Intervention & Strategies in Counseling and Psychotherapy

Richard E. Watts, Jon Carlson

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138142787
• eBook ISBN: 9781135058531
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Psychology has recently shifted toward a phenomological approach closely aligned with theories originally put forth by noted psychologist Alfred Adler. However, modern approaches are often presented in a language that differs from the original theories, with no acknowledgment to the contributions of Adler.

Interventions andStrategies in Counseling and Psychotherapy corrects this oversight, illustrating the many ways in which Adlerian ideas underpin and influence contemporary therapeutic approaches. Original chapters by leading thinkers in the field address the practice of counseling and psychotherapy from a social-cognitive perspective and logically combine classic Adlerian theories with proven and effective methods from other approaches. The book covers a wide range of topics including play therapy, parent education, couples therapy, and problem-solving counseling.

This book is essential reading not only for Adlerian psychologists, but also counselors, psychologists, and psychotherapists of any theoretical stripe who wish to keep their practical skills up-to-date. It is also of use to graduate and doctoral students enrolled in counseling and psychology programs.

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CHAPTER

Richard E. Watts

The Vision of Adler: An Introduction

According to Albert Ellis (1970), “Alfred Adler, more than even Freud, is probably the true father of modern psychotherapy” (p. 11). This quote is indicative of the remarkable vision and influence of Alfred Adler regarding contemporary approaches to counseling and psychotherapy. Adlerians and selected non-Adlerians have noted for some time the apparent influence of Alfred Adler’s work on many theories of counseling and psychotherapy developed subsequent to the era of the so-called “three pillars”—Freud, Adler, and Jung. Despite the identification of many apparent lines of influence from Adler to modern theories, these individuals have documented a widespread lack of understanding of Adlerian contributions to mainstream counseling and psychotherapy (e.g., Allen, 1971a; Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956; 1979; Corey, 1996, Ellenberger, 1970; Freeman, 1993; Mosak, 1979; Sherman & Dinkmeyer, 1987; Singer & Salovey, 1993; Sweeney, 1989; Watts & Critelli, 1997). Ansbacher (1979) noted that after Adler’s death in 1937, his name vanished for quite some time, except among the small groups of Adlerians. However, Adler’s ideas were not antiquated. In fact, many were simply ahead of their time and have subsequently reappeared in contemporary approaches to counseling and psychotherapy, albeit with different nomenclature and without reference to Adler.

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce the reader to some of the fundamental tenets of Adlerian counseling and psychotherapy, and then to briefly discuss Adler’s remarkable vision in regard to contemporary constructivist approaches to counseling and psychotherapy.

A Brief Introduction to Adlerian Theory

Adlerian theory is an integration of cognitive, psychodynamic, and systems perspectives (Sperry, 1993). H. L. Ansbacher, a noted Adlerian scholar, described Individual Psychology as a

holistic, phenomenological, teleological, field-theoretical, and socially-oriented approach to psychology and related fields. This approach is based upon the assumption of the uniqueness, self consistency, activity, and creativity of the human individual (style of life); an open dynamic system of motivation (striving for a subjectively conceived goal of success); and an innate potentiality for social life (social interest). (Manaster & Corsini, 1982, p. 2)

Philosophical Underpinnings of Adlerian Theory

The philosophical roots of Adlerian theory are largely found in the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant and the “as if” philosophy of Hans Vaihinger (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956; Ellenberger, 1970; Shulman, 1985). Both Kant and Vaihinger emphasized the proactive, form-giving, and fictional character of human cognition and its role in constructing the “realities” we know and respond to. Adlerian theory assumes that the organism has an inborn program (a Kantian, rather than Lockean perspective), and assumes that humans construct ways of viewing and experiencing the world and then take these fictions for truth (Ellenberger, 1970; Master, 1991; Shulman & Watts, 1997).

An Adlerian View on Human Agency

The Adlerian view of human agency stems chiefly from its aforementioned philosophical underpinnings. Thus, Adlerian theory espouses a proactive—versus reactive and representational—view of human cognition and organism; expressed in the construct known as the creative power of the self or the creative self. In discussing the creative self, Adler stated,

Do not forget the most important fact that not heredity and not environment are determining factors. Both are giving only the frame and the influences which are answered by the individual in regard to his styled creative power (p. xxiv). … The individual is both the picture and the artist. He is the artist of his own personality. (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956, p. 177)

Because of this creative power, people function like actors writing their own scripts, directing their own actions, and constructing their own personalties (Shulman, 1985; Shulman & Watts, 1997). Humans co-create the “realities” to which they respond.

An Adlerian View on Personality

An Overview of Lifestyle. From the beginning, Adler cultivated a concept of a “psychological superstructure” that organized and guided the mental life of the individual (Stepansky, 1983). This “psychological superstructure” is a master plan or cognitive blueprint for coping with the tasks and challenges of life and is called the lifestyle, the Adlerian nomenclature for personality. The lifestyle, unique to each individual, is in Kelly’s (1955) language a personal construct system, containing core constructs. It is uniquely created by the person, begins as a prototype for action in the world, and becomes progressively refined throughout life. Shulman (1973) and Shulman and Mosak (1988) describe the functions of the lifestyle: It organizes and simplifies coping with the world by assigning rules and values; it selects, predicts, anticipates; its perceptions are guided by its own “private logic”; it selects what information it allows to enter, what it will attend to, what affects will be aroused and what its response will be. According to Shulman (1985), the lifestyle contains certain key elements. These include core convictions or constructs about self and the world, and the interrelationship between the two; a construct about what the relationship should be; an image of one’s ideal self; and a plan of action. All of these elements are attitudes, values, and meanings that the individual has creatively constructed in relation to his or her socially embedded context.

This is not to say, however, that the individual is readily aware of the convictions that guide his or her life. Mosak (1979) stated that although the lifestyle is the blueprint or map for coping with experience, it nevertheless remains largely out of one’s awareness, Adler’s process understanding of unconscious. Thus, both the construction of the individual’s unique lifestyle and the goals and core constructs contained therein are also essentially unconscious (Allen, 1971b; Mosak, 1979; Shulman, 1985; Shulman & Watts, 1997).

According to Adlerian theory, the lifestyle is a unity, an organized and integrated whole (Forgus & Shulman, 1979). The lifestyle organizes and maintains the whole perceptual system of the individual, resulting in selective perceptual processing of all incoming information. Exhibiting a confirmatory bias, the organism looks for information confirming the core convictions of the lifestyle, selectively attending to information from experience that confirms what is already believes (Shulman, 1985; Shulman & Watts, 1997). This organismic penchant for perceptual selectivity thus greatly impacts the majority of cognitive functions; memory, learning, expectancy, fantasy, symbol creation.

Lifestyle and the Social Embeddedness of Humans. Adler noted that humans are socially embedded and cannot be understood apart from their social context. In fact, the Adlerian perspective on the tasks of life—love, society, work, spirituality, self—is a strongly relational one. These tasks of life address intimate love relationships, relationships with friends and fellow beings in society, our relationships at work, our relationship with God or the universe, and our relationship with self (Manaster & Corsini, 1982; Mosak, 1979).

The lifestyle emerges from a young child embedded in a social context creating a sense of self in the relational world in which he or she interacts. This social context of children includes both the cultural values of children’s culture of origin and their experiences within their family constellation, Adler’s phrase for the operative influences of the family structure, values, and dynamics. Children, therefore, see others and the world as generally paralleling their first social environment, their family, and eventually frame the larger experience of life—and interpersonal relationships—on the basis of these initial relationships and perceptions (Manaster & Corsini, 1982).

The cardinal tenet of Adler’s theory, social interest, is obviously a social-contextual one. According to Shulman (1985), Adler considered the tendency of human beings to form attachments (social feelings) to be a fact of life. Human striving is always in some way connected with relationships and human bonding. Social interest is the measure by which a person’s movement through life, and thus the person’s lifestyle, is assessed as either socially useful or socially useless. Persons who strive toward life goals in ways that promote the welfare and well-being of fellow humans evidence social interest, and their movement is described as socially useful. Those who strive toward life goals with no regard for humankind evidence diminished social interest, and their movement is described as socially useless. Thus, social interest is Adler’s criteria for mental health (Mosak, 1979).

Aspects of Adlerian Therapy

Assessment. Adlerians take a process view of individuals. Consequently, they do not view assessment as an event that categorizes the client with a static diagnostic label. Assessment is a continual process. Adlerians typically employ a variety of assessment techniques that tend to be more qualitative and idiographic than quantitative and nomothetic; for example, Adlerian’s use of Life Style Analysis and similar forms of assessment (Allen, 1971a; Baruth & Eckstein, 1981; Eckstein, Baruth, & Mahrer, 1982; Gushurst, 1971; Powers & Griffith, 1987; Shulman & Mosak, 1988). This is not to say, however, that Adlerians do not make use of “standardized” assessment instruments and procedures. Whatever means Adlerians use in assessment, the purposes are typically more idiographically informed and are not used to place a static diagnostic label on a unique client or family for purposes of treatment.

Client–Therapist Relationship. Adlerian therapy is commonly viewed as consisting of four stages. The first and, for most Adlerians, most important stage is entitled relationship. Because counseling and psychotherapy occurs in a relational context, Adlerians focus on the development of a respectful, collaborative, and egalitarian therapeutic alliance with clients (e.g., Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956, 1979; Dinkmeyer, Dinkmeyer, & Sperry, 1987; Manaster & Corsini, 1982; Mosak, 1979; Sweeney, 1989; Watts, 1998a). Therapeutic efficacy in the other stages of Adlerian therapy—analysis, insight, reorientation—is predicated upon the development and continuation of a strong therapeutic relationship.

Goal of Adlerian Therapy. The basic goal of Adlerian therapy is to facilitate clients in experiencing new information that is discrepant with existing cognitive structures or lifestyle. Thus, clients have opportunity to create perceptual alternatives and modify or replace growth-inhibiting life themes or “scripts” with ones that are growth-enhancing. The ultimate goal for Adlerians is the development–enhancement of the client’s social interest. Congruent with Adlerian personality theory, the goals of Adlerian therapy also have a relational orientation.

Techniques. Adlerians are technical eclectics. That is, they use a variety of cognitive, behavioral, and experiential techniques. Selected techniques originally attributed to Adlerian therapy include acting “as if,” catching oneself, confrontation, the magic wand technique, prescribing the symptom (paradoxical intention), pushbutton, spitting in the soup, the question, task-setting, and the tentative hypothesis–interpretation (Dinkmeyer, Dinkmeyer, & Sperry, 1987; Manaster & Corsini, 1982; Mosak, 1979; Sweeney, 1989). Additional sources for examining Adlerian techniques include Carlson and Slavik (1997) and Mosak and Maniacci (1998).

The Vision of Adler

Corey (1996) stated that he believed that one of Adler’s most important contributions to the field of counseling and psychotherapy was his influence on other systems. Adler’s influence has been acknowledged by—or his vision traced to—the neo-Freudians (e.g., Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1979; Ellenberger, 1970), existential therapists (e.g., Frankl, 1963, 1970; May, 1970, 1989), person-centered therapy (e.g., Ansbacher, 1990; Watts, 1998a), rational-emot...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Contributors
• Chapter 1 The Vision of Adler: An Introduction
• Chapter 2 Brief Therapy Strategies and Techniques
• Chapter 3 Problem-Solving Counseling: Integrating Adler’s and Glasser’s Theories
• Chapter 4 Hypnotherapy
• Chapter 5 Clinical Therapy
• Chapter 6 Couple Therapy
• Chapter 7 Family Therapy: The Art of Integration
• Chapter 8 Open Forum Family Counseling
• Chapter 9 Play Therapy
• Chapter 10 Parenting Education: Selected Programs and Current and Future Needs
• Chapter 11 The Integration of DSM–IV Diagnoses and Adlerian Psychotherapy
• Chapter 12 The Scientific Study of Adlerian Theory
• Index