The practice and theory of individual psychology / by Alfred Adler; translated by P. Radin.

  • Adler, Alfred, 1870-1937.
Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The practice and theory of individual psychology / by Alfred Adler; translated by P. Radin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    *7 cedure did frequently develop into a useful “traitement moral ”, whenever the patient happened to be under the care of physicians with a knowledge of the world or gifted with intuition. Among laymen, however, there grew up a prejudice against this treatment, augmented by premature conclusions and the observation that accidental neuroses were increasing rapidly, thus giving the impression that the nervous individual was suffer¬ ing from “ auto-suggestions ” and guilty of conscious exaggerations, as if it were possible for him by strengthen¬ ing his energy, to overcome the symptoms of his illness. Eventually Josef Breuer hit upon the idea of question¬ ing the patient, first in the case of hysterical paralysis, concerning the meaning and development of his own disease. He, and Freud, used this method without any preconceptions and confirmed the outstanding presence of memory-lacunae preventing both the patient and the physician from obtaining a real insight into the causes and the history of the disease. The attempts to formulate inferences with regard to the forgotten material from the knowledge of the psyche, the pathological traits of character, the phantasies and the dream-life of the patient, were successful and led to the creation of the psycho¬ analytical method and view-point. Thanks to this method Freud was able to trace back to earliest childhood the roots of nervous diseases and to disclose a number of psychical phenomena, such as repression and transfer¬ ence. During treatment, formerly unconscious stirrings and desires of the patient were repeatedly brought to the surface by different investigators who, in identical ways and for the most manifold forms of nervousness, made use of the psycho-analytic method, frequently working quite independently of one another. Freud himself looked for the cause of nervous disease in the transformations and the specific constitution of the sexual instinct, a theory that has been frequently attacked and one which is not inseparably connected with the psycho¬ logical method. As the basic principle for the practice of the individual-psychological method I would like to emphasize the following: the retracing of all the neivous symptoms occurring in an individual case back to their ‘i lowest common denominator”. That this reduction, made with the aid of the patient is correct, is proved by the fact B