Adlerians view the organism as an open system striving for perfection and completeness in the course of continuous development. The nature of this desire is determined by the interaction between innate programs and early life experiences.
The creative self is a self-governing element that creates a set of subjective assumptions that arise from the practical need to cope with the tasks of the external world and turn into a set of rules for perception and action in this world.
These rules eventually agree with each other, become more solid and usually operate outside the immediate consciousness. Adler called these rules a lifestyle — an all-encompassing master program. The presence of a common plan makes a person a single whole. Lifestyle identification becomes an important part of psychotherapy.
A correct understanding of life, according to Adler, is the recognition that people need each other, must respect each other and learn to unite and cooperate in the performance of common tasks. Adequate goals, adequate aspirations, interest and an open mind about life, self-understanding, the necessary interpersonal skills and a sense of community (social interest) — all this helps to give the right direction to life.
Theory of therapy
Adler’s theory is based on psychoanalytic principles:
- mental determinism,
- purposeful nature of behavior,
- the existence of many unconscious motives,
- the position that dreams can be considered as a product of mental activity and that insight into the essence of one’s unconscious motives and premises (insight) has a healing power.
The libido model is the desire for a subjectively determined position of significance.
The structure of personality is an indivisible unit.
The therapist has specific goals and uses specific diagnostic methods to understand the patient. The goals of the therapist are to open the person to himself and encourage him to make beneficial lifestyle changes. To do this, the therapist must perform 4 tasks:
a) establish therapeutic contact,
b) understand the hypothetical world of the individual,
c) to open it before him in such a way that —
d) his constituent assumptions were self-correcting and contributed to the change.