The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler Volume 6 Journal Articles: 1927-1931 Structure & Unity of Neurosis Reason, Feeling, & Emotion Dream Theory Alfred Adler New Translations by Gerald L. Liebenau Edited by Henry T. Stein, Ph.D. Classical Adlerian Translation Project © 2004 by Henry T. Stein, Ph.D. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the editor. All inquiries should be sent to Henry T. Stein, Ph.D., Classical Adlerian Translation Project, 2565 Mayflower Lane, Bellingham, WA 98226. Tel (360) 647-5670 or email to [email protected] . Published 2004 by The Classical Adlerian Translation Project. Printed in the United States of America ISBN 0-9715645-6-6 Table of Contents Table of Contents Editor’s Preface 2004.............................................................................................. ii About the Translator .............................................................................................. ii Chapter I: Chapter II: Chapter III: Chapter IV: Chapter V: Chapter VI: Chapter VII: Chapter VIII: Chapter IX: Chapter X: Chapter XI: Chapter XII: Chapter XIII: Chapter XIV: Chapter XV: Chapter XVI: Character and Talent [1927]..........................................................1 The Feeling of Inferiority and the Striving for Recognition [1927] .................................................12 Linkages Between Neurosis and a Joke [1927] ..........................18 More on Individual Psychological Dream Theory [1927] ........21 The Cause and Prevention of Neurosis [1927] ...........................26 Education for Courage [1927] ....................................................33 Individual Psychology and Science [1927] ................................36 Alfred Adler on America [1927] ................................................43 Feelings and Emotions From the Standpoint of Individual Psychology [1927]...............................49 Erotic Training and Erotic Retreat [1927] ..................................54 The Burning of Widows and Widow Neurosis [1927] ...............60 Reason, Intelligence, and FeebleMindedness [1928] ................64 Neurotic Role Play [1928] ..........................................................70 Psychology and Medicine [1928] ...............................................77 The Psychology of Power [1928] ...............................................84 Individual Psychology and the Theory of Neurosis [1929] ........88 Chapter XVII: A Consultation [1929] ................................................................96 Chapter XVIII: Sleeplessness [1929] .................................................................107 Chapter XIX: Chapter XX: Chapter XXI: Chapter XXII: A Case of Enuresis Diurnal [1930] ..........................................149 Chapter XXIII: Individual Psychology and Crime [1930] .................................159 Chapter XXIV: The Meaning of Life [1931] .....................................................170 Chapter XXV: Trick and Neurosis [1931] ........................................................178 Chapter XXVI: The Structure of Neurosis [1931] .............................................186 The Individual Criminal and His Cure [1929] .........................111 Individual Psychology [1930] ..................................................124 Again—The Unity of the Neuroses [1930] ..............................135 Index .........................................................................................195 Appendix: “Basic Principles of Classical Adlerian Psychology” ...............................................216 i Editor’s Preface - 2004 Editor’s Preface - 2004 This volume opens with a provocative article wherein Adler challenges traditonal assumptions about character and talent, and argues his belief in the potential of intensive training. In twenty-six articles published from 1927 to 1931, Adler devotes several to the varied aspects of neurosis, including: cause, prevention, structure, unity, theory, role-playing, and the similarities to tricks and jokes. In three articles, he amplifies earlier discussions of dream theory, including the related issues of sleeplessness, and enuresis. Two articles address crime and criminals, while another offers a penetrating, timely insight into the psychology of power. Several miscellaneous topics are discussed in articles covering: courage, feelings, emotions, reason, intelligence, mental retardation, and an unusual issue, widow neurosis. Perhaps the most controversial article of all is “Alfred Adler on America,” notes taken at one of his lectures by a physician, where Adler compares the American and European cultures, critiquing our preoccupation with ambition, competition, and speed, as well as our tendency to pamper children. One of the most important statements of his philosophical position appears in “The Meaning of Life,” translated by Sophia de Vries. From this article, we can see why Alexander Mueller considered Individual Psychology a dynamic stimulus to the discipline of philosophical anthropology. The odyssey of completing “The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler” has now spanned nearly fifteen years. Hampered by limited personal funding for costly translations and only a couple of volunteer editors to assist with the thousands of hours of editing and proofing, the project has slowly, but steadily progressed. The task of being faithful to Adler’s meaning and style, yet providing the reader with minimal hindrances to understanding, proved to be more difficult than initially anticipated. Adler’s spontaneous, sometimes wandering lecture style is not always easy to follow on the page. We hope our careful revisions will make a deep study of Adler’s writings much more manageable.. For readers unfamiliar with Adler’s ideas, a brief overview, titled “Basic Principles of Classical Adlerian Psychology,” is included in the appendix. Other comprehensive articles, titled “Classical Adlerian Theory and Practice” and “A Psychology of Democracy” have been published in Volumes 1 & 2 of The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler. About the Translator - Gerald L. Liebenau Gerald L. Liebenau was born in Berlin, Germany. During World War II he served with the Office of Strategic Services as an interpreter and translator. He graduated from Yale University and embarked on a career with the Central Intelligence Agency. He is the translator of Nicholas Gonner's Luxemburgers in the New World, and Janusz Piekalkiewicz's World History of Espionage. He currently resides in Arlington, Virginia. ii Chapter I Character and Talent1 [1927] The thesis advanced by the group of psychological thinkers known as the Individual Psychologists--the thesis that talent is not inherited, and that the possibilities and potentialities of any individual for performance are not fixed- has been a bombshell in the camp of the old-line academic psychologists. Individual Psychology has given evidence to show that talent, potentiality, endowment, special gifts are merely elements in the structure of an individual. It has been further shown that these elements may be variously employed, depending upon their relation to the total activity of the individual. The Individual Psychologists have decided to understand the totality of the individual before regarding the partial phenomena of his existence. They hold that a partial phenomenon, such as a talent, a gift, an endowment, can be properly understood only when the total is first known and thoroughly understood. In other words, we can judge the potential performance of an individual in some specific situation only when we can determine his total reactions, his total behavior pattern, his general style of life, his "distance" from the normal goal of life. An example will show us how valueless any other viewpoint than that of Individual Psychology becomes in the face of an actual problem. Consider the case of a thirteen-year-old boy who gives the general impression of a backward, mentally retarded, neglected child. He has not made the usual progress at school, has been forced to repeat several grades, and is brought to a social agency because of thievery and vagabondage. The reports concerning this boy are uniformly bad. He is irritable, unsocial, has a poor memory, is unable to concentrate, inattentive. These reports are the results of psychological tests as well as the schoolroom experiences of his various teachers. Closer study of his character and history shows that he was the younger of two children for some eight years, during which time he was inordinately spoiled by his mother. Then his younger brother was born, and at the same time financial difficulties occurred in his family, with the result that the mother had to leave the home to help earn a living. The net result was that the boy began to receive far less attention and love than he had previously been accustomed to experiencing. School, therefore, found him in an entirely new situation. His thievery occurred chiefly outside of his own home; but everything that he gained by stealing he gave away as presents to other children, in order to gain their friendship and affection. We can see by this incident that we should not make final conclusions when we brand a child as a "thief." 1 Originally Published in Harper's Magazine, June 1927. Translated by Walter Beran Wolfe, M.D. Edited to improve readability by Laurie J. Stein, 2004. We next learn that this child often ran away from home when his father was particularly brutal to him, but that he always managed to deposit a bundle of stolen kindling on the doorstep for his mother to cook with. This done, he spent the nights in the streets, sleeping in alleyways or old barns. We can hardly evaluate this "truancy" or "delinquency" according to the timeworn conceptions. It is quite evident that his thievery is more than mere stealing, and his truancy more than running away from school. And we must call attention here to the inadequacy of branding the actions of an individual with some set label and then believing that we have understood him! This "delinquency" and this "thievery" mean something different. It is as though this boy were saying, "I want to force my parents into a situation in which they will pay more attention to me, love me more, sympathize with me. I can best do this by showing my mother that I care for her needs!" I should like to ask whether there is anyone who could suggest to a boy like this, for whom normal activity in the schoolroom seems hopelessly distant because of his bad preparation for life, a better method of winning the affection and love of his parents and school friends than he has chosen? I shall later show why this normal activity seems to him so impossible of realization. For the present I simply want to indicate that we cannot call such a child "delinquent," "criminal," or "backward." If we want to characterize this boy, we could say that he is a child who demands and needs an inordinate amount of motherly love. That he seeks this affection in an asocial way, which he does not particularly like, is because the normal approach to his goal seems to him effectually barred by circumstances. The normal paths to affection would be industry and progress in school, giving pleasure to his parents and teachers by helpfulness, attention to work, etc. But we have already heard that he was a spoiled child. It is the characteristic of all spoiled children that they cannot change the behavior pattern which they have developed as a result of being spoiled. It is their tragedy. A child has formed and shaped his behavior pattern at the end of his third year of life. A change in the nature of his character as a result of external influences seldom occurs thereafter. Particularly in the case of a child with the behavior pattern of the spoiled child. Such a child never learns from experience. His experiences, good and bad, are all assimilated into his pattern. He takes an experience and twists, turns, distorts, reshapes it until it fits into his predetermined scheme of things. Naturally, he does not want to go to school, because the warmth and affection which he is used to is found in greater abundance at home. As a result, he comes to school on the first day against his will and resistant to all attempts at instruction. His teachers will say that he is inattentive, lacks concentration, daydreams, spoils the games of other children, cannot concentrate, has a bad memory. All these things are explained when we know that he has an entirely different goal in life than that of a normal schoolboy. The truth is that our boy finds himself in a new situation for which he was never adequately prepared. And in this situation occurs the tragedy of the petted child. He is always right! Since he does not play the game in school, school becomes a very unpleasant place for him. To make matters worse, he now finds his home also unpleasant. Bad school reports turn his mother against him. She does not show her love and affection to the same degree as before. The child blames the school for his misfortune at home, but he does not change his style of life. Love and affection he must have. He seeks it in other places, and with other means. Enough for our example. It proves very simply that when someone characterizes an individual with a definite character trait we really know nothing about him. We are in much the same situation as a musician who is asked for his opinion of a symphony after hearing three chords. But let the musician be acquainted with musical history, play him a simple melody, and he will be able to say "That is Bach!" or "That is Wagner!" We cannot judge a personality unless we have its dominant motif, unless we understand it as a totality. II The Individual Psychologists have also shown that the development of a personality cannot be foretold from the phenomena of physical inheritance. The inherited instruments with which we fight the battle of life are extremely varied. How we use these instruments, however, is the important thing. We can never tell what actions will characterize a man if we know only whence he comes. But if we know whither he is going, we can prophesy his steps and movements toward his objective. It is for this reason that we have found the concept of goal-attainment, of goal-appropriateness, the essential one for the understanding of human behavior. In the case of our boy, knowing that his purpose in life is to achieve warmth and affection, we can understand the means that he will choose toward that end. And we know also what our therapeutic approach must be, for we understand the tragedy of this child's life. Suppose, for instance, that we could discover that the father and the grandfather of this child were also thieves. This would in no way be responsible for the activity of this particular boy. To be sure, it is interesting to know just why the boy should choose thievery as a means of gaining love and affection. This issue must be cleared up in order to rule out a possible hereditary influence. But we shall clear up this point, too. In the earliest remembrances of childhood, we often find the key to later activities. Among this boy's earliest remembrances is the following: He recollects that he was present at the burning of a delivery truck. The men on the truck threw many rubber balls out on the street, in order to save them from the fire. Children and adults who had gathered around the burning delivery truck seized upon these balls as the acknowledged booty of the onlookers. Nobody seemed to have any scruples about helping himself to this property. This remembrance served the boy as a model, as a training, if you will, for his future career as a thief. He found that there were, so to speak, extenuating circumstances even in thievery. Later, when the normal development of a child seemed barred to him, he chose the way to enrichment and power for which this scene had prepared him. A word now about his development in school. In kindergarten things went rather well. He had a very tender, loving teacher, who was not unlike his mother. But in the primary grades he met a very strict, stern teacher. He immediately withdrew into himself, failed miserably in class, and resigned himself to the conduct mentioned above as a protest. The great majority of our opponents believe the really important factors in the development of a character or personality are hereditary and congenital. These opponents are always anxious to show that subsequent developmental "trends" modify the result. In support of this theory they often make very keen observations, as for instance Kretschmer and his school. We do not deny the findings of Kretschmer; in fact, we have anticipated them long ago when we stated that if an individual gets off to a bad start in life, by reason of congenital defects or hereditary anomalies, it requires an extraordinarily beneficent environment to prevent him from developing a warped style of life. Lacking this beneficent influence of a fostering environment, the individual assumes a false and unwholesome behavior pattern which fits perfectly with his defectively developed physique, his inadequate endocrines, his sickly condition. He is just like a man on a slippery incline: if he falls and sprains his ankle, it is not to be wondered at. But wondering is not enough. We must attempt to keep him erect, and actually that is what we have succeeded in doing.
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