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What Life Could Mean to You, by Alfred Adler
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This is an outline of many of the key ideas of Alfred Adler's psycho-social approach to the understanding of human nature. He explains how discouragement, criticism and lack of affection can limit the potential of an individual and shows how we can overcome these negative effects and develop courage and confidence. The author has also written "Understanding Human Nature".
- Sales Rank: #273052 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Oneworld Pubns Ltd
- Published on: 1992-09
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 5.75" w x .75" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 256 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
About the Author
Colin Brett is an accredited Adlerian counselor and former Training Officer of the Adlerian Society of Great Britain. He is the translator of Adler's Understanding Human Nature and the editor of What Life Could Mean to You.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Five Stars
By Amazon Customer
Very good book, especially for parents!!
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Hubris and Pretense
By Aaron R. Olson
Reading Adler’s book was more like reading the writing of a religious zealot than the writings of a scientist or psychologist. The word “should” for example appears more than 100 times in this book. It is funny how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy recommends getting rid of the shoulds, musts and absolutes in order to resolve neurotic thinking, yet Adler does the opposite.
Adler writes statement after statement about the causes of neurosis without giving a shred of empirical evidence to back up his claims. For example, regarding criminal behavior, he writes, “In all criminal cases, whether they are correctly described or not, we can see the influence of a mistaken childhood”. Adler simply assumes that committing a crime must stem from improper childhood upbringing, without giving any support for his claim.
Adler believes that if we are to live well we must rise to an angelic level of morality and care deeply about the whole of mankind in our everyday existence. For example, he writes: "Life means — to be interested in my fellow men, to be part of the whole, to contribute my share to the welfare of mankind." Of course I care about mankind and my fellow human beings, but in my day-to-day life, how often am I supposed to think about such lofty matters? Must we all become enlightened philosophers in order to live well?
When Adler writes about social cooperation, he does not account for the spontaneous social order and well-being that can emerge through people acting in their own self-interest. Adam Smith realized this 100 years earlier when he wrote , “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages”.
It is possible that kindness, cooperation and goodwill can occur through the mutually beneficial exchanges of goods and services. If I try to take advantage of another person by selling shoddy goods in exchange for some of his goods or services, what are the chances that he will exchange with me in the future? Rather than insisting that we concern ourselves with the good of all humankind, we simply need to focus on the day-to-day honesty and goodness that we treat our friends, family and those we interact with. Humans evolved in small clans of hunter-gathers, where they looked out for each other. Asking us to rise to the level where we are supposed to think about the good of all humankind is too loft of a standard. Moreover, it assumes a level of knowledge that none of us has.
Adler assumes a level of knowledge that is beyond himself and beyond all of us. Fredrick Hayek called this the “pretense of knowledge”. The truth is that it is difficult to know what will benefit “all of humanity”. It is better to focus on your own affairs - how to you treat your family, friends and those you buy or sell goods from. Since we live in a global marketplace, we interact with millions of people on a daily basis, spontaneously enriching each others lives through mutually beneficial voluntary exchanges.
Adler also thinks that most of our personal problems are really social problems. The main thesis of his book is that all neurosis stem from improper upbringing, improper structuring of society, and improper understanding. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that my neurotic thinking and behavior is caused by my own irrational thinking, not because of my lack of understanding, or societies impartial treatment of me. For example, I see depression and anxiety as being trapped in a prison where you are both the prisoner and the cruel jailor.
Adler seems to want to put the blame for neurosis on our parents and society. He believes that if we can simply learn to cooperate with one another, all our neurotic thinking will vanish. For example, he writes, “all our problems need a knowledge of cooperation” and “All failures — neurotics, psychotics, criminals, drunkards, problem children, suicides, perverts and prostitutes — are failures because they are lacking in fellow-feeling and social interest.”
Adler could not extricate himself from the fashionable intellectual thought of his day. You can see this in his labeling homosexuals as “perverts” and believing that homosexuals must have had a mistaken upbringing.
I find his writing on child rearing especially mistaken. He doesn’t think it is healthy for an infant to sleep in the same room as his parents and thinks you shouldn’t give a child too much affection! He writes, “children should not be physically stimulated. Often parents are very affectionate with their children and their children affectionate with them. To increase the affection of the children they are always hugging them and kissing them. They know that this is not the right way. They should not be so cruel. They should not stimulate the affections of the child. Nor should a child be stimulated mentally.”
In regards too sleeping arrangements he writes, “If it is possible, the children should not sleep in the same room with the parents, let alone in the same bed; and it is also advisable that they should not sleep in the same room with a sister or brother.” This is bizarre because for most of human history family’s shared small houses, huts and teepees where they all lived in the same room! How is it that now, all of the sudden Adler has the pretense to advise something completely contrary to the situation that humans have been adapted to for millennia?
In his writing on dating, he says that women are not encouraged to approach a man to ask him out on a date simply because our society does not encourage it. From an evolutionary standpoint it makes sense that women do not approach the man first. It is simply biology that dictates the woman will be the one who becomes pregnant and do most of the child rearing during the first years of life. She has the womb and mammary gland to feed the infant. From an evolutionary standpoint she is wise to choose her mate carefully, finding a male who is caring and will provide food and protection during the early years while she is doing the laborious task of feeding her infant. She needs to evaluate a mate carefully and probably doesn’t gain much by seeking out a mate, but rather letting the men come to her. Only recently has she been able to outsource some of the laborious tasks of childrearing to others through the invention of bottle feeding and pureed baby foods. Asking society to accept new standards that go against nature should be thought through with care that Adler does not take.
In regards to divorce, he believes the a psychiatrist should make the decision. He writes, “Are we going to put it in the hands of people who themselves are not rightly taught, who themselves do not understand that marriage is a task, who themselves are interested only in their own persons? They would look at divorce in the same way as they look at marriage: "What can be got out of it?” These are obviously not the people to decide....Perhaps we might imagine that if something is wrong with a marriage, a psychiatrist should decide whether or not it should be broken.” This is where Adler’s pretense of knowledge turns to outright hubris. How could such an important decision be outsourced to anyone other than the two people in a marriage? What benefit would it bring to keep people in a marriage when it is no longer beneficial to them? Adler seems to believe that only the self-anointed psychiatrists have the wisdom to make such an important decision. He places the psychiatrist in the same position that the church places priests. At this point it is as if he is calling of a secular priesthood who would make decisions about personal matters that belong to individuals.
I find Adler’s book to be at best armchair philosophizing, at worst it is religious dogma from a self-anointed secular priest.
30 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
Adler Superior to Contemporary Popular Psychology
By A Customer
It is remarkable and true that Alred Adler's popular psychology books written 70 years ago are superior to most of the pop psych published today. That is why Adler is still in print. He understood the conflict between feelings of inferiority and striving for superiority. Even more importantly, he explained how fashioning a healthy synthesis of individuality (the creative self) and social interest (energy directed outside, beyond one's self) is the solution to feeling unhappy. Adler avoided the extremes of unrealistic optimism (as in humanistic and positive psychology) and of hopeless pessimism (as seen in Freud and some evolutionary psychology). His vision of psychological health is realistic, very human, and humane. Why read contemporary pop psych when Adler is still in print?
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