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Alfred Adler Institute

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Creative Power

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Published February 7, 20120, The NASAP Newlsetter (TNN), Erik Mansager, PhD

Twenty years ago now, Leo Gold and I (2000) took a closer look at the construct “life tasks” and the Dreikursian expansion from 3 to 5. This opened a wide-ranging theoretical discussion as we questioned whether expansions (including to 7, 10 and more) were theoretically coherent and clinically helpful. A consensus of sorts was developed in culminating the discussion (Mansager, et al., 2002).

That was a fresh opener for analyzing the place of Dreikurs in modifying Adler’s theory, therapy, and training approaches. It wasn’t the first time. As the recent article, “Respecting Differences” (2019), points out, Jane Griffith and her late husband, Robert L. Powers, had explored theoretical variance between Adler and Dreikurs quite thoroughly back in the 1980s. Nonetheless, the recent article has begun a deeper look at these modifications and discrepancies.

The position Classical Adlerian Depth Psychotherapy (CADP) represents is of encouraging counselors and therapists to study the original Adler again – in a thorough and creative way. We believe there is much of Adler that has been overlooked by the systemization that Dreikurs initiated and on which Dreikursian literature expounds.

In this installment, I’d like to consider another of Adler’s constructs: “creative power.” What is it and how does it apply to Individual Psychology?

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Just to Clarify…

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The following article was mailed out as an addendum on December 19, 2019 to Nov/Dec NASAP Newsletter after having been inadvertently omitted. Included here are NASAP Newsletter editor Candace Sneed's comments.

Hi again Adlerian friends!
Please be advised that, within the transitioning of editors, a wonderful and well-loved column did not make it into the December newsletter.  In order to remedy this mistake, I offered to send out Erik Mansager's Adler in Depth and Breadth column separately - to which he graciously accepted the editor's apologies and separate distribution.  I hope you will forgive we editors for the faux pas and that you will greatly enjoy this wonderful contribution to our newsletter!
Kind Regards, 
Candace Sneed, NASAP Newsletter Editor

Days before Henry Stein and I were invited to write for next year’s special issue of The Journal of Individual Psychology – celebrating the 150th anniversary of Adler’s birth – Henry was contacted by a seasoned clinician who had a question about Classical Adlerian Depth Psychotherapy (CADP). The clinician had been stymied by the way the authors of Adlerian Psychotherapy (2018) had described CADP and asked Henry if it was accurate:

This approach is a long-term treatment that is similar to psychoanalysis and is the form of Adlerian psychotherapy practiced in many European countries. (p. 23)

Henry and the clinician spent fruitful time discussing the concern, and this column gives an opportunity to share those deliberations.

CADP isn’t European, psychoanalytic, or exclusively long-term.

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Alfred Adler, the Man, as Seen by a Student and Friend

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Published September 1997, Individual Psychology, Vol. 53, No. 3, the University of Texas Press. By Rowena Ansbacher.

How intriguing, and how useful, is the memory of a first meeting apt to be! It reminds one of the significance attached generally to one's "early recollections" by Adlerian­ Psychology. My first contact with Dr. Adler was at the end of my senior year at Barnard College, in New York, in the spring of 1927. This was probably during his first lecture tour in the United States, a time when he was a most eagerly pursued bringer-of-light-from-Vienna. For me, a psychology major who was to have the good for­ tune of spending some time with my family in Vienna the following year, the thought of making contact with so famous a figure from there was most exciting. I was al­ready planning to study at the University of Vienna, and my revered psychology professor at Barnard College, Harry L. Hollingworth, had encouraged me to do so and had also spoken well of Adler.

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Growing the Dialogue

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Published June 15, 2019, The NASAP Newlsetter (TNN), Erik Mansager, PhD

It was this same time last year that “Adler in-Depth (and breadth)” first appeared in The NASAP Newsletter. The column has intended (= aimed) to reawaken the spirit of Adler’s whole-theory and therapy among current Adlerian practitioners. At the 2018 NASAP conference in Toronto we re-introduced the idea of Classical Adlerian Depth Psychotherapy (CADP) to NASAP in little ways: a poster presentation, published articles were made available, and CADP books were distributed among several students and offered for the silent auction. Just this month in Tucson, at the 2019 NASAP conference, we were a little more present with three workshops being offered during the main-conference.

The attendance at each was heartening – even when the attendees didn’t agree with all that was presented, they were respectful, candid and interested in the dialogue. I’m happy to say the CADP discourse seems to be well-underway. The following are what I consider some highlights at each of the workshops.

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An Adlerian Renaissance

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Published April 10, 2019, The NASAP Newsletter (TNN), Erik Mansager, PhD

Ahead to Adler? Ahead to Adler!

Including this issue, for six NASAP Newsletters I’ve shared ideas about Adler as a depth psychologist and the impact of his theory on depth psychotherapy. As I write this installment, I hope that the information presented has been accessible, stimulating and useful.

The point of the column has been to introduce readers to another way of looking at Adler, his theory, and his therapy. This isn’t a new way – but one that has been around since he was providing therapy himself.

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Moving Ahead to Adler

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Published February 18, 2019, The NASAP Newsletter (TNN), Erik Mansager, PhD

Many thanks to those who sent comments about the last column. I think these observations are representative:

I might quibble with your term “clinical constructs.” I would call the subject of your article “dynamics” or “psychodynamics.” I have said to my students for a long time that IP has a unique and exciting set of psychodynamics, starting, in my mind, with teleological movement.

I really like what you have done here. You provide a model for a case conceptualization. In my practice I try to share a case conceptualization with the client and work together with them as therapy progresses.

I certainly agree that ours is “a unique and exciting set of psychodynamics”! For now, let me use that as a segue to the subject of “depth” in Adlerian psychology.

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Adler’s Clinical Constructs

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Published December 26, 2018, The NASAP Newsletter (TNN), Erik Mansager, PhD

Last time this column focused on the general therapeutic aim of Classical Adlerian Depth Psychotherapy (CADP). This time the focus is a bit more specific by looking at the application of the clinical constructs related to Adler’s comprehensive model.

These clinical constructs are not the same as the philosophical constructs of Adler’s theory: existentialism, holism, phenomenology, social embeddedness, subjectivism, teleology. Clearly, Adler steeped himself in a broad philosophical world view. He was not only among the first psychotherapists to think within this context but likely the first to think along these specific philosophical lines. Today, the philosophical constructs constitute the basis of similarity between Individual Psychology and most current therapies. But what still distinguishes Adler’s therapeutic approach from other therapies is his range of specific clinical constructs.

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Dissolving the Life Style?

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Published October 11, 2018, The NASAP Newsletter (TNN), Erik Mansager, PhD

Maybe in this third installment it’s time to share a little of what classical Adlerian depth psychotherapy aims for in practice. What is the clinical focus of our work, and how might that differ from the way others practice Adlerian counseling or therapy?

How about we start at the finish: the goal. The betterment of humanity was Adler’s big target – and this made the wellbeing of the individual and the welfare of the community equally important. You can’t have one without the other. His grasp of democratic living was not a “representative” model where some are expendable while others represent the welfare of all. No, Adler understood the world could work optimally only when each individual felt safe and secure. Under such conditions, each individual could contribute to the whole – and the secure whole was the assurance that no individual would be left out. The welfare of the community is assured by the individuals’ willingness to make the contribution they are capable of providing.

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Respecting Differences: Adler and Dreikurs

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Conference Event: Individual Psychology in the Current World: Best Practices
Hosted by: International Association of Individual Psychology
November 19th, 2018
Vienna, Austria

Erik Mansager, past NASAP president, will discuss his ideas about a difference in the views of Adler and Dreikurs. Adler taught that the goal of the personality is the Persönlichkeitsideal (personality ideal), while Dreikurs asserted that it is to belong. Erik indicates, that efforts to persuade Adlerians that Adler propagated “to belong” as the goal of the personality, provide no convincing evidence of this, either in Adler’s written material or in the writings of his biographers. The presentation proposes to accept the goal of the personality as a genuine difference between the two men.

Read Erik’s Full Presentation Here

Living, Practicing and Teaching Classical Adlerian Depth Psychotherapy