Adlerian psychotherapy strives to create an understanding of the client’s ways of thinking and the context with the ultimate aim of changing the client’s attitudes, lifestyle choices and beliefs that are detrimental to their success in achieving their desired goals. This approach seeks to have a clear understanding of a person in totality to establish a most effective course of psychotherapy. The Adlerian approach is comprised of four stages: engagement, assessment, insight and reorientation (Individual Psychology) .
The Adlerian approach places importance on an understanding of the nature of people. Adlerian perception of people is that they are creative, responsible, connected and social beings whose actions and behavior are aimed towards certain goals (Individual Psychology) . Adler believed that everyone develops some sense of inferiority and to cope with these feelings of inferiority, people develop an innate drive referred to by Adler as the striving for superiority. It is this drive, alongside social interest, that propels people to compensate for feelings of inferiority and gain power to erase the sense of weakness and powerlessness (Individual Psychology) .
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Family constellation describes how family members interact, the investigation of which is crucial to understanding how individuals view themselves vis-à-vis the parental and sibling relations. Through an investigation of family constellation, a counselor is able to appreciate that children develop personalities based on their interpretations of their birth order positions in the family relative to their siblings. Consequently, individuals with the same birth order may share some commonalities (Individual Psychology) .
The client and counselor’s relationship in the Adlerian approach is cooperative. This connection facilitates the client’s openness and activity in challenging assumptions. The counselor sets goals, discusses concerns and follows through on plans to emphasize the benefits of the client’s involvement in the therapeutic relationship. Effective Adlerian counselors favor collaboration instead of assuming responsibility for change and taking total control. They see things from the client’s perspective, understand the purpose of the client’s behavior and illuminate the client’s lifestyle (Individual Psychology) . In Freud’s psychoanalytic approach, sexual tension was viewed as one of the basic human drives while the Adlerian approach views social relationships as central to human drives. Further contrast in these two approaches is that the psychoanalytic approach emphasizes the effects of the narrow scope of early childhood while Adlerian approach focuses on the present and the power of the human mind to consciously create goals and make choices (Individual Psychology) .
In the video, the therapist’s questioning technique is effective since he asks open ended questions that leave room for the boy to give a well though response rather than closed end questions that require yes/no kind of responses (Pearson Education) . His questions are also thought provoking and get the boy to evaluate his thoughts, feelings and possible solutions in relation to the taunting that is the cause of his frustration. The counselor for instance, gets the boy to evaluate the source of his frustration when he asks him whether he thinks that taunting is the only cause for the frustration and whether he thinks he will always be frustrated being part of the large family (Pearson Education) . The therapist’s focus on the situation between the boy and his siblings is meant to help him gain a better understanding of the role the family constellation in the boy’s plight and the views he has of himself in relation to his birth order in the family. In suggesting to work with the boy’s mother to reduce the taunting at home, the therapist aims to spur encouragement and social interest, which is illustrative of the Adlerian approach’s immediate goals.
References
Individual Psychology. (n.d.).
Pearson Education. (n.d.). Identifying a Specific Problem. Retrieved April 25, 2018, from http://media.pearsoncmg.com/pls/mn/capella/21271739520/mhl_11_279.html
