Disadvantages Of Adlerian Therapy

Introduction
This report will focus on Adlerian Therapy and the many parts connected to it. Firstly, it will be describing the therapeutic process of Adlerian therapy. Secondly, it will explore Adlerian therapeutic techniques consisting of the four phases. Lastly, it will be looking at the applications of this therapy and its advantages and disadvantages. Alder branched away from Freud's simplistic ideas of id, ego and superego. He wanted to look at the whole person and how they fit into the context of their lives not only their individual parts. Thus, he decided on the term Individual Psychology for his theory. This holistic approach stresses the whole person and how they relate to their culture, family and work environment. Adler also …show more content…
Clients are encouraged to form a plan or a set of goals to attain a higher style of living. Throughout the therapeutic process there are four phases. The first phase focuses on building a solid, positive relationship with the client. In this stage the therapist seeks to ascertain as much information from the client as possible and to cultivate a sense of trust in the therapist. In the second phase, the therapist looks to gain a greater understanding of the client's style of life. This is done through the subjective interview and the objective interview. The subjective interview looks at understanding the client completely. Especially in the context of their lives. The objective interview consists mainly of the history of the client and a lifestyle assessment. The lifestyle assessment uses two effective tools, the family constellation and early recollections. Family constellation includes factors such as birth order, family values and atmosphere, parental relationship, the culture of the family and any extended family. These are often explored through the use of questions. Furthermore, early recollections are the earliest memories that clients can remember, usually before the age of ten. After gathering all this material, they therapist combines this into a summery which is given to the client to help them better understand …show more content…
Due to the focus on the family dynamic of Adlerian therapy it is often used in family counselling. In group counselling there is a strong social dynamic and since Adlerian therapy believes that a multitude of problems come from a predominantly social place, it is easy to appreciate why they work well together. Furthermore, there are great applications to multicultural societies due to its flexibility. It has great promise to cultures that value family and are more oriented to social living. There are some shortcomings though. If the client is not interested in sharing about their family or if the family context is not similar to that of the western world, much of the therapist's material will be lost. Additionally, the therapist will not understand their client as