In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Improving the Functioning of Individuals Through Group Activities and an Article on the Inferiority Complex
  • William L. Curlette and Roy M. Kern

This issue begins with a memorial tribute to Leo Gold, a recipient of the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology’s Lifetime Achievement Award, written by Erik Mansager. Gold’s numerous accomplishments in many areas of Individual Psychology inspires us to pursue our work and our social connectedness even more.

In the first research article Allen, El-Beshti, and Guin describe working with a parent group that serves only teenage parents. The authors created a teen parenting group, called the 4-H Very Important Parents program, with a grant from the federal government; this program addressed the need for a program specifically tailored to the teen parent population. They describe developing the 4-H VIP program using Adlerian parenting approaches as the primary underlying theory in addition to other theoretical approaches.

The next article also shows the use of Individual Psychology to explain and support a program—in this case, Critical Friends Groups. Curlette and Granville employ the four Crucial Cs to elucidate the functioning of Critical Friends Groups (CFGs), a form of professional development for K–12 teachers and other education personnel. In particular they show how selected protocols in CFGs relate to the four Cs. Curlette and Granville conclude that the four Cs provide a theoretical basis for an increased understanding of CFGs, which can clarify areas for future development of protocols and can help educational personnel generalize the application of principles learned in a group situation to everyday activities.

The following article also employs the four Crucial Cs as a framework to interpret group behavior. Rather than using the four Cs with groups of educational personnel, Garza, Kinsworthy, and Bennett employ the four Cs as a structure for obtaining deeper meaning in group play therapy with children. [End Page 1] They also believe that using the four Cs provides a common language for a supervisor and supervisee to use when interpreting the group dynamics of children at play.

Group dynamics is a primary focus of the following article, in which Colker applies principles of open forum counseling to leadership development. The author cites Ferguson as providing “a window into the challenges of applying these ideas in a work setting.” On the basis of Colker’s experiences with the open forum model and as the chief learning officer in a large banking system, he believes that using this model increases a “sense of belonging, collaboration, and teamwork” and empowers employees at all levels of an organization via Adlerian democratic principles.

Improving the functioning of people through wellness training is the topic of the article by Wolf, Thompson, Thompson, and Smith-Adcock. In particular, the authors discuss using a wellness model for counseling students based on Adlerian theory, which emphasizes the holistic indivisible self. Results from a pilot study conducted with 38 participants using both quantitative and qualitative research methods indicate that the students benefited from the wellness program.

The last article in this issue is on Adler’s articulation of the inferiority complex, which Dodd refers to as the “golden complex” in his 1927 book by that name. In his review and commentary on the book, Stone provides quotes that show the far-reaching nature of the inferiority complex—hence the name golden complex. This complex even applies to groups, Dodd posits. In other words, Stone writes that “individuals, clubs, organizations, and sovereign states can mobilize around a perceived inferiority to justify their purpose and function.” This issue of the journal is focused on groups, thus it is somewhat ironic that a topic that may appear on the surface not to fit (because it is often associated with individuals) actually informs group functioning.

In summary, this issue of Journal of Individual Psychology primarily focuses on ultimately improving the functioning of individuals in various types of groups by employing the principles of Individual Psychology. All authors found Individual Psychology helpful either in creating or explaining the group activities. [End Page 2]

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