Individualistic Psychology Flashcards
Founder
alfred Adler, Rudolf Dreikers
Area of focus
Background
Underlying theory/view of change
Heredity and upbringing are important, but peoples own efforts to find meaning and success can be more powerful
Duration
Typically lengthy but flexible
What drives people? Human development
Goal striving nature, people are not victims of their biology or circumstance; can choose to change behavior and goals, lifestyle
Behavior is viewed as
purposeful, goal directed.
Alderian therapists use interventions like:
lifestyle assessmentearly childhood recollectionsdiscussions on birth order
Key concepts
social interest is an essential part of health development
View on human development
directions of peoples lives are unconscious and need to be analyzed to bring their goals and lifestyles to consciousnesssocial connections
major goals
1. overcome feelings of inferiority develop social interest = mastery of ones own life*feelings of inferiority in early years impact development (pampered/neglected kids less growth/dev)
What aspects of early development did adler focus on?
family constellations and birth order
what is included in a family constellation
the composition of the family, each person's role, the reiprocal transations that person has, during the early years, with siblings and parents
family constellations can help us understand
a persons lifestyle and development
birth order
five psychological positions from which children tend to view life. Actual birth order itself is less important than a person's interpretation of his or her place in the family. impacts development
oldest child
intelligent achieving organized leadersif not deal with successfully, can feel dethroned with a new sibling. angry, jealous-may lead to substance abuse
second child
pressure to catch up, compete, gravitate towards new successes and skills that the oldest didn't have (opposite)creative, less conventional, friendly
middle child
often the second child, gets many strengths of the second child difficult time finding specialness.become well adjusted with positive parenting
youngest child
3 pitfalls: spoiled, speedy, discouraged with competingfeelings of inferioritylast born children can acquire power-special attentionadventurous, social, innovative, ally with oldest
only children
common to first and last bornachievement, enjoy being focused on, spoiled, creative mature early and learn to deal with adultsparents insecure-adopt their insecurities and worries
how is lifestyle developed?
interactions of peoples families
lifestyle is
total off all a persons attitudes and aspirations; a unique way to find our place in the world, overcome inferiority and achieve goals.
lifestyle has four parts
1. subjective worldview2. goals3. behavior strategies4. outcomes of those behaviors
private logic
our beliefs about ourselves and our place in the world
The goals of alderian therapy is to
undestand a person's private logic to help a person better understand where his beliefs get in the way of daily functioning, to lesson faulty thinking, and see things in a more healthy wayestablish goals more rewarding lifestyleunderstand their perceptionsdevelop social interests
emotional health people have
social interest: perceive themselves as part of a community and appreciate differences.
development is determined by
psychosocial connections
what is social interest
people are interested in belonging to a group, desire solving problems of societyreflected in their accomplishments of the three life taskscan be developed later in life:optimistic
What are the three life tasks of social interest?
occupationlove-social interest-cooperation/fellowship
phenomenological perspective
persons perception, individual view of the worldwhat makes it an individualistic therapy
therapeutic alliance
clinicians are educators & role models analysts encourage cooperation, trust, respect
stages of treatment
1.therapeutic alliance and goal setting 2. assessment, analysis, understanding of the person and problem3. encouragement of change through interpretation4. reorientation by turning insight into action, focusing on strengths
treatment:assessment, analysis, understanding of the person and problem
Lifestyle assessment: family constellation, dreams, earliest recollections, priorities and ways of behaving
interventions
catching oneself: aware of repetitive faulty goals/thoughts. Identify warning signs and stop yourselfpushing the button: imagine pleasant & unpleasant experiences, observe the emotion-which button?Spitting in the clients soup:identify motivations behind clients self defeating behavior and spoil their payoffs by making it unappealing (if you kill yourself then)
Other techniques
immediacy: focuses the session on an interaction from a session prescribing the symptom: have the client magnify the problem behavior (don't sleep if having trouble sleeping)confrontation: pointing out discrepancies the client presentstask assignments: planned activityhumor, silence, advice, and reflection of feeling
fictional finalism
Alder's theory that an individual is motivated more by his expectations of the future than by past experiences