INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGY OF A. ADLER

Alfred Adler (1870–1937), like Jung, was one of the first and most talented students of Sigmund Freud.

Both Jung and Adler, and many other famous scientists and practitioners who came out of the bosom of classical psychoanalysis, unconditionally recognized Freud's genius and authority and were ready to develop his basic ideas, complementing (and sometimes justifiably replacing or correcting) their own theoretical and practical searches. .

Virtually none of the well-known psychoanalysts (except F.Perls, who was not a direct student of Freud, although he considered himself to be them at first) did not leave Freud, “slamming the door”, that is, loudly declaring his disillusionment and many psychoanalysis. Everyone was ready to continue creative collaboration, but Freud, despite all his undeniable genius, suffered an incredibly vulnerable self-esteem and vanity, a desire (in many ways he succeeded) to turn psychoanalysis into a modern religion and extend it to everything and everyone. At the same time, he considered any minute deviation from his canons an encroachment on his foundations and his own greatness, and he doubted immediately and finally expelled.

But every cloud has a silver lining.

Alfred Adler (as well as Carl Gustav Jung), after parting with his teacher, completely emerged from the shadow of his fame and pressure and created his own original, exceptionally interesting psychoanalytic direction, giving rise to many ideas and schools.

But first, he (by mutual desire with Freud) left the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society in 1911, abandoning the post of its president, and founded his own organization, the Association of Individual Psychology. Within a few years, this association spread its ideas and organized national associations and branches in many European countries, and then in America.

Adler made a major scientific and practical contribution to the improvement of the education system and, first of all, to the system of professional training of teachers themselves.

The main ideas and principles of Alfred Adler in the first place should include:

- the principle of integrity, or holism (from the English. whole , which is translated as a whole , whole, whole );

- unity of individual lifestyle;

- social interest, or public feeling;

- orientation of behavior to achieve the goal.

In contrast to Freud, Adler believed that the behavior, way of thinking and emotional states of people are influenced not so much by the past (previous life experience and even more so the very early childhood period constantly mentioned by Freud), but the future (goals and expectations). At the same time, the main motive, directly or indirectly determining (causative) behavior, thoughts, feelings and expectations of a person, is an obvious or hidden (even from the consciousness of this person) desire for primacy, superiority over others, to expand the sphere of influence, so to speak to the conquest of living space, the expansion (increase) of property, the acquisition of something new.

The fact that this is not possible for everyone does not deny the original existence of this motive. On the contrary, it is his “unrealization” that gives rise to neuroses and many psychological problems, at first glance and even in the opinion of the client, which are not related to such aspirations.

It was Adler who introduced into the psychology and psychotherapy such a currently popular (and used to the place and out of place) term inferiority complex, considering that this complex and the desire to compensate for it are a powerful generator of energy in achieving goals, including the most eminent people.

The basis of such a complex, usually formed from childhood, can be a small height, a lag from peers in physical or mental development, real or contrived defects in appearance, a sense of social, national and other inferiority. It is the feeling of inferiority, which can later be partially and even completely repressed into the sphere of the unconscious, according to Adler, is the source of the aggressive energy of the struggle for power in direct and indirect senses.

Adler was the first to consider aggression not only as a desire to destroy, destroy a frustrating object or (if it is not possible to do so) to break the anger, to harm the one who and what will fall under the arm. Adler, and many psychologists following him, consider aggression to be the most important innate quality of survival and the attainment of life goals; it can be expressed in socially acceptable and even prestigious forms, such as increased purposefulness, initiative, activity and resilience. (As we have said, in the USA such a positive understanding of aggressiveness is used everywhere - in sports, business, politics, etc.)

At the same time, Adler considered aggression and the will to power to be the necessary components of striving not only for superiority over others, but also a powerful generator of self-improvement energy, striving to win over himself, his weaknesses and shortcomings, and to maximize his abilities.

I repeat that not everyone succeeds in this and is even visible in his behavior and personality, however, Adler believed that to some extent such aspirations are embedded in each and are activated (although not always obvious and effective) as a compensatory reaction to real or imaginary feeling of inferiority, inferiority. As already noted, the desire for excellence can have both positive and negative realization from a social point of view.

Positive implementation occurs in mutual understanding with others, for the benefit of if not society as a whole, then at least a separate society (family, people around), including a healthy desire for self-development and disclosure of abilities, the formation of the most perfect lifestyle, that is, it reminds the athlete's desire to honestly beat rivals or at least show the best result (while respecting the opponents and honestly observing the rules of the competition).

If people struggle for power and primacy over others for selfish self-affirmation, to the detriment of others, under the slogan “goal justifies the means” or “victory at any cost”, then this, according to Adler, is a combination of neurotic distortion when achievement energy caused by a strong inferiority complex , combined with social immaturity, lack of social interests or their distortion.

Depending on the scale of the individual and social conditions, such a socially perverted thirst for primacy can spread from the desire to humiliate those who are weaker than you (among peers, family members, in a group, etc.) to the desire for national or world domination, but with positions of purely selfish self-affirmation at the expense of humiliation, submission, fear of others.

Positive or negative realization of the inferiority complex is largely determined by the system of personal values ​​of the individual, which are formed in the early stages of education.

Thus, the first natural reaction of a child who has experienced a complex (real or fictitious) inferiority and the feeling of insecurity, insecurity and desire to get rid of them generated by it can receive a different development depending on the conditions of upbringing.

For example, according to Adler, many of these children subsequently became doctors, believing, often unknowingly, that this profession better protects them from the fear of disease and death.

Like Freud, Adler believed that children and adults suffering from certain neuroses, as a rule, deceive themselves in the first place, and then others, in the true causes of their individual actions and behaviors in general. At the same time, Adler insisted that all these self-delusions were caused by an obvious, and most often driven out of consciousness by a combination of an inferiority complex and a desire to compensate for it in the form of superiority over others and increase self-esteem.

The aforementioned principle of holism (integrity), which has become one of the cores in Adler’s system, requires the psychotherapist to constantly remember that individual actions, thoughts and feelings of an individual, no matter how random and independent from each other, may seem to be combined into a life style unique to each person. which, to varying degrees, consciously and unconsciously, under the influence of a combination of internal (innate-biological instincts) and external (social: from family to social) factors, is chosen by each person.

Recognizing the role of the unconscious, Adler at the same time recognized the decisive role of a conscious active and creative beginning in each person and in shaping his own life style, as well as social needs laid down in each healthy person for the overwhelming or dependent, cooperative (friendly or at least partner) position , to mutual support and mutual assistance.

However, he did not share the sharply biological and social in man. Thus, he considered social needs of a person in many respects an innate (though not always conscious) feeling of “communion with all of humanity”.

In general, Adler assigned a very large role in the psychotherapy of neuroses, preventing and overcoming deviant behavior, to social feeling, the desire to interact with others, to take into account and develop these needs. He believed that it was this (social) feeling that, if properly implemented, would help to overcome the inferiority complex and use its compensatory energy for the benefit (and not harm) of self and others.

He thus defined the guidelines for the development of a healthy individual, in which the striving for perfection (including an honest struggle for primacy) and a strong social feeling - the striving for interaction with others should be equally and simultaneously combined.

It is important to note that a simultaneous feeling of striving for interaction and self-affirmation is a sign of social health, and not neurotic dependence (herding) on ​​others due to individual weakness, on the one hand, or interaction with others in order to suppress and assert themselves at their expense - on the other hand.

Sometimes neurotic personalities encounter the simultaneous presence of these two negative manifestations: striving for others — not from a healthy social need, but from weakness (including with concealed hatred towards them), and at the same time an attempt to assert itself at the expense of someone who is even weaker or forced endure, as, for example, members of the neurotic family, his whims, and often humiliation from him.

Such perverted reactions are easily tested by household observation. A typical reaction of a socially mature person is the adequacy of communication: the better the treatment is with him, the better he treats you. The neurotic reaction of a socially immature personality, the psychology of a slave - the better with him, the worse he gets (sits on the neck); the worse (stricter) with him, the better he is.

Unfortunately, such social immaturity is quite common. About such people Nekrasov wrote:

Servant people of the name - mere dogs sometimes.

The harder the punishment, the more dear to them by the Lord.

Knowing the attitude of Nekrasov to the people, we are well aware that by the words "people of a servile calling" (as Pushkin in his time in the poem "The Poet and the Black") he meant not the origin and social status, but a certain psychological type of socially immature person, not oriented on internal criteria of responsibility and duty, but only on the fear of punishment.

This lack of internal social maturity and responsibility makes such people and their behavior extremely dependent on external circumstances and environment. They more often than others become deviants ( from English deviation - deviation), that is, under the influence of circumstances, they easily stray from the path of self-realization to deviating, and not only psychoneuroses, sometimes developing to severe forms of neurasthenia and hysteria (including suicidal outcomes), fall more easily into alcohol and drug addiction, under the influence of bad companies, become perpetrators and even criminals.

The main stages of psychotherapy according to A. Adler (and, accordingly, the tasks of the psychotherapist) can be formulated as follows. The psychotherapist must:

- make a clear picture of the individual lifestyle of the client;

- help the client to understand himself (without self-deception) correctly;

- develop and consolidate his social feeling.

To identify and clarify the individual life style of the client, Adler recommended creating a favorable (maximally trusting and benevolent) interview atmosphere in which, with unobtrusive “subdivisions” of the course of the psychotherapist’s conversation, the client talks about his life, beginning with the memories of his earliest childhood.

Here, Adler largely agrees with Freud that neurosis, or rather, the neurotic lifestyle, is crucially shaped from the negative conditions of early childhood. Therefore, it is very important for the psychotherapist to tactfully, but to very thoroughly clarify such negative conditions as spoiledness, on the one hand, or rejection, on the other. Adler believes that it is these two extremes that give rise mainly to the beginnings of a neurotic life style, which then can be modified externally, but in the manner of basic attitudes towards oneself and others, it remains the same.

Only after all these points have been clarified, the psychotherapist should proceed to the next stage, the main task of which is to explain to the client himself the true causes of the problems he could not cope with himself and therefore turned to the psychotherapist.

The main task of Adler considers the client’s awareness of not individual feelings or actions, but first and foremost a real (without self-deception) understanding of an individual life style. Then the individual client’s disturbing thoughts, feelings and actions will fit into a single context of life style and prompt a general (rather than each for a separate case) pattern of their explanation and correction.

A. Adler considered cooperation, the cooperation of the therapist and the client as equal partners, united by a common goal and intermediate tasks (steps) to achieve it, as an important condition for effective psychotherapy.

The psychotherapist should create the most relaxed, benevolent and trusting atmosphere that will allow the client to feel what he lacked in the family, where he was either subjected to hyper-care, or received less attention. Either as a result of indulging all the whims, this individual did not feel certain social (family) requirements and, with apparent freedom, did not receive certain support in these limitations as a habit of doing not always pleasant, but necessary things or recognizing the need for certain limitations of their desires.

Adler's ideas have found wide application not only among professional psychotherapists, but also in various spheres of public life and, perhaps, mainly in the education of children, adolescents and adults (with the goal of their maximum self-realization).

The practical conclusion is simple: the caregiver needs to pass between Scylla (hyper-care) and Charybdis (under-care), which is not always possible to implement.

The optimal educational impact, contributing to the maximum self-disclosure of personal potential, occurs when the educated person (child, student, subordinate) gains independence in all cases, except for those who need help or correction from the educator (parent, teacher, leader). In all other cases, the educator must create a favorable atmosphere for the development of the habit of independence of decisions, their active implementation and acceptance of full personal responsibility for their actions (or inaction), and ultimately for their own fate as a whole.

Of course, the psychoanalytic trend is not limited to the works of Z. Freud, C. Jung and A. Adler, but they are the “three whales”, on which all the other numerous and often extremely interesting “branches” hold in one way or another.

It should be noted that, despite the "divorce" with Freud, and Jung, and Adler, and all other representatives of the psychoanalytic (and other psychotherapeutic) directions and schools, the important role of the unconscious, protective mechanisms of neurosis and the task of overcoming them .

And if in the lives of these eminent scientists it was not possible to reconcile, in the psychotherapeutic theory and practice this was done to a certain extent by Roberto Assagioli, the author of the famous “psychosynthesis”.