Meanings are not determined by situations. “We are not determined by our experiences, but are self-determined by the meaning we give to them and when we take particular experiences as the basis for our future life, we are almost certain to be misguided to some degree. “No experience is in itself a cause of success or failure,” he wrote in his 1931 book, What Life Could Mean to You.
This is particularly ironic, because for Adler, meaning was all-important. Summaries of Individual Psychology are not difficult to find, but many of these reduce Adler’s theories to a level that robs them of much of the meaning he attached to them. Psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote in 1970 of his increasing respect for Adler as the evidence supporting his approach mounted, noting that Adler’s holistic view of the individual was particularly ahead of its time. Indeed, modern approaches to both psychology and medicine are increasingly moving toward a biopsychosocial model in assessment and treatment, and Adlerians have found little difficulty adapting to this outlook. To Adler, who understood the idea of indivisibility inherent in the Latin roots of individual, no practitioner could hope to understand any person’s problems apart from all of these contexts. Far from emphasizing individuality in the sense of separateness or singleness, it insists that the whole person includes biological issues, psychological attitudes, and family, social and community ties. A Psychology of MeaningĪdler named his approach Individual Psychology for its emphasis on viewing the individual holistically. Many of his concepts are compatible not only with today’s most widely practiced therapies but also with some of the most enduring ancient writings on human nature and behavior. Jung’s became better known in popular circles, but not because Adler’s ideas had been dismissed in fact, they can still be found in modern psychological approaches. Jung and Adler each went on to found their own schools of psychological thought. And while Jung’s differences with Freud were many, Adler’s reached more fundamental levels on a wider variety of fronts.
Both Jung and Adler chafed at Freud’s insistence on seeing sexual motivations behind every human behavior. Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler and Carl Jung were brought together by a deeply held common interest, only to be divided after less than a decade by just as deeply held theoretical differences. Some of the most significant others include three psychiatrists who joined forces soon after the turn of the 20 th century in Vienna, Austria. In any case, Wilhelm Wundt and William James, often thought of as the fathers of psychology, merely reignited its flame in the late 19 th century, with others soon adding coals. The quest to know the self, to reflect on and seek to understand human thoughts and behavior, has been known as psychology for perhaps 500 years, though the term’s origin is as muddy as that of the Delphic quotation appropriated by Socrates and Plato. He merely had the good fortune to quote an already popular saying in the presence of Plato, who wrote it down for posterity and thus ensured that both their names would be linked with it as later generations took up the inquiry. “Know thyself,” said Socrates, although he was not the first to vocalize the thought. Human beings have the unique capacity to reflect on their own thoughts and actions.
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