Customer Reviews

The Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler: A Systematic Presentation in Selections from His Writings

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For someone seeking to understand Alfred Adler's work and his relationship to other psychologists of the day, this work is a must. Instead of reading through all of his written works you can study his writings as arranged and discussed in this book. There is an overview of each major thought/idea, and selected quotes from his work itself. The author helps you to place Adler's teachings in context. It has earned a permanent place on my psychology bookshelf.

The book presents the major works written by Adler himself. The editors give excellent commentary through out the book to help elucidate Adler's main ideas. The editors frequently compare and contrast Adler and Freud, making for very interesting reading. A must for any clinician.

This book provides an excellent in-depth explanations of Alfred Adler's concepts of individual psychotherapy. It is a little "slow going" sometimes, but such is the intricacy of Adler's approach to the human mind. This book covers Adler's primary concepts of social interest, feelings of inferiority, private logic, and fictional final goals. I am co-auhoring an Adlerian textbook, and used this book as a reference, as it is well thought of among professional academic writers. If you are studying Adler, writing about Adler, or just want to understand the early theories of why people act the way they do, this book is for you.

Taking into account the immense importance of Adler, as one of the pivotal trinity (alongside Freud and Jung) of the psychoanalytical movement, add to that the lack of the mans actual writings in any bookstore's psychology bookshelf, or for that matter the popularization and somewhat cheapening of Adlerian concepts into today's pop jargon of psychobabble without going to the man's actual writings and you have a strong case why this book is a fine selection and the best of it's kind in it's treatment on the mans philosophy with solid commentary by the authors/compilers prefacing within it's historical context the actual text.
Approaching Adler is at times a difficult task as is reading Jung or for that matter any analytical philosopher/psychologist but the reward is immeasurable since the purpose of mining nuggets is not the purpose but what needs to be the goal is capturing the essence of the man's evolution and the contributions he made to the mental health profession with his keen understanding of instinct,teleolgy,the often misinterpreted notions of power,inferiority all within a framework of the individual psychology attributed to him IE: the social assimilation of the individual within the world of his making despite whatever limitations are inherent from birth,upbringing and the outside world in itself.
Understanding where Freud,Jung and Adler coalesce and separate is a worthy endeavor as this book clearly offers a full exposition and depth of Adler as a segue into the roots of these men and what they accomplished in their day and whose contributions remain invaluable today despite the obvious shift away from traditional psychoanalysis.

This book was just what I needed for my final paper comparing the dream analysis theories of Adler and Freud.

this is exactly the kind of book that real adlerians like me must have in our shelves.