Alfred Adler's Contributions to Hypnotherapy

In 1972 and 1973, I went through four quarters of Clinical Pastoral Education (C.P.E.) at Waiter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. When I went there, I was a very outgoing person but inside, I felt inferior. When someone gave me a compliment, I would smile and say "Thank you," but inside I would discount the compliment.

During the second quarter of C.P.E., our supervisor Chaplain Ray Stephens assigned each student, two pioneer psychologist to present a class on each. I was assigned to report on Alfred Adler and Viktor Frankl. As I prepared those two classes, I began to notice a change in how I felt about myself. I recognized that I could overcome my inferiority feelings (Adler) and that I could have meaning and purpose in my life (Frankl). As a result of those two classes, I went from low man on the totem pole to a class leader. The transformation I experienced (physically, emotionally and spiritually) could be compared to a conversion experience. Adler and Frankl have contributed to my understanding of human personality and how I relate to an individual in the therapeutic situation. ?œA Tribute to Viktor Frankl??will follow in a future issue of The Journal of Hypnotism.

Thyra Boldes once wrote of Adler that he was real, whether he was joking or serious, whether in private discussion or lectures, his real personality always seemed to say, "life is holy have reverence for life, every thing which happens is important.

In his youth, Adler was a sickly child which caused him embarrassment and pain. These early experiences with illnesses and accidents probably account for his theory of organ inferiority and were the foundation for his theories on inferiority feelings. According to Adler, each individual has a weak area in their body (organ inferiority) which tends to be the area where illness occurs - such as the stomach, head, heart, back, lungs, etc.. From his understanding of organ inferiority, Adler began to see each individual as having a feeling of inferiority. Adler wrote, "To be a human being means to feel oneself inferior." The child comes into the world as a helpless little creature surrounded by powerful adults. A child is motivated by feelings of inferiority to strive for greater things. Those feelings of inferiority activate a person to strive upward so that normal feelings of inferiority activate a person to strive upward so that normal feelings of inferiority impel the human being to solve his problems successful, whereas the inferiority complex impedes or prevents him from doing so.

The healthy individual will strive to overcome her inferiority through involvement with society. She is concerned about the welfare of others as well as herself. She develops good feelings of self-worth and self-assurance. On the other hand, some are more concerned with selfishness than with social interest. She may express this selfishness in a need to dominate, to refuse to cooperate, wanting to take and not to give. From these unhealthy responses, the person develops an inferiority complex or a superiority complex. A superiority complex is a cover up for an inferiority complex. They are different sides of the same coin. The person with the superiority complex has hidden doubts about her abilities.

Adler describes four basic life styles: (1) The first type is well-adjusted and does not strive for personal superiority but seeks to solve his problems in ways that are useful to others as well as himself. (2) The second type wants to prove his personal superiority by ruling others. (3) The third type wants to get everything though others without an effort or struggle on his own (4) The fourth type avoids every decision. Adler believed that an almost radical change in character and behavior will take place when the individual adopts new goals. The way to help a person with any negative responsive life style is to help the person move form reacting wrongly to life by changing his way of viewing life. People can change, the past can be released so that the individual is free to be happy in the present and future.

Adler's Fictional Finalism is an interesting concept for hypnotherapist. Fictional finalism simply states that people act as much from the "as if' as from reality. One of my understandings of the subconscious mind is that whatever the subconscious mind accepts as true, it acts "as if' it is true whether it is or not. When one imagines tasting a lemon, he month waters and often taste the lemon "as if' there really was a lemon to lick. "Style of life" or "life style" are common terms for us today. It may come as surprise to many that Alfred Adler coined those phrases. ?œStyle of life?? is the recurrent theme in all of Adler's later writings and the most distinctive feature of his psychology. For Adler, the individual's STYLE OF LIFE is one's personality, the unity of the personality, the individual form of creative opinion about oneself, the problems of life and his whole attitude to life and others.

Each person has a specific goal that is all his own and make him different from any other person. As he follows that goal, he adapts early in life a specific technique for attaining it. The child may feel that he is helpless and that he can have life only by gaining the support of others. Throughout his life he will be unable to assert himself constructively, to take direct initiative for his own destiny. He may develop an illness or disability that demands the care of others. As the illness develops, it becomes a compensation for the individual's failure. He may then say, "If I didn't have this illness, I could succeed as easily as anyone else." The style of life becomes fixed for the individual must cling to his illness or the bluff of his claim of possible accomplishment would be recognized. The illness must be convincing enough, both to himself and others, to maintain the pretence. The patient is not consciously aware that his illness is an excuse for none fulfillment. Adler wrote, "His chief occupation is to look for other people to take his burden into account and thus wins his way to privilege life, judged by more lenient standard than others. At the same time, he pays the cost of it with his neurosis." No one is forced to continue all his life in one direction for when he realizes his mistakes, he can change his style of life and rid himself of those barriers to a meaningful life.

Adler believed that the style of life came from early experiences but unlike Freud, the determinist, Adler wrote, "We do not suffer from the shock of our experience, the so-called trauma, but we make out them just what suits our purpose. We are self-determined by the meaning we give our own experiences. We are masters of our own actions."

Adler believed that the order of birth is an important determiner of personality. The first born is given a great deal of attention until the second child is born and the first is dethroned. The dethroning experience may affect the child in a number of ways such as hatred for the second child, conservatism, insecurity, or may cause a striving to protect other and be a helper. The second child is in a different situation for he shares attention from the beginning which may cause him to be more cooperative or competitive. He may strive to surpass the older child. All other children are dethroned but never the youngest who is often spoiled. He may seek to be taken care of by others or strive to overcome all others.

Some favorite questions of Adler were: "And why do you feel like that?" "What purposed does your illness serve?" "What do you think is the reason for your reacting that way?" The interpretation puts an emphasis on the individual's goal and life style. The Mirror Technique is used whereby the individual looks at himself. Adler compares the client with a person who is caught in a dark room and cannot find an exit. The therapist helps the client illuminate the room so that she can find a way out to a new way of dealing with the problem. Adler wrote, "Every individual represents both a unity of personality and the individual fashions that unity. The individual is thus both the picture and the artist. Therefore if one can change her concept of herself, she can change the picture she is painting.

Adler had very little to say about hypnosis, but what little he did say indicates that he did not understand the clinical possibilities of hypnosis. He recognized that no one can be hypnotized against his will. He did believe that the individual who allowed himself to be hypnotized placed himself under the power of the hypnotist. In spite of his misunderstanding of hypnosis, he offers a lot to the hypnotherapist with his Fictional Finalism, Mirror Technique, Family Constellation, and his understanding of Inferiority Feelings and Inferiority Complex.