Alfred Adler

[Woebot]

i could keep it to myself but thought i would share this book.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Understanding-Human-Nature-Alfred-Adler/dp/1578989841

there are adler videos on YouTube but don't watch them. if you can, read this.

i mention this not explicitly to show off in the book's research i read a monstrous pile of psychoanalysis books: james, freud, jung, reich, berne, perls, janov, fromm, laing, cooper, maslow, grof, assagioli. i read a lot of western philosophy: plato, plotinus, spinoza, kant, nietzsche, bergson, schopenhauer. i read too eastern philosophy: lao-tze, shankara, asvaghosa, ramakrishna, aurobindo, tsong kha pa, shantideva, asanga, dt suzuki. also modern self-help: carnegie, goleman, kabat-zinn.

however, the insights in adler's "understanding human nature" are, in my view, worth all of that and more. it's the single most intelligent and accurate book i've ever read.

 

[luka]

What's he say?

 

[Woebot]

What's he say?

http://www.alfred-adler.us/understanding.pdf

 

[woops]

all i know about adler is he was one of freud's 12 disciples and was big on the different roles of the oldest child, middle child, youngest etc

 

[Woebot]

don't know how that compares with the translation i have by colin brett - but his language seems very elegant and simple so it's probably very good too

 

[Woebot]

all i know about adler is he was one of freud's 12 disciples and was big on the different roles of the oldest child, middle child, youngest etc

freud stole lots of his ideas. he was more of a colleague. was the first to break from freud.

 

[luka]

founder of the school of individual psychology.[2] His emphasis on the importance of feelings of inferiority,[3] the inferiority complex, is recognized as an isolating element which plays a key role in personality development.[4]

 

[luka]

The primary differences between Adler and Freud centered on Adler's contention that the social realm (exteriority) is as important to psychology as is the internal realm (interiority). The dynamics of power and compensation extend beyond sexuality, and gender and politics can be as important as libido.

 

[luka]

Adler always retained a pragmatic approach that was task-oriented. These "Life tasks" are occupation/work, society/friendship, and love/sexuality.

 

[luka]

• The Getting or Leaning They are sensitive people who have developed a shell around themselves which protects them, but they must rely on others to carry them through life's difficulties. They have low energy levels and so become dependent. When overwhelmed, they develop what we typically think of as neurotic symptoms: phobias, obsessions and compulsions, general anxiety, hysteria, amnesias, and so on, depending on individual details of their lifestyle.
• The Avoiding types are those that hate being defeated. They may be successful, but have not taken any risks getting there. They are likely to have low social contact in fear of rejection or defeat in any way.
• The Ruling or Dominant type strive for power and are willing to manipulate situations and people, anything to get their way. People of this type are also prone to anti-social behavior.
• The Socially Useful types are those who are very outgoing and very active. They have a lot of social contact and strive to make changes for the good.

 

[luka]

I think I understand it now.

 

[woops]

quick lads, the thread is now about which of the above you think you are, i am a classic L/A

 

[luka]

Is this linked to what @suspendedreason was saying in the lobster thread? That we are hardwired for dominance and submission?

 

[luka]

That every interaction is a story of dominance and submission and the further down the pecking order we are the more sickly the more sad the more dying.

 

[luka]

There's a lot to be said for that. It's clearly true at some level. If I think about my friend who went mad I can't help connecting it with his job as a street sweeper.

This sense of society saying to some people, well you are only fit to pick up the litter we drop behind us. That's where you belong. This act of appalling violence we inflict on people

 

[luka]

Nobody wants to be a pathetic loser of course. But there's a kind of very reductive way of looking at these things which leads into the kind of craven and cowardly submission to the dominant ideology Stan is always advocating. If you can't em, join em.

 

[luka]

what you need to allow for is opposition to the dominant value set and also opposition to biochemical programming and its manipulation.

 

[luka]

You can write the narrative in such a way that all these refuseniks become resentful losers who can't achieve their basic social needs. They then make this inability to succeed a virtue and cast themselves as heroic rebels.

 

[luka]

With the system itself, nature, reality, being at fault rather than their own inadequacies.

 

[luka]

You had three life-tasks and you failed at all of them. That would be a you problem.