in context of the whole person (who is understood within their social

Alfred Adler the founder of Adlerian psychology/psychotherapy believed that it was of the upmost importance to become closely associated with a person’s birth order parents background upbringing and education not to mention their lifestyle. This theory also focusses on a person need to be or feel accepted and to flourish in life. Adler was big on exploring early childhood because he believed that “everyone develops a life by the age 5 or 6.the pan which Adler calls it the lifestyle guides individuals’ enter lives” Murdock, N. L. (2009, pg111). Theories of counseling and psychotherapy: a case approach. Boston: Pearson”.

Most of society thinks that a mentally healthy person is a person with a sound sense of self and someone who functions on a daily basis within the community without problems of any signs of a mental illness. For Adler, psychological health is determined by the level of social contribution beneficial to the greater community, to the degree, that one integrates and furthers the social context, thus the measurement of his or her mental health. Named after Alfred Adler, Adlerian theory primarily emphasizes concepts pertaining to inferiority and superiority, styles of life, family constellation and birth order, and

Alfred Adler was the founder of Adlerian Counseling. He was born in 1870 in the country of Austria. who gave his theory the name Individual Psychology, because he wanted people to see that his theory and methods were designed to help clients help themselves. He believed that everyone had and internal need to be a part of society, and a desire to contribute to that society. That everyone strives for perfection, and everyone initially feels inferior to everyone else. He believed that when that feeling is not overcome, inferiority complexes develop, and if a person tries to overcompensate for inferiority, the develop superiority complex.

This approach to therapy utilizes the framework of Individual Psychology, which ascertains that people should be understood holistically and human behavior is purposeful. Adlerian

Alfred Adler, a renowned and highly influential psychologist who came to prominence in the early part of the 20th century coined the term ‘family constellation’, which served as a metaphor to describe the influence of familial bonds and dynamics upon the personality development of individuals, particularly children. Adler’s conception of the family constellation has been adopted and studied extensively since his time. Rudolf Dreikurs built upon Adler’s work some years later, and vouched for the usefulness of the family constellation perspective in psychoanalytic work:

This theory uses subjectivity for understanding the person. In order to understand the individual, we must understand his or her cognitions. Harold Mosak (1995) identifies five underlying assumptions to the Adlerian theory. He states, “a) the individual is unique, b) the individual is self-consistent, c) the individual is responsible, d) the person is creative, an actor, a chooser, and e) people in a soft-deterministic way can direct their own behavior and control their destinies” (Mosak, 1995, p.87). According to Adlerian theory, people strive to attain goals that provide them with a place in this world, in turn giving them security and enhancing self- esteem.

Adlerians believe that striving for superiority characterizes the final goal of every individual. Superiority, in Adlerian terms, means that there are various ways to strive for and find significance in one’s place in the community by creating personal strategies for achieving superiority (Fall, Holden, & Marquis, 2004). This became a major innovation of Adler using self-created goals as a source of motivation and dynamic functionalism. His emphasis on subjective future orientation as a guiding principle for psychic phenomena became a major innovation in conceptualizing human thinking, feeling, and action.

First of all, Adler’s theory believes that personality is formed during the first five years of life (Adler, A.,1927). By this age a child develops his/her style of life, and it is critical in his/her personality development. The narrator experiences “neglect” during these periods: