I recently finished reading the English translation of ‘The courage to be disliked’ by Fumitake Kota and Ichiro Kishimi. The book was interesting in lots of ways, but perhaps most striking of all was just how much the work of one man has influenced personal development – and I’d never heard of him!
A physician and psychotherapist, Alfred Adler (1870-1937) rose to prominence in the 1920s and became one of the most sought-after and highly-paid public speakers of his day. A contemporary of Freud, Adler’s own thoughts on psychology and change (often expressed as ‘Individual Psychology), diverged from those of his old colleague, and with some acrimony. However, unlike Freud, Adler’s fame seems to have gradually diminished over time.
Adler was the first to coin the psychological term of ‘inferiority’ as a way of expressing that we each have a perceived gap between our perception of how we are now and our ‘ideal self’. Though in popular culture, the helplessness of the inferiority complex has become something else entirely, Adler believed that our perceived inferiority gap was natural and healthy and provided the motivation for us all to develop and grow.
Adler explored many related concepts that are core to much of the personal development thinking that we take for granted today. I outline a few of them below:
Outcomes (Teleology)
Adler suggested that all of our behaviour, is designed to achieve an outcome. We have a goal and we strive to achieve it. The ideal-self is an aspirational goal that drives much of our personal growth and development. As Adler stated, ‘The basic human drive is towards mastery and power in life, to move from inferiority to superiority’.
Positive intention
Even though sometimes a behaviour can be inappropriate or harmful to ourself or others in some way, our desire to achieve an outcome, means that there is always a positive intention to any behaviour that we engage in. This means that once we uncover the underlying outcome of a behaviour, we can seek alternative, more healthy ways of achieving that outcome.
‘As if’ thinking
Building on the work of Hans Vaihinger (1852-1933), Adler recognised the importance of not only having a goal, but also understood how the imagination could be harnessed in pursuit of that goal by acting ‘as if’ it was true. This framing of a situation unlocks new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.
Mind-body integration
The mind and body are not separate, they interact and influence each other. Adler observed and understood the significance of this connection in his work as a medical doctor in the military, long before we had the diagnostic and imaging technologies available to show the connection.
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My own exploration of Adler’s work has only just begun (as an expert in Adlerian psychology would no doubt identify in reading this blog!), but immediately, it is impossible not to recognise the impact that Adler’s work has had on the field of personal development. I will share more as I learn more.
References:
The Courage to be disliked, Kota and Kishimi, 2010
Adler for beginners, Hooper and Halfords, 1998
Individual Psychology, Manaster and Corsini, 1982
www.adler.edu